Lofexidine?

[leela11]

Heya   Am new here and its my first time on any kind of site like this, so forgive me if i go on..and on...

Ok i have a couple of questions someone may or may not be able to help me with. I am on 20ml methadone currently it was reduced from 140ml at 5ml a fortnight. Ive stopped at 20 though, got freaked out  
I was on heroin and stuff from age 13 and my only drug free periods have been when i was in prison at 16, 17, & 18. So apart fae that ive ALWAYS been on gear or if not gear a multitude of other substances. Im 26, 27 in august now, i stopped with the gear 6 years ago this month when i found out i was pregnant. Since then its been methadone except for a bad relapse 2 year ago
So anyways now im on 20ml, i have a new key worker and she has told me im to be put on community detox using Lofexidine, She told me i will be off meth in 12 days to be precise and for it to be done next month
I do want to be drug free but after more than half ma life having been on something or other, i am TERRIFIED! i have a whole lot of what ifs and maybe i shouldnt but i know i should, kinna things going through my mind.

Sooooo, Has anyone had experience of Lofexidine? what should i expect?, Is there a high success rate for community detoxes? id never heard of them before lol.
I have quite bad depression issues, will it affect me mentally i wonder? Will i rattle? My keyworker said not but then said theres medications if i do, so kinna contradicted herself there  
Anyways any info, experiences and just people who have been here and seen all this before, please share xxx

oops methinks i may have posted in wrong place sawi

[timtrash]

firstly welcome to the forum. i'm fairly new myself and people made me feel welcome so i'd like to try and do the same for you. now, if i've read your post correctly you're saying you're down to 20ml's of methadone a day which you've been stable at for some time and you're being told you're to reduce from that to nothing in the next 12 days? if so, i simply cannot see how you'll manage that without being ill. i myself have no experience of lofexidine though i do have some friends who have used it to withdraw. i've heard varying reports. some have said they really believed it to have helped the symptoms of rattling and some not. i'm sure there will be a member on here who has had first hand experience with it and can be more help. to be honest i think all of this is a bit pointless really. if you're as scared as it sounds at the prospect of being totally off your meth' it'd make more sense to me to speak with your key-worker and tell them. surely you'd be better off slowing this proccess down until you feel more ready and do this last bit of tapering more slowly?

[leela11]

Thankyou
I have a new keyworker that i saw for the first time on friday, she wants this detox done before the summer hols next month, purely then because the nurse who deals with all this stuff is on sick. Yes i was reducing my meth at 5ml a fortnight but started thinking i was beginiing to feel rough so for the last month its been stopped at 20ml.
Im told the reduction will only take 12 days itself and from then on ill be methadone/drug free. I am worried about being off it and told her this on friday tried to explain why, however i think because she is new and maybe wants a high methadone rehabiltation level, she really wasnt too fussed, or maybe she sincerely thought i can do, i dont know 
Me and my last keyworker had agreed for me, that once id found myself ok on this 20ml, reduce to 10 then try subutex, so this lefoxidine thingy is all completely new to me.
Once again thanks for replying x

[timtrash]

she wants you to rush and complete your methadone detox 'cos the nurse is gonna be off sick? W.T.F??? i already hate her, what a loon. if she is absolutely insistant on this and for these reasons then you may well need some advocacy help from the folks who run this site. i've never needed or used it myself but from what i've seen they do a great job. i think there's a helpline listed somewhere. god it seems really crazy to me that this mad cow keyworker is willing to risk everything you've achieved, your stabilty and well being because some nurse is gonna be off sick.... jesus christ! i'd find the helpline number and call it

[leela11]

No the nurse is on sick now so il be started on this thing when she is back, she said she will be back in a week, and my kw wants to rush it thru so im completely off meth before the summer holidays. I think i will have to go back and talk with her as i was sort of in a shocky kind of mode, it happened so quick with no warning, never seen her before kinda thing. I did tell her i wasnt sure, i was scared etc, but i maybe need to get that through her head. If on monday she is having none of it and still gives me conflicting advice about lofexidine then i will definatley ring The Alliance, i never knew i could ring anyone about all this, so its good to know x

[Ursula]

Definitely ring the helpline - a rapid detox isn't something you should engage with unless you're clear that that's what you want.  Go back to her and get some clarification about the process and whether there is any choice and also have a think about how you would want things to go and what your own treatment goals are.

