So I have looked and looked on the internet to find another person who has had a similar case as me, and I have been unable to do so. I post this in the hopes that it may help someone in the future.
I have been taking 200mg-or 100 pills (I have taken almost 200 pills in a day before, because of long work hours) of loperamide daily for about the past 3 years. Of course, the dose started MUCH MUCH lower. I used to be able to buy large quantities online, very cheap. However, the word is out on Loperamide and much much harder to come by. For the first time in almost 6 years I was unable to buy ANY. I decided right then and there that I needed to go ahead and make the jump. On 6/19 I was able to find a Dr. that was taking patients. My last dose was on 6/18 at about 6pm. I saw the Dr. at 12:30pm and he prescribed me 16mg daily and 3x a day of 300mg gabapentin. So after reading about precipitated withdrawal's i was scared sh*tless about them. Normally after 24 hours i begin to feel sick. So I didn't take any Suboxone until 10am on 6/20. That is approximately 40 hours. For whatever reason I was not feeling all that sick. On the COWS thing i think i scored like a 10 or 12. I don't know if my mind knew that I had those Subs waiting or the Gabapentin I begin taking when I got it filled helped. But I started at .5mg to be SURE that i did not throw myself into precipitated WD. About half an hour later i took another .5mg. I waited about 30 minuted and then took 1mg more. Still no real effect. I didnt feel better or worse. I ended up taking 8's total by 12pm. I had agreed earlier in the week to eat lunch with an old colleague, and had to keep the appointment. Right before I left I took 8mg(16 total now) My mind felt OK, but my body was still achey and my feet feel HEAVY. I was unable to eat half of a chili dog. It was about 12:45 at this point. I started to get the hot and cold flashes and the sweats while we were talking. Again, my mind is fine. Im not jonesin or anything, but my body is killing me. All of the sudden I had feeling in my stomach. I started to ask for the check and try to get out of there without drawing too much attention to myself. I knew that I would not be able to make it home, so I told me friend that I had to use the restroom. I was barely able to get my belt off and sit down before diarrhea come shooting out. It was the kind that makes you double over and it feels like lava coming out. I spent about 10 minutes in there and then hoped that I would be able to make it from the restaurant to my apartment without s***ting my pants. I paid my bill and got in the car. I make it about halfway home when the urge hit me again. I started to get scared.....and started to speed. I thought if I can just make it to my apartment, I will be OK. Then I thought.....I can't make it. I hammered down the gas and flew to make it. Again, I'm taking off my vest and belt as i run up the stairs and the second that my butt gets near the toilet.....well you know the rest. I spent another 10 minutes in there and then just drug myself to my bed. I fell asleep about 1:30 or 2. I woke up at about 7. No more diarrhea. Again, my brain is good. No jonesin'.....I can listen to music and enjoy it. However, my legs are killing me. My back hurt when I woke up. I'm still having hot/cold flashes. I decided to take another 8mg. It is now 10:14pm and I do not feel any different than I did this morning after I had taken the first 8mg's. Has anyone else had this happen to them? Where you take subs (after waiting as long as it did) and they don't really throw you in precipitated wd's, but they don't really work either? I'm kind of a loss at what I should do......I mean I don't see the point in taking more than 24mg's at this point. I still have 8mg's i can take. Anyone have any idea or thoughts?
10:22pm on 6/20: (24mg's in) Head is OK. I'm in a good mood. It's just my legs and back. My feet feel really heavy and my legs are tired. I'm still having a little bit of a hard time regulating my body's temperature. Really feeling no different than I did after having taking 8mg's 10 hours earlier.
UPDATE: 9:30pm on 6/21: I woke up this morning, rolled over and popped 16mgs in my mouth and laid in bed while it dissolved(about 10 minutes). However, I still feel the same. My mind if perfectly fine. I have conversations with co-workers and laugh at funny thing. Still enjoying music. But im not regulating my body temp right. Also, I have a minor case of RLS constantly that can sometimes be helped by Ibuprofen. I really feel no different than i did that first day when I had only taken a couple of MG's. Can anyone throw me some help please?
