Feeling 'sick' From Suboxone
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I have been on Subox for about 4 months now...I started at a very low dose. Only 6 MG a day for the first 2 days (and then after getting very sick on that amount) lowered my dose to only 2 mg total a day. The trouble is I feel really sick...horrible headaches, zero energy, body aches. It feels literally like I am being poisened slowly by the Subox. So why not stop taking it you will ask. I have tried to taper down and the WDs are as bad as coming off Oxy to me. I am now stuck between the option every day to feel like a '10' bad and have serious WDs and not take anything...or take a little Subox , not have the sweats as bad, but still feel like a '8' bad. There seems to be no good option anymore for me. Maybe my brain is truly damaged and will never feel the same without the exact meds I was on before. Oxy. Has anyone else had a bad experience getting off the Subox, even if they tapered very slowly? If so did you ever make it through? I just don't see any reward at the end of all of this.

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Oh me oh my oh yeah!!! Insomnia for four years . No kidding I have a new respect for the Steve king novel....PAWS. Post acute withdrawal and it never went away.
My husband , god love the man, is a true documented. Pain patient he’s forced to take son not an actual f ull on narcotic He has CHF, COPD with emphazema, RA, massive heart attack, probable cancer ( pancreatic) and a lung mass. There’s sooo much more, chronic pancreatitis diabetic. Back surgery, nerve pain. No one cares if you find someone who does lemmee know!

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Ok so anyone having flu-like symptoms, numbness on hands & feet, frozen nose, hands & feet cold sweats, erratic heartbeat, high blood pressure, fatigue, loss of appetite, sleeping a lot. I've been prescribed to suboxen for 1 year at 16mg/4mg then took 2mgs to sustain my 4mg a day but it was more like 6mg. All pharmacies ran out of the generic 8mg pills I was taking. That’s why I was on 2mg. So when they were back in stock I had them put me on the 8mg again, but I kept shooting up in mg cuz I was feeling like s*** due to the symptoms above. I’ve done bloodwork and complained to my dr and he kept upping my dose when I wanted to come off. Now I’m at 16mg a year later feeling s***tier. These past 3 weeks I lost weight 256/215lbs. Was going to the gym daily for 3 years. It’s part of my recovery. I’m guessing that one of the ingredients isn’t sitting rite with my body and affecting me. I’ve had to leave work. Once I had my daily mg intake I’ve tried to only take it when I feel sick. I've held it in my mouth for 5,10,15 minutes, swallowed it, spit it out. I’ve been on name brand films for 2 months as I thought the manufacturer lowered the mg in their pill so I asked for films. Been on for them 2 months and still have the same problem. Today, I waited to take the film, then took it 20 minutes later. I got all the symptoms as usual. Look, it sucks. If I knew that I could’ve came off 6 months ago at 4mg I would’ve. I can’t stand my dr telling me it’s withdrawing. I was clean for 2 years then I hurt my back and was passing a kidney stone so they prescribed me 5 mg vykes for a month or so. I got scared at the end and decided to get on subs. I didn’t want to abuse drugs. I know this s**** is f***ing me up. I want to come off with anything but I’ll lose my job. I pay child support and bills so I’m trying anything to feel normal. I’d like to try subutex to see if it’s nax that’s beating me. If I feel the same then it’s bup, but can’t do s***. I’ll have to wait two months till I see an allergist. What a joke.

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Re: SufferingSuboxone (# 19)

Suffering suboxone, I pray you were able to get the help you needed! It is truly horrible how the same people that prescribed the medicine that got us addicted in the first place treats us when we want to get off of them! When they should be proud that we want to take the steps to put our lives back together again! Instead, they look down their noses and most act like it's no big deal! I waited 13 years after the doctors wanted to put me on pain meds before I actually started taking them. Started out on 10mg tabs then after 4 years was put on 50 MCG Fentanyl patch with 4 10mg perks a day. I had no clue what fentanyl was when I started it... Prescribing me that was the WORST thing my doc could have done! After taking for almost 5 years the DEA decided I couldn't have that dosage and my pain doc cut my dosage in half!!! I was proud I had not asked to up my dosage in all that time yet was forced to cut it in half... I had to go from putting on the patch to chewing strips and buying what I could to get through the month...

All these years now of taking opiates has caused severe depression as well as all that goes with it. I have gotten some subs to try and see if it will help me get off all the opiates. There has to be a way for us to kick all of this without all the bs! Anyway... Really curious on how things went for suffering and hope we all are able to get back to a normal life!

