Bupe: When To Jump??

[freakydeaky]

Hi Everyone!

For the past couple years SWIM has been taking subutex for opiate addiction. Swim's DOC was hydrocodone, 10/325, 6 tablets 3 times a day. He was only using for around 4-5 months, but because swim is a wimp he's been afraid to withdraw.

SWIM has really bad anxiety disorder and some depression independent of the addiction and so opiate w/d makes him feel terrified and sad. But this spring, for whatever reason, he finally decided to start tapering. So he's gone from 12mg to ~1.5mg. Things are getting tricky. Most of the time, whenever he dropped to a low dosage, it seemed like it took a few days for his body to "catch up" b/c of the half-life. So he would alternate, taking high-dose 1 day, then the new "lower" dose the next. So far it has been pretty much free of symptoms.

But now at ~1.5mg, it seems like if he lowers the dose, there's very little delay in how he feels--the very next day, his legs are twitchy, his stomach's starting to cramp, and SWIM's daily workout is difficult. It seems like SWIM's taper has started running out of momentum...

SWIM suspects there are many on this forum who have been in similar situations, so his question is this: When should he "Jump" and stop using? Should he alternate, taking 1mg one day and take nothing the next day? Or is it better to take a modestly lower dose each day?

Swim's dr. says to get as low as possible before quitting. He has given swim prescriptions for xanax (1mg), ativan (1mg), and klonopin (0.5mg)-- (not all at once, but over the past few months)--and also a prescription for Lyrica (50mg), which is for nerve pain and might help with restless legs and insomnia. SWIM's worst fear is the length of these withdrawls, everyone says that they last much longer than normal ones. And there doesn't seem to be any consensus as to whether bupe is easier to w/d from than vicodin or oxycodone.

When, in everyone's opinion, does the badness peak after stopping bupe? In other words, when can SWIM say "things will only get better from here"? I suspect SWIM is referring to acute symptoms, not the long-term blahs.

To top it all off, SWIM has been interviewing for a big job in Phoenix. The job would start in mid-late August and be very rewarding, but would take a lot of hours and since SWIM lives in New England, the idea of moving and starting a new job and all that while doing bupe w/d seems like it might not be such a hot idea--

Any advice, or suggestions, or anecdotes would be a big help! And if anyone has recommendations for whether ativan or klonopin or xanax is best, SWIM would probably love to hear that too. The Lyrica, from what I hear, isn't helping very much, but SWIM's doctor says it's kinda like tylenol: If you take tylenol with a slight headache, you're probably not going to notice much improvement, but if you've got a throbbing horrible one, you'll notice if the tylenol helps.

Sorry if I rambled a little, but I only have 2 friends who know about my problem, and they're both pretty far away from where I live, so I've been bottling this up, I guess