LAST UPDATE:2pm 6/24: Well......not much has changed. I'm not sure why the Suboxone isn't working correctly. I still have the achey legs, the body temp problem, but i don't have any cravings and can feel the difference in my head. I feel happy. I spent yesterday just messing around my apartment, and throughout the day there were several songs that made me almost cry, or outright cry. I'm very emotional for whatever reason (I'm normally not). I go back to the Dr. tomorrow and I'm going to see if he has had anyone else with this problem. Either way, good luck to everyone out there!
DISCLAIMER: Loperamide is a terrible drug to get hooked on. It had messed with my heart and made me pass out at work. A few people have died because the loperamide messes with your heartbeat. It messes with your vision something terrible. It gets to the point to where I had to drive with 1 eye. My muscle fatigue it insane. I cannot run for more than a few minutes. I cannot lift heavy things but a few times. I cannot do more than a handful of pushups. The first 3-4 are EASY, but when its like I get zapped with a weakness and i cannot push myself back up. I know I am talking to mostly addicts, but stay away from this crap....please.
I know this is a older post. Thank you for sharing your story. I never usually reply to these message board forums on anysite but I too as well could not find a story like yours, see i too was taking lope but only because I ran out of suboxone, i took pretty large amounts the past 3 days (the days i spent without subs) and i was trying to search if it would cause PWD's.. It didnt by the way.. but i know what your saying about how the suboxone felt like it was not working or it didnt make you better but didnt make you sick.. see i still struggle with heroin, thats my DOC when i relapse back on the H and use for a period of time the switch back to suboxone always sucks, and i go thru what you described to the T. However with lope i just dosed on sub after 3 days on about 60mgs of lope a day and i feel fine, no PWD or anything. So who knows opiates are so FUKT once they got you in their grips.. hope all is well
So did you end up stabilizing on the sub? Im leaving a 250mg Lope habit behind for Suboxone and trying to avoid precipitating withdrawal.
This is an older thread, but my question is why in the world would you even take lop.... in the first place???/ it doesn't even get you high?????
It can and will get you high but it is not a fun one. Most use it to stave off WDs.
Ok. I have a lope story of my own. Which almost killed me. I started taking lope to get off subs. It worked and made the detox relatively painless to say the least. The problem is I never stopped taking it. I took it for 4 years. I worked myself up to about 300 tabs (600mg) a day. I am a recovering heroin addict and relapsed in 2018. I caught a felony possession and a DUI
I was put on drug court in my county. I started drug testing 4 times a week. I stayed on lope thinking if get away with it. I started getting false positives for fentanyl. The lab couldn't figure it out. The judge started throwing me in jail over the false positives. I got sick and tired of spending weekends in jail so I found a doctor to get on Vivitrol. The doctor gave me a couple naltrexone pills cuz my shot had to be ordered. It was 2pm. I filled the script. Got back to my job and took one naltrexone before going back to work. About 10 minutes to by. I start pouring sweat. My skin starts to burn. I'm having trouble Breathing. I start losing my vision. I end up on the floor cuz I can't stand. An ambulance was called. I am in complete panic. I am unable to breath at this point. I can't see anything. My heart is racing. My bowels and bladder both suddenly release. My heart has failed. I've stopped breathing. Paddles are used. They bring me back
I end up in a coma for 14 days. I can't breathe on my own at this point. I am on life support. I spend 14 days on a respirator unconscious. When I awoke I was surrounded by doctors. My brain is swollen and they don't know if I will have permanent brain damage or not. The doctors tell my I had a 5% chance at survival. I ended up with acute heart and respiratory failure, pnuemonia, septacemia, 3 blood clots, and possible brain damage. It took me 3 months to recover. I have damaged my heart and now im on heart meds for the rest of my life. Please don't mess with lope. It will kill u. I am proof of that.