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I need help. In 1yr I went to 16mg to 4mg. Now it's 6 months later and it's 16mg daily. I feel like death, flu, pain in joints, bp changes, mood changes, etc. It sucks and it's hard to function at work. Anyway, I have not used s***. All my U/A's for a year are clean, mean and lean. 3 years of lifting. 5'7 inches tall and was 256lbs. Now 215lbs, I barely eat and feel fatigued, cold nose with drawling feeling. Seriously, I can't take s***, but this blows. If you know how to help or want to hear my story {edited for privacy} this is a serious daily problem. Also, I have Lyme and they both have the symptoms I'm having.

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Re: SufferingSuboxone (# 13)

Hey. {edited for privacy}. I'm having the same issue. I'm a dude in the USA in exactly the same situation 6 months after cvs and all the pharmacies ran out for 30 days of 8mg generic orange round 357 pills.

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Hopefully my story helps bud. I was on Suboxone and subutex taking close to a whole pill a day for about a year. When I finally decided to quit, well, me being the person I am had done it cold turkey while quitting cigs, dipping, and caffeine at the same time. It was torture man. Sweating all day and night, freezing bones, aching, restless leg syndrome so bad I could hardly move. I went through this for 3 months man. Absolute worst time of my life but once I got out back on my neurontin for my back, boom it helped with the aches and I could finally sleep and could eat and the sweats stopped. Ask your doc about it or lyrica or gabapentin. It’s all the same. It’s a non narcotic alternative and helps.

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Just started on subs.. I have been on about 100 mg to 150 mg of oxy per day.. I didn't have any more pills and had a sub around.. 8mg.. I took it only 10 hours after my last dose of oxy.. I felt like I was gonna die the first two times I took it. Which was about 8 hours apart. It's been about 24 hours since my last dose of oxy but I still feel like s***.. need some guidance please.

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Everyone here inspires me to keep going. God bless you all

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Yes I am going through it right now myself and it is terrible absolutely terrible. I have been taking Suboxone every single day for 4 years I had wean myself down to about somewhere between 1 mg and 0.5 and then stop taking it cold turkey it has been the pits I get the chills sweats insomnia is very bad diarrhea every day I am now about day for into when I took my last last dose it was like about 0.5 or 1 mg this is not fun this is not easy but it's worth it you don't want to be a slave to anything I refuse to live that way any longer weird you will be sick if you don't have it so it sucks but I'm sticking through with it no matter what I will be free I will be delivered. I've found that alcohol has helped with the detox symptoms to a certain degree now I'm not condoning this but I've been drinking pretty steadily for the last 3 days in order to just cope and be able to get up and go to even to work after I finally put to death this Suboxone then I'll put down alcohol and cigarettes and be completely free from all addiction. The longer that you were on it the worst the detox is going to be and I've been on it religiously for 4 years like I said it's very very rough I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy but you have to find the resolve within yourself and say do I want to be clean do I want to be free if the answer is yes then tough it out it's worth it

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Wow, that is about the ballsiest "Freedom from suboxone handcuffs" accounts I have ever read - and I have read many in the 6.5 years I've been on suboxone. While it is not the first time I've read of someone going short term to a full agonist opioid to get free from the sub, it is definitely the first time I've read an account written as honestly & intelligently as yours. Just the fact that you say to not go with your old d.O.C. When using a full opioid to take very short term, as you did with norco. You must really, really have been ready. I think you said you lost access temporarily due to amox??? That is so f'n crazy because I just gave a u/a today for my 4 week suboxone script & I was taking amox all of last week due to a tooth infection, as well! Now I am wondering if my 875 mg antibiotic is going to turn up as coke? Wow, that would really be a kick in the ass, because I didn't even get to have any of the fun, so I hope I don't come up dirty?? Geez, I would love to think my doctor will believe me, since she is a great lady & I have a great relationship with her and at least on my end, there appears to be mutual respect. Hopefully I'm worrying for nothing but nothing wrong with being prepared. Yeah, suboxone is some pretty evil s***. I was really in a bad way when a friend told me of suboxone in september 2010...I have never relapsed since starting suboxone 9/29/10, but now that time is marching on, I see what you mean about the handcuffs. Plus, being in the pharmaceutical industry, it still blows my mind and f***s me up that I can forget to take this crap for 3 days and feel fine & then wake up on the 4th day & swear I am ready to die both inside & out, it's just pure evil for any medication to do that to a person! No way do I have the guts to do it in your style, but that's only for now...Maybe that will one day change? Hope so! Congrats & let me know how you are doing since your post is from over 2 months ago. It would be very encouraging to hear you are doing well???

