Suboxstitute
03-03-2008, 07:27 PM
I've seen the same psychiatrist since 2003 - he's an older guy, very quirky and vrey wise - at a large research university.
... fascinating guy ....he has helped me a lot won't get into that now.
And I almost threw away all the trust we had with a benzo binge earlier in February... wrote a thread or two about it.
Back 2003 a bunch of shit happened , I am anxious anyway, and Dr. G offered to take me over as a patient, which was unusual (he remembered me from my son, who had been suicidal in his late teens, long story). He thinks I am "interesting". I was quite debilitated with depression at the time which fed right into the opiate addiction. He got me thru the depression, (while the the opiate addiction grew without his knowledge). Didn't come clean with him til much later.
So he's been scripting me K-pins 1.5mgs at night and 1.5mgs prn during the day for like 4 years. If you've read my other threads, you know I started abusing benzos for the VERY FIRST TIME EVER only IN THE LAST TWO MONTHS. I've never asked for more, never had an early fill- until this past month or so.
It was due to BBS ( "bupe boredom syndrome" ). You will combine anything to try to get ANY buzz from the bupe (but you won't. not really)
So I upped my sub dose (on my own) and upped my k-pin dose (had some leftovers from earlier months) ... l was taking 9-10 mgs of k-pins per day (not all at once) with maybe 8-16 mgs of subs as a chaser a couple times a day. Caught a little buzz, wasn't worth it, ran out of both scripts early, had to pay the sub piper first (got my refill early, bless the sub doc) but thought I could tough out the benzo w/d and go cold turkey since I didn't want to break trust with Dr. G.
VERY BAD IDEA> DO NOT EVER COLD TURKEY benzos when you've been on them for 3-4 years (or even much less time). See myother thread about it. Horrible after the half-life wore off in 3 days.
So I see Dr. G today, for the first time since shit hit the fan (running out on the weekend, etc, blah blah). I am really nervous, since I really do need an increase in my clonaz. and S T U P I D L Y I was ALREADY going thru my current 3mg/day script AGAIN faster than I should have and was ready to run out early for the second month in a row.
So he starts "you're sitting on the edge of the couch, you must have something to say". so I say "We need to talk about clonazepam - I've been talking more than I'm prescribed." He says " I knew that. I was waiting for you to talk to me."
So he looks me in the eyes and says "you're tapering down on bupe, it isn't easy - the clonazepam will help - what c dose do you think would help you? Be honest - within reason - - - what would help you get thru this time?
And I told him 5mgs vs. 3mg. That's a pretty decent increase from 3mgs all at once. And this is after I went ahead and "self-increased" my own dose and all, and wasn't up front with him.
He says "I'm not all hung up on this - you should know that. I just can't prescribe outside of the therapeutic "norm" since I don't need my ass handed to me when you fall down some night after taking way too many benzos." I'd give you 6 but I need to look up stuff in these books - the books tell him basically I should not have more than 4mg daily, but he still does 5mg - 4mg scheduled and 1 mg prn.
He calls Walgreens on his cell phone right there - cancels my old script, changes it to 5mgs per day(this will make a big differerence and I swear I am NOT going to FUCK UP and take 6-7-8 mgs at a time again). You only get so many chances with a doc.
He gives me FIVE - count em - FIVE refills. Nicest thing a doc's every done for me. And I got to KEEP the whole 90 that I just had refilled on the 20th of Feb (which I had been going thru at a pretty good clip.)
Sorry for the long post; I just had to share. I was SO SO FREAKED OUT about this appointment. I started a bunch of threads here for advice; never posted them. But I just decided to lay it out and be honest.
He is an old school shrink - does his OWN therapy AND med management.
And Yes, he warned me about possible transfer of addiction to benzos, but he knows they aren't my thing. But boy, do they EVER help with the bupe taper!
My sub doc is TOTALLY RIGID and 100% opposed to benzos in any way shape or form for opiate addicts. My reg shrink went to bat for me originally.... and I could have screwed all that up.. But it turned out better than I ever imagined. No games, no bullshit - just talked as two adults.