I was put on drug court in my county. I started drug testing 4 times a week. I stayed on lope thinking if get away with it. I started getting false positives for fentanyl. The lab couldn't figure it out. The judge started throwing me in jail over the false positives. I got sick and tired of spending weekends in jail so I found a doctor to get on Vivitrol. The doctor gave me a couple naltrexone pills cuz my shot had to be ordered. It was 2pm. I filled the script. Got back to my job and took one naltrexone before going back to work. About 10 minutes to by. I start pouring sweat. My skin starts to burn. I'm having trouble Breathing. I start losing my vision. I end up on the floor cuz I can't stand. An ambulance was called. I am in complete panic. I am unable to breath at this point. I can't see anything. My heart is racing. My bowels and bladder both suddenly release. My heart has failed. I've stopped breathing. Paddles are used. They bring me back
I end up in a coma for 14 days. I can't breathe on my own at this point. I am on life support. I spend 14 days on a respirator unconscious. When I awoke I was surrounded by doctors. My brain is swollen and they don't know if I will have permanent brain damage or not. The doctors tell my I had a 5% chance at survival. I ended up with acute heart and respiratory failure, pnuemonia, septacemia, 3 blood clots, and possible brain damage. It took me 3 months to recover. I have damaged my heart and now im on heart meds for the rest of my life. Please don't mess with lope. It will kill u. I am proof of that.
I know this post is old but its now 2020 and Im sure I can help people. I should just make a YouTube video because theres nothing on there either. I have been using 200mg loperamide with Tagamet a day for long periods of time off and on. Usually to stave off withdrawals when I take too much of my Suboxone and run out. FYI people... switching to buprenorphine/suboxone after taking loperamide can and WILL cause precipitated withdrawal. It is awful and I dont want anyone to go through it. I have waited north of 72 hours off loperamide before reintroducing suboxone and still endured a minor precipitated withdrawal. Obviously you should wait as long as possible but I would try and at least wait 72 hours. After doing this every month for years, I have learned there are varying degrees of precipitated withdrawal. The posts above where people are talking about feeling better but not really and still getting hot flashes and cold sweats, are describing minor precipitated withdrawals. Its a total crapshoot because theres been times when Ive only waited 48 hours and reintroduced the subs, and been perfectly fine, but usually need to wait longer. The signs that usually tell me Im ok to take the subs are vomiting, the coughing til you sneeze, and b.m.s. But even in severe withdrawal like this, be prepared to take the sub and endure minor chills and sweats for 2-3 days. Sometimes it works and sometimes its a gnarly precipitated withdrawal and I regret reintroducing the sub too early. If youre able to switch to a shorter acting opiate for 4-5 days, then just endure the 1-2 days of withdrawal before taking sub, it is def recommended, but if you cant, try really hard to wait 72 hours, but BE PREPARED to not feel great for a few days and even be prepared to get to a hospital in case you go into a really bad precipitated. Some people out there have been using 600mg of loperamide a day for a year, and at that point, I wouldnt even try to reintroduce the sub because the withdrawals will be so bad, it will be difficult to wait more than 72 hours which will probably be required. At that point find a rehab that tapers using methadone. Call ahead and ask because I feel like some only taper with subs. Good luck, God bless you all!
thanks for sharing your story
I realize this is several years old now, but I would like to weigh in here for a moment. I am not proud of this, but I guinea pigged megadose Loperamide hcl 14 years ago when there was basically no information published other than the chemical composition, clinical trials, and general information that is offered to the public (taken as directed). Initially, it was fascinating and exciting. I had taken a huge risk by ingesting 200mg orally, and at that time, I felt like it had paid off in a big way. I was not entirely opoid naive, but it was strong, and lasted a very long time. I am sharing this to qualify myself. I pulled all info that I shared from the web with the exception of the most valid harm reduction information. Today, I've come to terms with the guilt of providing others like me a highly accessible, cheap, powerful, and addictive high. I don't know how many people actually took the idea from my findings and ran with it. I have to forgive myself.
One thing I would like to highlight...