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I have been through the same and i actually said exact same side effects. Trust my that is not that you aren't taking enough in my opinion cause i felt that "poison" feeling along worth all the others for 8 months and i was at 24mg a day down to 4mg and it never mattered. If you can tolerate those horrible side effects maybe it's great. I can see how it might as i totally subconsciously tapered and if done slow enough, i imagine it makes wds far less intense. I just couldn't tale those side effects one more day and found a dr to prescribe methadone.

I was on it before and got on subs then went back. Yes subs work but you still feel horrible physically which leads to bad depression.

Have you ever considered methadone? There's no shame in using medication assisted treatment and taper very very slowly when ready. Either get it from your Dr. for pain or a clinic for addiction. The latter obviously is last resort.

If you never heard, some of us can't handle the subs because of the narcan/naltraxone or any of those blockers even if they say your body doesn't absorb any. They say that we absorb some of it and even that very small amount messes with white blood cells and immune system causing all those horrible physical and mental side effects but then we see a ton of people who swear by suboxone and preach about how it is the very best thing ever.

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I'm trying to get off opiates i been on 15+ years oxys an Roxy's 30mg I'd be doing up to 800mg aday an I need a doctor in Lynchburg Virginia for getting off opiates by getting on like an outpatient maintenance an get put on suboxone or subutex an hopefully they take Medicaid Medicare if anyone knows a doctor that might see me asap please post back an let me no please I really need this help as I don't want to lose my family all over opiates i hope someone can help thanks to all

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Thank you for sharing your story with me. I really didn't think anyone would write back with this so old. Today is a hard day for me but I'll be okay. I know I can do this. I have too much to loose ya know? This will probably one of those things that keeps trying to knock me down but I know I'm worth being clean and living a clean life. I will have to work at this mentally after all of the aches and pains. I agree with you though on it being way worse than coming off of pain pills. Maybe I'll start to feel normal again. I sure hope so. My family deserves that's much. I do know one thing and im not going back to that life ever ever again.

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I know this post is old but I have recently broken free from my suboxone handcuffs. I was on 24mg a day for 5 years. I jumped off at 24mg because I had a positive U/A for coke. I hadn't touched it in months prior to failing, come to find out it was amoxicillin that showed as coke. I had the Amox for a tooth infection. So after a week of no suboxone, my doctor had called me and said "good news the lab found out it was amox showing as coke" and offered me a script...I'd been without seven days at that point...so I decided to take the jump. Yes I was at a ridiculously high dose to jump from but I felt I had to. I ask that no one gets offended by what I'm about to say. The suboxone withdrawals are far worse than opiate w/d. A lot longer (3 weeks minimal) than any opiate withdrawal. After seven days of being miserably sick, I tried switching my sub withdrawal with opiate withdrawal. I got a prescription of norco 10mg. Would take two a day for the first two days. After that I'd take one norco max per day just to get me by. Remember it's not about being high anymore. To my surprise after using up my norco my sub w/d's were gone and I went through a three-four day sick spell from the v'a. After that I felt great. Still have anxiety problems and all that good s*** but I'm no longer puking every two seconds and my ass is no longer an espresso machine. Please if you try to use opiates to help get off subs PLEASE DO NOT use your d.o.c. Use something you don't like. Norco worked for me. Also understand you need to WANT to get clean. You can do it. You'll feel amazing when you're done. This doesn't work for the weak hearted as many people have relapsed this way. Well I truly wanted to be clean and I can honestly say ten norcos saved my life. If you've had sub w/d you know what I'm talking about. Weeks of no sleep, suicidal thoughts, randomly waking up balling your eyes out feeling guilty for no reason and so on and so forth. Suboxone is a horrible drug. It did help me get clean but at the expense of another addiction. Pure h is more healthy than suboxone: fact. Another huge helper is any benzo. Again you don't need to take two bars and black out, take a half a bar every four hours or so and it'll help tremendously. I really hope this helps someone because I know how it feels to be trapped by a stupid little film. I know my way to recovery isn't ethical but it can work with the right mind set. Again you have to WANT TO GET CLEAN. If anyone needs advice I'm all ears. After going through what I did I feel like I have to help anyone I can. Whether it's just being a listening ear or giving advice. I help everyone dealing with any addiction pills through. Uncle Sam wants us walking around like brain dead zombies, it's time we fight back. God bless all of you going through anything similar. I'm just a random guy but I genuinely care about people. I know it sounds crazy with what I suggested but I'm only doing it out of my want to help others. I hope this helps. You guys and gals can do it. We're awesome creatures capable of anything.

