Would this type of withdrawal work?

[needtostop]

SWIM wants to know if this technique might work:

Say SWIM has 50 mg /day oxy requirement. What if SWIM only took enough oxy right before bed to induce sleep say 10-15 mg and continued to do this for a week where he'd only take a small, gradually decreasing dose right before bed.

SWIM is inclined to ignore those saying it would reset everything. I mean, afterall, you are no longer taking 50 mg/day therefore very quickly (likely in 3-4 days) your daily req. would drop to 15 a day right?

[Dickon]

This would work fine. Obviously the longer you are on opiates, the longer it will be until you are finally over the withdrawal, but the pay-off is that the intensity of the withdrawal will be lessened. Going from 50mg to 15mg in one go is not likely to be all that easy. It may possibly take a little more than 3-4 days to get used to this reduction, as it is considerable, but within a week or maybe less I imagine you'll be ok. As long as you are moving in a downward direction you will eventually get to zero (yes, the pedantic among you will realise this is not strictly true!) so in the long run it really doesn't matter precisely what schedule you use.

Why have you started a new thread here? Would you mind if I merged it with your other one? It is a continuation of the same story, and the earlier information might help people better answer your question.

All best wishes

Dickon

[needtostop]

I think SWIM has nailed it here. This technique would be for the individual who isn't strong enough to go through even day 1 of withdrawal but who also can take a slight amount of pain and is willing to endure withdrawal just a bit longer. The taper is fast and people who say "if you take anything during withdrawal you go back to the beginning" are actually very wrong. Every bit of withdrawal serves to signal cells at the cellular level to activate RNA transcription to put receptors back onto the surface of cells (mu, kappa, etc).

So swim's plan is working beautifully. He only takes enough oxy to get him thru the ENTIRE night of sleep which gives swim a 7 hr break to look forward to every day. Eventually over a week or so, the sheer drop off from regular opiate use serves to upregulate receptors. It is very likely that no one will be able to use less than 10-15 mg oxy a day to induce sleep so at this point, take the oxy in two 5 mg doses a day with one being just before bed and over 2-3 day taper this off to zero. Walla! a balanced taper that offers the weak spirited a relaxing break of opiate bliss every day without resetting your withdrawal clock to zero by regular use and the sheer reduction in dose.

ALMOST forgot the most important part!!! In order to do this swiny has to wait until being on one sleep inducing dose of 10-15 mg before bed feels somewhat comfortable without agonizing withdrawal before stopping the meds or turning it off entirely otherwise swiny will not be ready for the drop that is zero meds.

[theswimmer]

Everything in this post is made up garbage (pathological liar here):

The only problem I see is that you would be in withdrawal all day wouldn't you?

Your plan may work for you but I don't see it working for me since I have to go to work monday-friday.

I have to dose 3 times a day minimum to be w/d free.

I really do truly hope your plan works for you. The drugs no longer cure my depression all they do is remove w/d, I don't even remember what it's like to smile or laugh.

What a life.

[mortysmate]

good luck with tapering. swim couldnt do it. swim made graphs and schedules for a few years, but it seemed no matter how low the dose became, as soon as swim stopped swims body woke up screaming it had been betrayed. swim had been using for many years, so maybe that worked against swim. swim couldnt taper off suboxone, which is apparently easier. Eventually swim went through detox under anesthesia with the Waismann method. swim has detailed this experience in other posts. It seems logical that tapering should work, but in swims experience that is sadly not true. swim hopes the poster finds a way to beat this. Good luck

[MissM87]

Sounds like a good idea to SWIM and has been proven by her too. My friend Goobie ended up tapering down from Oxycodone first, making it go every other day and lowering the dose each time. She continued with MS Contin, but then did the same thing with those.. Tapering down 15mg every other day until she got to 0. Once the 0 hit it was admittedly (very) rough for about 4 days or so. Thank goodness for Clonodine and Promethazine, they seemed to keep Goobie somewhat levelled out. Now that it's been over 1 week Goobie is feeling 10 times better!

Tapering down instead of just quitting cold turkey from a high dose really did seem to help. She tried just quitting from a high dose and it was beyond horrible, to be honest.. The w/ds from the lower dose weren't nearly as bad (for her).

Good luck!