I don't want to oppose anyone who is brave and caring enough to share their experiences to help others. I used this drug at different doses for different reasons for a very long time. I won't go into specifics, but it got crazy, and I am very lucky. A strong constitution and a golden horseshoe won't exempt you from the lethal potential of the drug, and I'm sure now that I was running thin there for a while. My muscles would become exhausted from the smallest amount of movement. I was as weak as a child, and I would get unbarable pains on my lower spine like a vice was squeezing it. Here's the important part for me to share. Getting off of this fat binding, filthy, peripheral drug takes a great deal of will power. If you have been taking it for a long time, at a high dose, kicking is going to be thd endurance test of your life. There are tools to help. If getting off is an urgent life or death scenario for you, just get on a suboxone program. In my very extensive experience, bup and naloxone administered immediately via sublingual delivery, DID NOT INDUCE PRECIPITATED WITHDRAWAL. If you are dependent on Lop, and you inject suboxone, the naloxone with have a reversal effect that is short lived, but buprenorphine can and should be taken as soon as possible following your last dose of lop. I'm not a doctor, but I do have a very sophisticated understanding of this drug, coupled with a wealth of first hand experience. Buprenorphine has a binding affinity 10x that of naloxone, and Lop needs to cheat by saturating the system to have any activity at the mu receptor site. Get off that garbage, and talk to your doctor. Make a plan that works for you. You don't need to stay on subs if you don't want to...but you can if it helps, and it's not gonna kill you. Do not inject it. Take your life back. This scourge has cast a shadow over my soul, and made me question my worth for so long for having helped to spread the message of its abuse potential, but it was going to come to light anyway. Humans seem to have this connection, and ideas seem manifest in different places but at the same time across the world. I do hope this helps. It helped me to write about it. Sorry for the plain speaking and little attention to grammar. I didn't want this to be misconstrued as an intellectual masturbation session, but, for what it's worth, I really do know my stuff. Be safe and good luck.
I don't want to oppose anyone who is brave and caring enough to share their experiences to help others. I used this drug at different doses for different reasons for a very long time. I won't go into specifics, but it got crazy, and I am very lucky. A strong constitution and a golden horseshoe won't exempt you from the lethal potential of the drug, and I'm sure now that I was running thin there for a while. My muscles would become exhausted from the smallest amount of movement. I was as weak as a child, and I would get unbarable pains on my lower spine like a vice was squeezing it. Here's the important part for me to share. Getting off of this fat binding, filthy, peripheral drug takes a great deal of will power. If you have been taking it for a long time, at a high dose, kicking is going to be thd endurance test of your life. There are tools to help. If getting off is an urgent life or death scenario for you, just get on a suboxone program. In my very extensive experience, bup and naloxone administered immediately via sublingual delivery, DID NOT INDUCE PRECIPITATED WITHDRAWAL. If you are dependent on Lop, and you inject suboxone, the naloxone with have a reversal effect that is short lived, but buprenorphine can and should be taken as soon as possible following your last dose of lop. I'm not a doctor, but I do have a very sophisticated understanding of this drug, coupled with a wealth of first hand experience. Buprenorphine has a binding affinity 10x that of naloxone, and Lop needs to cheat by saturating the system to have any activity at the mu receptor site. Get off that garbage, and talk to your doctor. Make a plan that works for you. You don't need to stay on subs if you don't want to...but you can if it helps, and it's not gonna kill you. Do not inject it. Take your life back. This scourge has cast a shadow over my soul, and made me question my worth for so long for having helped to spread the message of its abuse potential, but it was going to come to light anyway. Humans seem to have this connection, and ideas seem manifest in different places but at the same time across the world. I do hope this helps. It helped me to write about it. Sorry for the plain speaking and little attention to grammar. I didn't want this to be misconstrued as an intellectual masturbation session, but, for what it's worth, I really do know my stuff. Be safe and good luck.
More qualification: 22 year addict. I did everything. Tons of iv meth, coke and opiates. Last DOC before cleaning up was street dope (all fentanyl) Awful Crack habit, did every research chemical I came across. Shot bath salts and flakka a bunch. 20 bucks a day spent on plastic bottle liquor with full dependency. I share this shameful laundry list because I want what you're reading to seem valid. I want you to feel hopeful that you can get better. May not be a blissful sexy Rollercoaster , but you can find peace from this s***. I mentioned all of those drugs, but massive dose Loperamide is right there with them. It's a bad drug, and it has its own quirks and horrors with which it uses to paint your personal nightmare.
