Hi everybody this is a little of the subject of my last post but I will add that information latter. I was curious about what dose you need to be on to successfully transition from suboxone to nothing. I have never heard of anyone posting that information. I have heard about everyones tapper plans on what they intend to do but I want to know what the actuall dose is that you can transition with no withdraws. I know we are all different and doses affect us differently but if anyone out there has successfully made the transition I would like to hear about it!! Thank you all so much
~Joseph

I'm pretty sure there is no such thing as a dose you can jump off of and have no withdrawals.

Try the liquid method and taper down to .25mg and then 10% a week from there... and you will have the best chance for minimal discomfort.

So I take it no one has ever gone of subs with no WD's?

Hi Joseph -

I think that you will always have some withdrawal effects. Some people say they don't feel much - if any - others have a harder time.

I guess it's all personal - how you feel. If you are looking for a magic formula - that guarantees you will never get even a runny nose, or sneeze - you are right, I don't think that exists.

If you want a way out - with more manageable (maybe almost negligible effects) a long slow taper seems the best.

If I remember right... you've been on subs for five years. [correct me if I'm wrong] Over time the body and especially brain cells/receptors become accustomed and adapt to a routine where the chemicals flow consistantly in order to feel safe and secure. If you break that up quickly... then the brain is going to say... WTF is going on here. And rebel, resist and run for cover... or reach out to grab something that is no longer there or in little supply.

It would be a little like sending a poorly armed rookie [FNG] soldier on a dangerous recon mission with inadequate training and limited g-2 intelligence. He might survive but he's going to need to be one hell of a lucky and strong person.

If you introduce the [taper]change slowly, the brain/body will adapt some as you go and be a little more ready for the unexpected. However, when you take the final small doses and then stop completely, it will be kinda taking the same infantry soldier from above who is already in trouble but somehow loses his m-16 rifle [along the way] leaving him with only a knife and a couple of grenades to defend himself with. At first... fear and panic... but slowly he learns how to better camoflauge himself and use the knife as a weapon for defense and if he sticks with it and survives... he eventually finds a an even more powerful m-60 machine gun left behind on the battlefield and finally he is in better shape than when he first started the mission. He's learned to survive and now has advanced on the job experience and confidence which is better than any training and headquarters intelligence. In short... he's now a combat veteran and survivor... just like someone clearly in a successful recovery.

Sorry... I know it's a strange and unusual analogy but I was a Lt with the 4th infantry division many moons ago... I hope it helps.

I hope thats the case with me; I would be happy to deal with those symptoms. I am just worried that after I eventually tapper down to around .25mg and lower with the liquid tapper method that I will still have bad WD symptoms. I just dont want to go through all this and have the same or even close to the same symptoms that I would have if I was to quit taking subs right now!!

Hello Joseph,

I've scoured the internet over the last couple of months for information about weaning off Suboxone, and .25mg does seem to be the target dose. Even at .50mg most people claim to have an unexceptible degree of withdrawal symptoms. This week I asked this very question to the doctor at the clinic that I've been going to and she said .25mg and under is what she recommends. She also told me that she had helped quite a few people over the last few years successfully wean, and I felt much better after hearing that.

I'm down to .72mg from 32mg November of 2009 - using the liquid taper method - and will probably drop to .65mg in the next few days. While I have experienced some discomfort (mostly when I went below 2mg), it's nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. And, I have to say, I really am going much faster than I probably should - for reasons I'll get into at another time.

I'm planning on adding some Clonidine (sp?) and cardio to my arsenal very soon, which seems to help most people at the end of their taper. Whatever the outcome (I don't want to get too cocky here), I figure at the very least, maintaining at this lower dose comes with less side effects and is a heck of a lot cheaper.

I truly wish you the best of luck, and please do continue to give us updates on your progress.

Hey Bronzebeta thank you for the info. I feel that I am well educated in this field but this question seems to be bothering me. I think mostly because I have never found any facts or heard from anyone that has successfully tapered off the subs. Lately I have been on a mission to lower my dose drastically and become stable on the lowest possible dose. I want to get down bellow 4mg/day and then really focus on a tapering plan. This is why the question about the the jump off subs I just want all the facts straight before I get to that point. In July of 09 I started on 24mg/day and just in the last week I have gotten down to 8mg/day and actually today have only taken 4mg so I think I will try this dose out as long as I feel "normal".

Oh I just thought of a question for you. When you got down to a lower dose what was your routine that got you were you are today. I cant wait to get were you are at and it is very motivating for me to hear that you have lowered your dose from 32mg to .72mg (i think this was the dose you stated you were on) so drastically and successfully.

So congratulations on your success of getting to where you are today and I wish you the best of luck !!!

~Joseph

Hey Joseph,

First, let me say, once I was stable at 4mg, I felt no differently than at 32mg. That's quite important in light of the possibility that you might suffer some type of traumatic injury. If you need pain medication in a hurry, it's much more likely that you'll get the benifit of whatever they give you when at that dose of Suboxone. So that was an important little milestone for me, even if I wasn't able to get below that point.