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I have been on suboxone for the past 4 years and I need help with not going back to taking it Bc I have stopped taking it before and I went right back to it to just wake up and feel normal. Bc that is all it does. It makes me function. I'm so tried of having to depend on something to make me feel normal and happy. And the sad thing is I started taking it Bc I was board. I mean who does that. I knew what it was like to come off of pain pills and how horrible that was. So why would I be so quick to try and do and become addicted to suboxone? I honestly thought nothing could be worse then coming off of morphine right? Well at least that's what I thought and told myself. But I was wrong. Here I am four years later and I have finally made that jump. Its so hard and all I want to do is isolate myself from everyone. I wish I could go to sleep and wake up a month later but that isn't how any of this works. I know I am a strong woman and I can and will get through this. I just need people to talk to that won't judge. The hardest part is, it's actually f*****g with me and I mean me by my head. It's making me angry and mean to the ones I love and they don't deserve that nor do they understand it. I just want to feel good and normal again. I want my life back, that boring old life that I was so quick to get out of when I started using the subs.

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Many people have the same issue due to the fillers and bioavailability of Suboxone, I know I did. You should try Zubsolv or Bunavail (different brands) and see if you feel better. Bunavail and Zubsolv taste like mint, are more convenient to dose with, and they peak higher and quicker in the blood with different bioavailability and have way fewer side effects. After a couple of days after I switched, I felt a thousand times better and felt like I had my life back. Bunavail in particular has almost zero incidents of constipation, and lessened nausea and headaches, and you won't get the lethargy, mood swings and depression like Suboxone. It changed my life to switch.

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Hi brian, do u mean that you were initially taking suboxone & the suboxone is what made u nauseous & suppressed your appetite & had u walking around like a zombie? Sorry for all of the questions but u weren't very specific as it seemed to be a quick post from your phone. I am just curious. What was your addiction that got u prescribed suboxone in the 1st place, opiates? I personally have never had methadone but have read a lot about it over the years. It is a shame it seems to be a misunderstood drug & being in recovery myself I have met many great people who were able to turn their lives around after having been living in opiate hell. I actually didnt realize that even though methadone was fda approved 70 long years ago for pain, as early as the late 60s it was already being used for opiate addiction!! So in 1972 they "Repurposed" it I guess u could say, or to be more accurate, it was fda approved again, but for the treatment of opiate addiction. My question is, and please forgive me if I sound stupid, but isn't methadone a full agonist opiate, as is percocet or oxycodone? With suboxone I understand it treats addiction in the sense it's a replacement therapy & is a partial agonist, but I guess I do not understand how taking methadone for an opiate addiction makes sense, not that it isn't possible - is it the lesser of 2 evils? I am really becoming more & more convinced that suboxone may have been sent here by the devil & is it possible I would have been better off had I been prescribed methadone instead of suboxone? Does methadone have bad side effects? I have good and not so good weeks/months with suboxone, mainly issues with very frequent headaches, suppressed appetite, nausea, and the worst one of them all is the constipation. I know that as long as I am on suboxone, I must continue to faithfully take miralax!

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How the heck do you find a Dr to prescribe methadone in this day and age? I'm on govt. Insurance so no one who deals in pain will take it and they won't take cash anymore.

It for sure feels like poison. Hell, I still have a load of stop signs but I refuse to use them. It's not my imagination but it really does feel like your blood is sick. Physically feel it too.

I did the same thing, after 8 months I found a great Dr who switched me to methadone. Just recently my Dr. quit writing pain management scripts for all his patients, scared of dea, so now he is strictly doing anesthesiology now.

So in desperation I went to a methadone clinic but was denied due to computer saying I got methadone from a Dr before and was a pain patient. Addicted is addicted, whatever. Dependence, just a fancy way of calling us addicted without saying, or so the Dr doesn't feel guilty but I'm addicted if I get cut off and go crazy looking for anything for relief. I understand the difference but after 15 years, is it really dependence at that point or both?

Well, I envy you. They told me to go to the ER which I just laughed at them.

So now I'm screwed. Subs were ridiculously priced. Who the heck can afford this stuff? I had to beg for money from friends and family for it.

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hi brian, this is danielle and i am wondering if your 12/24 posted comment was actually in response to my comment posted 11/30? I can never really tell with these forums sometimes due to the chronology.

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I feel your pain I tried it for 2 months at first week I felt good a little high actually after that became so sick nausea vomiting I felt like I was taking poison, I couldn't eat use the bath room felt like a zombie so I talked with my doctor and switched to methadone instantly felt better so glad I switched. Methadone has a lot of bad stigma but it has saved me I'm now a productive member of society.

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