Half-Lives...I'm Confused

[ryan]

So maybe someone with greater knowledge can explain this to me...

Okay so, we take buprenorphine, and then it stays a long ass time in our bodies.
Some of my friends can wait like 24-hours after their last dose (regardless how long they've been on bupe) to get high, and some other friends only have to wait like 6-12 hours (again, regardless of length of dosing) and they get ripped.

Me, I was on bupe for about 2 weeks straight and then spent $300 dollars on two bundles of heroin last friday (good dope too mind you, east coast powder), and barely got off. I waited 24 hours. I did all of the dope within 8 hours...

The first shot I did 6 bags at once, and it seemed to give me an intense rush and I thought that I was high!
Until an hour later, when it went away REALLY fast and I got a massive headache and had to do another 6...I won't go on but it was not an enjoyable experience.

So my question is this...

What is it that makes some people get rid of the bupe in their system faster?
Metabolism? Liver "power"? I mean...how do half-lives work really?
How is the bupe actually eliminated from our systems? Is it due strictly to liver enzymes?
If so, is there any way to accelerate the actions of the enzyme(s)?

Also, how do half-lives work..seriously...like how does our body "know" how to eliminate the substance exponentially?
How does it work!?!?

What I'm ultimately getting at is that I want to just get rid of all this excess bupe in my system in a hurry without having to wait. Waiting sucks...I get so anxious it's not even funny. I just can't do it.

Also what else is weird is that like, I'll be on 8mg a day for a month straight, and then miss a day, and actually start to experience withdrawals! Now logic says that there's probably a shitload of bupe in my system that day that I'm missing my dose, and I tell myself that, but it doesn't seem to have any effect.

I get shakes, goosebumps, naseau, fatigue, and a TON of anxiety and RLS even just missing ONE god damn day.

I really want to get off of this shit ASAP and I just want to find a quick and easy way.

I've tried the "How to comfortably lower your dose" suggestions here and couldn't do it, I just had too much anxiety. I don't really want to switch over to doing heroin every day either, because that is just not a good option. I want to be able to lower my bupe level, and my tolerance, and still be able to use heroin once in awhile. Maybe take like 1-2mg of sub per day (instead of 12!), and then get high on fridays.

Any explanations of how the half-life process works would be helpful just so I could understand more.

Thanks!

[oxy kid]

I've been thinking the same things. I know I've had bupe built up in my system, but if I miss my dose, I'll get sick. doesn't make sense.

[Motown]

What I understand is if you can lower your dose (to 2mgs even 2x a day) and stay there for a week or two,
you can more easily chip away. But you are going to have to start working your way down....

I am in the process of doing it right now. I have been taking 2mg in the morning (sometimes I will have to take another dose at night because I wake up sweating) but I am still working off the 8mg dose I took for months. Sometimes I would even take 16 or 24mgs.

So it will take a while to get it out to my system. I know you just answered your own question and I am not telling you anything you don't know - but if you can lower you dose - you can play in a few weeks. Although folks say the switch back gets more difficult.

I am currently lowering my dose - if you want a wing man, start taking 2mgs. (MJ helps tremendously - so I hear)

Good luck - exercise and eat well. Others will have some more valuable info on vitamin supplements (and there are many threads somewhere on here about lowering dosage) feel free to PM me.

[ryan]

What I understand is if you can lower your dose (to 2mgs even 2x a day) and stay there for a week or two,
you can more easily chip away. But you are going to have to start working your way down....


Thanks for the advice, but I guess I am just more interested in how the whole "half-life" process really works...like is there some internal calculator in our livers saying "ok, he's taken this much of substance z, lets release x amount of enzymes per y amt. of time, etc." (heh) and if there is any way to "potentiate" or even accelerate this entire process.

I too fell into the trap of taking tons of suboxone, like 12-16mgs a day..Ugh it sucks.

[Motown]

Yeah - I can feel just fine taking 2mgs. I just have to force myself to understand that
16mgs is not going to feel great. It's like starting over every time. Tried to play a few times
and never could get through. If I would just consistently get it down - maybe I could play right.

That would be great if you could flush it out of your system. Maybe I should start running
or something - then, perhaps it would leave a little faster.

Tonight I have to go to a social gathering and I am repeating to myself "don't take more....
don't take more.... never gonna feel it..... never gonna feel it" Crazy game.

