Author: Justdoit4u

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 1:13 pm

[quote="Justdoit4u"]This is my first time writing on this forum. I hope I can help somebody like many of the people here have helped me. For me, its part of my recovery to help others if I can. I, by no means, have all the answers, I will write from my experience and I will be honest to you with what I am going through. I am tapering down right now and so far so good down below .5mg, I have found for me, at this point, that I can do around .5mg one day(split up in 2 .25mg strips) and the next day .25mg(split up in to 2 .125mg strips) one in the am and one in the late afternoon. A quick story. I got hooked on pain meds going through a terrible time with a knee injury. Instead of getting surgery, I masked the pain with norco 10/325 downed it with red bull, several times a day for 3.5 years. started at 6 a day, went as high as 20 in a day. I was taking mainly norco and percocet 10/325. By the way I had the surgery for my knee 2 years in to my addiction and continued using the pain meds anyway(isnt that a surprise!!). For me there reached a time that I just did not want to do it anymore and I was just wanting to be done. I did a lot of research on suboxone, which in the course of doing the research I found this great forum! Anyway before I stopped the pain meds I found through all of your experiences as well as others on other sites the information I needed. I know there is not one right answer for everyone, but let me tell you, I was in the dark about all of this. I went to my pain DR. and told her I wanted to stop!! It felt empowering to me that I made that decision, I was doing this for me. After staying off for about 30 hours i went to her office, she wanted to induce me at 16mg, I said no, I will do 4mg and see how i feel in a hour. I actually got through with only being induced by the 4mgs I did take a tiny strip 6 hrs later, probably about another 1 mg. The point is you can feel ok with less, I had to be mentally strong and wanting this change in my life. Do not let anybody fool you how powerful our minds are if you truly put your sole in to something. I have done a lot of research and have found out that depending how many of those receptor sites your brain has made(pathways) will determine how much sub u need to fill those sites and not go in to complete withdrawal. Yet most drs over induce most of the time because they are ignorant to the process. Not all, but most cases that I hear about. I was induced on May 21, 2012. I used the tools I have found here on subox forum and a guy named Robert on another to help me. After taking 4 mgs a day for 2 weeks, I went down to 3 mg for 2 weeks, then 2 mg for 2 weeks, 1.5 mg for 2 weeks, 1 mg for 2 weeks, .75 mg for 2 weeks, .5 mg for 2 weeks, and now i am at the end of my 2nd week of .5mg one day and .25 mg the next. I have had very little withdrawal symptoms. And the most important thing I discovered is that I feel so empowered doing this for myself!! Its huge!! My liver was on toxic overload, I was slowly killing myself. What a blessing that I made this choice! I am going to counseling twice a week to help me with everything to deal with addiction and my own personal demons and triggers. I know i have probably left out a lot of info. but I will respond to any questions, my journey is going to be a life long one, hell I am not even totally off sub yet, I just felt I needed to make an introduction and give back a little to everybody who helped me so far. I have always felt comfort knowing there are others who understand and are going through the same thing. I will keep posting, take care everybody, there is hope, and even more if you truly seek recovery, you can have your life back!! My plan is to be completely off in the next 6-8 weeks, making it a total of 20-24 week process for me, One thing I have learned so far, is not to be hard on yourself though this. I would like any responses or questions. ciao