Quick Detox off opiates using Suboxone

Sometimes you want or need to get clean quickly. If thats the case a quick taper may be for you.

Before we start: All tapers and detoxes should be done under the supervision of an experienced doctor. These are just suggestions to discuss with your doctor.

Its always best to detox with someone else around in case things go wrong or you need help taking care of yourself.

Medication:

In general 2 medications can be used for tapering off opiates, Methadone or Suboxone.

In this post we will focus on Suboxone.

Suboxone is a very effective detox medication for coming off opiates. However if you are using fentadope/dirty blues detoxing with Suboxone comes with some difficulties.

Suboxone can cause something called precipitated withdrawal. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it's when the Suboxone is taken too soon after using opiates and the Suboxone quickly displaces the opiates in your brain causing extremely severe withdrawal symptoms.

Starting Suboxone (buprenorphine):

Normally when starting Suboxone you stop your drug of choice first and then wait 6-24 hours before starting the Suboxone to avoid precipitated withdrawal. This works great if you are dependent on pharmaceutical opiates like morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone, Opana, and Dilaudid.

The problem is that fentanyl and its analogs can have long half lives and can stay around in your body for a very long time. This means that when going from fentadope/dirty blues to suboxone, in order to avoid precipitated withdrawal you have 2 options. Your first option is too wait 72 hours minimum and then you can start with a tiny piece of Suboxone (.25-.5mg) and slowly work your way up taking a piece every few hours to make sure that you don’t put yourself into precipitated withdrawal. Once you reach a dose you are comfortable at you can stop. If at anytime the Suboxone starts making your withdrawals worse stop and wait longer before continuing.

Waiting 72 hours is difficult for most people. However supplements and comfort meds can help make it bearable. Things like kratom and benzos can be a huge help while you wait.

Your second option is to induct Suboxone using the Bernese method. In this method you microdose the Suboxone over a few days while simultaneously taking your drug of choice. Then you gradually reduce your drug of choice while increasing your Suboxone dose. We have more detailed info on the Bernese method in the post about it.

Once you've stabilized one the Suboxone you can start the taper. Because our goal here is to detox I recommend trying two stabilize on the lowest dose possible of suboxone.

The Detox:

Because this is a quick taper once you’ve gotten on the Suboxone we will start the taper immediately. This taper is not recommended for people who are dependent on suboxone. If you are someone who takes Suboxone daily and wants to taper off I recommend the slow taper discussed in the "Tapering off of Suboxone" post.

Detox Length;

For short acting opiates:

If you are addicted to a short acting opiate like oxycodone I recommend completing the taper in 5 days. The reason for this is that for short acting opiates the withdrawals are the worst in the first 3-5 days and after that you should start feeling better

For Fentadope/dirty blues;

If your addicted to fentadope or dirty blues I recommend doing the taper in 8 days. The reason for this is that many of the fentanyl analogs have long half lives and fentadope stores in your body's fat cells. This causes the withdrawals to last longer than short acting opiates.

Figuring out your taper dosages:

Everyones starting dose will differ based on their tolerance and severity of their addiction.

Once you’ve gotten onto Suboxone and stabilized we will use that dose as your starting dose (day 1 dose) to create the taper plan.

We create the taper plan by taking the starting dosage and dividing that by the number of days of your taper (5 for short acting opiate detox, and 8 for fentadope detox). This will give us our daily dosage cut.

Short Acting Opiate Example :

For example if you are addicted to oxycodone and your starting dose of Suboxone is 8mg, we would divide that by 5 days.

8mg/5 days = 1.6mg.

So 1.6mg will be the amount we lower our Suboxone dose by each day.

Your taper will look like this

Day 1: 8mg Suboxone

Day 2: 6.4mg Suboxone

Day 3: 4.8mg Suboxone

Day 4: 3.2mg Suboxone

Day 5: 1.6mg Suboxone

Day 6: 0mg Suboxone

Now this doesn’t need to be exact. For simplicity sake and to make it easier for you to accurately split your Suboxone tablets or strips you can choose to do 8mg, 6mg, 4mg, 2mg,1mg, 0mg. Find what works best for you.

Fenatadope Example:

For example if you are addicted to fentadope and your starting dose is 8mg of Suboxone, we divide that by 8 days.

8mg/8 days = 1mg.

So 1mg will be the amount we lower our Suboxone dose by each day.

Your taper will look like this

Day 1: 8mg Suboxone

Day 2: 7mg Suboxone

Day 3: 6mg Suboxone

Day 4: 5mg Suboxone

Day 5: 4mg Suboxone

Day 6: 3mg Suboxone

Day 7: 2mg Suboxone

Day 8: 1mg Suboxone

Day 9: 0mg Suboxone

Again this does not need to be exact, you can round to the nearest mg to make dosing easier.

Tips:

• Customize the taper to your needs. Especially the starting dose. Everyone is different and everyone reacts differently. If you need to take your time and go a little slower thats ok, just adjust the taper to your needs

• If possible use this taper protocol in conjunction with comfort meds and supplements. They can go a long way to making the process more bearable

• Try and have someone around who can be there to support you and be there if you need help.

• Stay busy. Occupy your mind to distract yourself. Find things that you can do. Watching movies, playing video games, or doing a puzzle are just some ideas. You’ll notice you feel much better when your mind is occupied

Feel free to share your questions and comments in our forum or in the comments below.

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