Podee

Ideally the first subutex should be taken as many hours after the last dose of heroin or other narcotic as possible. Ideally.

In reality, most junkies just keep using right up until a few minutes before they swallow the dose of subutex, and many just keep using even after that!

So, try to wait as long as possible after your last dose of street drugs, but it's better to just get started on the road to detox than keep waiting forever. And try to remember you are doing this to get clean, so please do not keep using heroin after taking the subutex - you could get a bad headache and also, what would be the point?


Also - listen - this part will be more important to you than anything else. I want you to know first of all that I have been clean and sober for many years. So it is possible to get off and stay off. :-)

Now just so you know what you will be in for I will write this part. (By the way, I didn't take subutex because they didn't even have that yet when I kicked but they had the active ingredient buprenorphine hydrochloride which was the same deal.) Okay, so this is what will happen once you switch from the heroin to the subutex:

You'll take the subutex (again, I hope, at least six hours after last dose of heroin, but if not, JUST TAKE IT! anyway) and gradually it will take over your brain receptors. That first night, you'll feel very strange, like your body is going through withdrawal from heroin, but that something is "keeping" you from feeling it. You will actually sleep that night. Amazing but true - you will not be kicking and screaming in pain but will sleep fairly well. It will be like some energy is pulsating through your body and brain keeping the heroin withdrawal from hurting you.

Now, over the course of the next few days as the last of the heroin leaves your system, you have to take enough subutex, as prescribed by your doctor, to be comfortable, and you will not feel good good but will feel okay. Try to remember that no matter how bad you feel it is nothing compared to cold turkey off heroin.

I went to a job interview and functioned the first morning after starting on buprenorphine hydrochloride, so you have to imagine - there is no way I could have done that the first morning after cold turkey.

For the first five days or so, you'll take a lot of subutex. Then, starting around day 6 or 7, you will gradually cut back your dose, so that over the next week you will be taking less and less subutex until you're down to a small amount - and then you just stop.

Then you will experience some mild withdrawal from the buprenorphine hydrochloride in the subutex, and this is no picnic, but NOTHING compared to heroin withdrawal.

BE AWARE - even after this mild withdrawal is over, for up to a MONTH you will experience a rebound effect with a variety of symptoms as your brain and body get used to functioning without opiates.

These symptoms - weakness, mild sweating, lack of appetite, generally feeling blah, etc., and INSOMNIA (probably the worst symptom during this period) - are not withdrawal. They are a rebound effect because your body and brain are taking a while to learn to function without drugs. You are very susceptible to RELAPSE during this month, especially because of the insomnia, so you need to be careful and get into some program of recovery like N.A. meetings for support.

That is what you are in for. A picnic compared to any other method of heroin withdrawal, but no free ride. Pray. Stay strong. And go to meetings!

Good luck.