[leela11]

Yes im going tomorrow to get more info & clarification, there was no goals spoke about, if anything it was made out that would be the end of me going there, which really isnt such a bad idea LOL, but the thought of coming off and having no support aint too good x

[timtrash]

hey there. well, i saw a pretty close friend of mine today and with your post in mind i asked him about his experience with lofexadine. a few months back during a short jail sentence he did a fairly quick withdrawal from methadone and lofexadine was used as part of his treatment. i asked him how he found it and wether he believed it to of been useful. he said he felt that using it did help with some of the symptoms but that at the end of the day he still clucked. by no means was it any kind of miracle treatment that took away his junk sickness or suddenly made it a walk in the park. i asked him if he would "recommend" it to which he said, if the person invlolved is at a place where they really really want to be off their meth and are going to go ahead with it then sure, why not use it as i myself felt it did atleast help, but, that was all it did, just help a bit. i dunno if this is useful in anyway but all i could do was ask someone i knew who had had it during a detox and relay what they told me. i always think the more info you can get on these things the more informed ones choices are. i still stand by what i said before though. that being, if you're really so uptight and terrified about this detox being enforced on you. then, do your best to reason with your key-worker about post-poning it at the very least and if it's still no go with them then get a bit more advice from the alliance helpline.... all the very best....

[leela11]

Thanks Timtrash, really appreciate that I think i want to stick with my original plan of going on subutex when im at 15-10ml, i have two children and i really dont want to be rattling whilst theyre here its not fair on them. I do want to be off meth, just think this happening so soon and unexpectedly has scared me. But if im being totally honest with myself, i think the thought of being on nothing scares me more than anything, i have a whole load of what if's and will I be's. Was meant to be there today to speak with her, but my youngest wasnt too well so i will be going tomorrow. Wish i had my usual key, i feel like a child with new one haha

[timtrash]

oh i do know what you mean.... over the years i've had.... right, let me count.... 9 different key-workers, actually, it might be a bit more than that though that is over a fair few years and everytime one changes you're left worrying just what the new ones approach will be. thankfully, right now my key-worker is pretty wishy-washy, in a nice way, and my relationship with my dr is fabulous. if you do manage to do the switch from methadone to buprenorphine then i can tell you that when you come to detox you'll be fine. atleast i was when i detoxed on it. it was a fair few years ago. i went on it, at a very small dose at first and then stabilized at 12mg. from there i dropped every week over 12ish weeks and hardly noticed a thing. i got right down to half a 0.4mg pill and then stopped and i hardly noticed so much as a twitch. so, maybe this route would be a good one for you. i've been on subutex on and off for well over 5 years so if you have any questions about that then ofcourse i'd be happy to share my experiences with it. good luck with your key-worker and i hope your little one feels better soon....

[leela11]

What is buperorphine>? spellings probably way off.
Yep ive had a fair few keyworkers in this few years, but my last one was great, she is still there so dont know why she changed. Anyhoo went today and suprise, KW wasnt available to speak with me as had a busy schedule and other people to see, guess il have to wait til next appointment grr.
Would you believe ive started feeling as if im rattling, its definatly in my mind, probably because im obsessing over all this, ive been stable on 20ml this past few weeks and its only now i think im ill LOL. My heads a strange one. Is subutex & buperorphine in the same family? are they opiates too? what is it like coming off meth and onto subs? and if the subs went way down would i feel anything after the last tablet?
My lil gals great today, she has Asthma and was abit chesty but resolved overnight. Methinks she plays on it a lil bit so she can stay home with me haha,. But ta x