... fascinating guy ....he has helped me a lot won't get into that now.
And I almost threw away all the trust we had with a benzo binge earlier in February... wrote a thread or two about it.
Back 2003 a bunch of shit happened , I am anxious anyway, and Dr. G offered to take me over as a patient, which was unusual (he remembered me from my son, who had been suicidal in his late teens, long story). He thinks I am "interesting". I was quite debilitated with depression at the time which fed right into the opiate addiction. He got me thru the depression, (while the the opiate addiction grew without his knowledge). Didn't come clean with him til much later.
So he's been scripting me K-pins 1.5mgs at night and 1.5mgs prn during the day for like 4 years. If you've read my other threads, you know I started abusing benzos for the VERY FIRST TIME EVER only IN THE LAST TWO MONTHS. I've never asked for more, never had an early fill- until this past month or so.
It was due to BBS ( "bupe boredom syndrome" ). You will combine anything to try to get ANY buzz from the bupe (but you won't. not really)
So I upped my sub dose (on my own) and upped my k-pin dose (had some leftovers from earlier months) ... l was taking 9-10 mgs of k-pins per day (not all at once) with maybe 8-16 mgs of subs as a chaser a couple times a day. Caught a little buzz, wasn't worth it, ran out of both scripts early, had to pay the sub piper first (got my refill early, bless the sub doc) but thought I could tough out the benzo w/d and go cold turkey since I didn't want to break trust with Dr. G.
VERY BAD IDEA> DO NOT EVER COLD TURKEY benzos when you've been on them for 3-4 years (or even much less time). See myother thread about it. Horrible after the half-life wore off in 3 days.
So I see Dr. G today, for the first time since shit hit the fan (running out on the weekend, etc, blah blah). I am really nervous, since I really do need an increase in my clonaz. and S T U P I D L Y I was ALREADY going thru my current 3mg/day script AGAIN faster than I should have and was ready to run out early for the second month in a row.
So he starts "you're sitting on the edge of the couch, you must have something to say". so I say "We need to talk about clonazepam - I've been talking more than I'm prescribed." He says " I knew that. I was waiting for you to talk to me."
So he looks me in the eyes and says "you're tapering down on bupe, it isn't easy - the clonazepam will help - what c dose do you think would help you? Be honest - within reason - - - what would help you get thru this time?
And I told him 5mgs vs. 3mg. That's a pretty decent increase from 3mgs all at once. And this is after I went ahead and "self-increased" my own dose and all, and wasn't up front with him.
He says "I'm not all hung up on this - you should know that. I just can't prescribe outside of the therapeutic "norm" since I don't need my ass handed to me when you fall down some night after taking way too many benzos." I'd give you 6 but I need to look up stuff in these books - the books tell him basically I should not have more than 4mg daily, but he still does 5mg - 4mg scheduled and 1 mg prn.
He calls Walgreens on his cell phone right there - cancels my old script, changes it to 5mgs per day(this will make a big differerence and I swear I am NOT going to FUCK UP and take 6-7-8 mgs at a time again). You only get so many chances with a doc.
He gives me FIVE - count em - FIVE refills. Nicest thing a doc's every done for me. And I got to KEEP the whole 90 that I just had refilled on the 20th of Feb (which I had been going thru at a pretty good clip.)
Sorry for the long post; I just had to share. I was SO SO FREAKED OUT about this appointment. I started a bunch of threads here for advice; never posted them. But I just decided to lay it out and be honest.
He is an old school shrink - does his OWN therapy AND med management.
And Yes, he warned me about possible transfer of addiction to benzos, but he knows they aren't my thing. But boy, do they EVER help with the bupe taper!
My sub doc is TOTALLY RIGID and 100% opposed to benzos in any way shape or form for opiate addicts. My reg shrink went to bat for me originally.... and I could have screwed all that up.. But it turned out better than I ever imagined. No games, no bullshit - just talked as two adults.