I did find some difficulty when I reached 3mg, and began to become very frustrated - and worried - that I wouldn't be able to get below that mark. Some days I would feel pretty good, others, not so good. I came to the realization that breaking up the 8mg pills accurately at that dose was very difficult, and that's why there were days when I was actually taking more than 3mg and days that I was really taking less than 3mg - thus the good days and the bad days. I could have switched to the 2mg pill, and it would have been a little easier, but I did want to save money and also accumulate a years supply (I now have much, much more than that because the taper is going so well) just in case for some crazy reason I was shut off and had to seek another doctor. Anyway... it was only when I switched to the liquid taper method that I was able to dose accurately with the 8mg pills. Also... I go through the same routine every day - swallow as much spit as I can and make my mouth as dry as possible before dosing. I then squirt the dose under my tongue with my head tilted forward, use my tongue to coat the rest of my mouth with saliva, then stay in that head forward position for 10 to 12 minutes. At that point, I swallow all that nasty spit and don't eat or drink anything for the next twenty minutes. This routine must seem kind of anal, but at least I know that I am not only maximizing my dose, but getting the same exact dose every time. I also dose twice a day - once in the morning and once at night. I took .32mg this morning, and will take the same this evening, which means I'm down to .64mg a day starting today.

Well, that's what has worked for me so far, so I am going to continue on the same path. Oh... one other thing; I use two different oral syringes - a 5ml to help make the solution, and a 1ml to dose with. My personal mixture is 1mg of Suboxone to 1ml of water, but I may start to add some more water as I wean even further.

I hope this information is of use to you, and again, my best in your recovery. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.

Bill

Hey Bill thank again for the info. it was very useful. I am going to take 4mg again tomorrow and that will be the third day in a row at that dose. Surprisingly I have had no discomforts in lowering my dose to this amount but the real test will be over the next couple of days (days3,4,5). As long as theirs no real discomforts I will stick it out at this dose until I feel comfortable in lowering it further. Thanks again ~Joseph

Joseph, I am a long-time user of Sub as well, with a body that reacts horribly to detoxing. When I was younger, I could do the "weekend detox." Not anymore. I have gotten down to .5mgs/day from a 24mg initial stable dose. I had a raging tolerance and needed that much in the beginning, but quickly discovered as I decreased that I felt just as good on 4-6mgs.

I stayed at 2mgs for a month or two, thinking I'd jump from there. Uh,...no. Did not work out. Too painful for my body. So after discovering I would need to go much lower, I started to rethink my detox plan. Your main obstacle is going to be the half-life of Sub. This is why you can decrease with minimal symptoms, but the symptoms drag on for awhile. The only way around this is to have symptoms that are so mild you hardly notice them at all. And the only way to guarantee that is if you decrease in very small amounts, while doing it very very slowly.

Once I got down to under a 1mg, I noticed it wearing off in the afternoon, so I too am about to divide my dose into 2, taking half in the morning and half at night. (Aiming for one dose every 12 hours: 6am & 6pm) This should allow me to sleep better, too.

Once I am at a teeny-tiny amount (say, .1 to .2mgs total per day?) I am going to try to add more time between each dose (maybe every 15 hours, then every 18, etc.) until I am at once a day. Then I'll aim for once every 36 hours, etc. It seems there ARE people out there who have spaced out their final dosing by skipping days. These are the people who report minimal to ZERO withdrawal. It can be done, it's just a matter of how patient you want to be.

So there are basically 2 steps to the detox:

Decrease and become stable on a low dose (preferably .1 to .2mgs total per day)
--During this time, you may have to dose twice a day

Gradually stretch out your dosing time (preferably until you can skip days)
--One option is to wait until you feel some WD to dose, making sure it isn't too soon of course.

People who skip days by taking it only after they start feeling sick often report they are surprised at how long they've gone. And eventually they realize it's been a week or longer. I can only dream of reaching that phase.

Anyway, you can definitely do it with zero to a minimal amount of physical drama. The question becomes: How long are you willing to drag it out? In my case, I'm a total baby, so I'm aiming for the most symptom-free detox. Even if it takes another 3 months from here.

annmarie:

I would like to say congratz to you! I read some of your posts and this one in particular sticks out. They are all very helpful. This one however, is right on the money! If anyone is planning on comming off of sub (bupe) then please listen to annmarie. Diary of a Quitter has had much success with the liquid taper method as well.

The smaller the dose the better. .1 mg doesn't sound like much but remember, drug info websites state that .2mg (.2-.4mg??) of bupe equals approx 10 mg morphine for analgesic(pain killing) properties. A 'teeny tiny amount' is the way to go as far as I have read. I am not ready to come off so I am not tappering at the moment and happy at 12mg per day. But I am very happy for annmarie and the others who did decide that it is time and tappering very slowly over a long period of time seems to be the way to go!!

Also, as annmarie said, skipping days in between doses would minimize w/d even more. If you could get down to say .1 mg per day (or even less?) and then start doing that at longer intervals (every 36 hrs, every 48 hrs, etc), I would suspect that the w/d will be so much more tolerable and maybe even a bit of 'easy' (I use that term loosly).

Thanks for the great info annmarie and best of luck to you and all who are tappering (and in maintenance for that matter!). Take Care!!!

_________________
"The past is finished. There is nothing to be gained by going over it. Whatever it gave us in the experiences it brought us was something we had to know."----Rebecca Beard

"Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it." ---Salvador Dali