[timtrash]

subutex is the brand name. the actual drug is called bruprenorphine hydrochloride (i'm popping some under my tongue as i type, lol.) i couldn't tell you what it's like to switch from methadone to sub' because i've never done it. i've only ever swtiched from heroin. there's bound to be someone on here that has done the meth' to subutex switch. i think the first time i did it i was on 3/4 of a gram of gear a day. i was given two days worth of subutex at 4mg and then went way up to 32mg the two days at the low dose were quite rough, i'm not gonna lie to you. i did feel ill and couldn't sleep but then as they upped my dose to where i felt comfortable it was fine. knowing a bit more about how it works now i don't think i'd actually of needed to go up quite as far as 32mg but there you go. on other occasions i've gone on at 4mg for the 2 days and then just gone up to 12mg. at times when i have completed a subutex detox and done it properly it's been absolutely fine. i'd stopped using, stuck to the script and reduced weekly to as low a dose as i possibly could (half a 0.4mg pill) and i came off with virtually no problems at all. on another occasion though i had to get off quick as i needed to be clean to go into a rehab so i stopped at 2mg and was still really really ill and due to it's long half life the cluck went on and on and on.... i guess what i'm basicly saying is, that if once stable on subbies you stick to it, don't use and taper gently you can come off and it's a piece of piss as they say.

[OP8S]

If you are going from methadone to subutex then you are only prescribed the subs 72hours after your last dose of meth otherwise they will precipitate withdrawls due to their chemical structure which comprises of the opiate-agonists as well as opiate-antagonists. This is believed to stop you from using gear on top, though at low doses  people say that it doesn't really make much difference. The reason you have to go for 72 hours without your meth is because of the long half-life of methadone in your body. I've never actually done it myself but have seen quite a few of my mates do it & they usually arrive at the pharmacy as soon as they possibly can, looking quite unwell because they're withdrawing from the meth. I'm told that the last day or so before you get your subutex script is pretty shitty & you wouldn't want to be working or looking after your family if you have one. It does appear to be quite a successful way of reducing to nothing if that's what you want, though saying that quite a few start using gear again. I suppose that has more to do with determination & where you're head is at. I think that you can usually make the switch at about 50ml of meth, maybe 45ml.
Oddly enough it was one of the first drugs that I used i/v when I was about 16. I don't think that they were used in drug treatment then, they were called temgesics & used as a pain-killer.

[timtrash]

.... that's pretty much how it is switching from heroin to buprenorphine. the difference is, like op8's says, methadone having such a long half life, the whole thing takes so much longer. it was a bit of a wrench switching from the gear to the subs so if i'm honest i can't imagine switching from methadone to be all that easy. he's right, it all comes down to how determined you are to do it. if you do though i personally think it'd probably be worth it due to how much easier it is to reduce and come off the subbies. once you've made that decision to come off everything and you're comfortable with it doing so on bup', for me anyway, was a breeze! once i'd got down to half that 0.4mg pill and was stable on it, i recall taking my last dose on the sunday and by the wednesday i was out and about, clubbing, having fun and felt perfectly o.k. and the days in between, well, i can't really remember there being anything very bad on the withdrawals front and trust me, if there was i'd recall it 'cos i'm really not one of those who takes clucking on the chin and get's on with it, i can't bear it! i think i got the sneezes a bit, maybe yawned once or twice but that's all. i didn't even lose a nights sleep. admittedly i did gobble some benzo's which may of helped some but they don't really do much for me anymore. i've used them so much over the years they don't seem to touch me, unless i take handfuls so i really don't think it was them that made coming off easy. it was just buprenorphine being easy to detox with. i've found that on doses of 4mg and higher subutex does have a fairly strong blocking effect if you try to use on it but only for a few hours. if about 6 or so hours passes after you've taken it and you try to use, it'll work and doses lower than 4mg don't seem to block anything at all..... not that i'm trying to encourage you to try to! i'm just saying how it is. i really do think if you're serious about getting off opiates completely then buprenorphine is a good choice. so long as you stick to yuor prescibed dose, reduce gently and don't use anything on top.

[timtrash]

.... it's probably worth adding.... if you mess about with the subs and take them too soon after using smack then the preciptitated withdrawal is a reality and really not very nice.... i know!.... it's horrible, just like "regular" clucking but much more trembling.... HORRIBLE!