[Narkotikon]

The mean half-life of bupe is 37 hours. The key word there is "mean." It's an average. Some people will naturally metabolize it faster than others. The same with methadone. They say the mean half-life for methadone is 24 hours, but some people in clinics will need larger doses to hold them all day / night because they metabolize it faster. Think of it as a range. For some people, bupe may be metabolized in 20 or so hours, whereas some it will take more like 45 hours or so. The mean average is 37 hours though. But, again, everyone is different. Some people just metabolize things more quickly.

On the buprenorphine sub-forum, at the top where it's stickied, there is a sticky for bupe half-life graphs. Again, though, that is based on the mean average of 37 hours. But, generally, those graphs will give you a good idea of how long it will take for people to feel full-agonists again, based on your dose of bupe and the amount of time you've been taking it.

For me, I think I metabolized bupe at the mean average (37 hours) or even a little longer. I was taking usually 4mg a day snorted or 8mg a day sublingually, except for the last few weeks, and even then it took about two weeks for me to be able to feel full agonists again, and even then I noticed it took more than prior to bupe to get the same effects. In short, bupe is GREAT at raising tolerance AND blocking.

Edit: So, this is why some people can use bupe and still get high sooner than others (i.e., you). They probably metabolize it faster. Also, factors like age, general health, etc. play a factor too. For instance, older people generally require lower doses because they don't metabolize things as well as younger people. People in poor health have trouble metabolizing things too. Also, if you're an active person. If you do a lot of heavy, physical labor, you'll metabolize things faster too, whereas a fairly sedentary person would metabolize things more slowly.

[ryan]

I see...I kind of figured that..but what I'm ultimately getting at is -- what prevents our metabolism from eliminating it all at once?
Why is it in "halves" and why is the entire process exponential?
Our are brains \ livers like one big giant calculator?
How do they know exactly how much we have taken and how much to eliminate?

For example, person A takes 12mg and person B takes 8mg...
Person A's metabolism "knows" to eliminate 6mg in one half-life and person B's metabolism "knows" to elmininate 4mg.

Where does this "knowledge" come from? How exactly is it known?

Is the entire process something that we as humans have simply observed, or is it something that can be scientifically explained and broken down?

Is there any way to tell our brains \ livers \ metabolism to pumpout a boatload of bupe-killing enzymes to make the half-life shorter?

I'm guessing the answer is probably no, but I still would like to hear some thoughts on this.

Sorry for all the weird questions, but I am just fascinated by how this whole thing works and would like to learn more.

Maybe theres just like tons of underlying concepts here that I just don't know (and can't be easily explained in lames terms) simply because I have little to no background in biochemisty \ pharmacology...

[Narkotikon]

That's just the way the kidneys / liver / body works. Drugs are eliminated by half-lives / slowly. I really have no idea why.

I do know that half-lives aren't linear. What I mean is, for bupe, it takes about 37 hours to eliminate half of what you originally took. So, if you took 4mg, 37 hours later you'd still have 2mg left in your system. After the first half-life, though, it's not the same. The length of time becomes shorter. So, the second half-life would be maybe 24 hours or so. So, if after 37 hours you still had 2mg left, after another 24 hours you'd have 1mg left, then another 24 hours later you'd have 0.5mg, and so on.

The half-life can't be linear, because if it was, it would never really get rid of the drug. It has to be non-linear.

Edit: They find out the time of half-lives by doing blood serum levels. They draw a sample of blood every so often and determine how much of the drug is still in there. That's how half-lives are known. But why drugs are metabolized in terms of half-lives and not all at once, I don't know. That's just the way it works. Someone else could better explain that.

[ryan]

The half-life can't be linear, because if it was, it would never really get rid of the drug. It has to be non-linear.

I've ALWAYS wondered this too!! Because if you keep halving something, you'll NEVER get to zero.
If someone could also explain this that would be sweet too.

[Narkotikon]

The only answer I can think of is that all drugs are toxins. Your body is designed to eliminate toxins to protect itself. That takes time though. Not a very good explanation, but that's all I can come up with.

[Poppylvr]

I see...I kind of figured that..but what I'm ultimately getting at is -- what prevents our metabolism from eliminating it all at once?
Why is it in "halves" and why is the entire process exponential?
Our are brains \ livers like one big giant calculator?
How do they know exactly how much we have taken and how much to eliminate?

For example, person A takes 12mg and person B takes 8mg...
Person A's metabolism "knows" to eliminate 6mg in one half-life and person B's metabolism "knows" to elmininate 4mg.

Where does this "knowledge" come from? How exactly is it known?

Is the entire process something that we as humans have simply observed, or is it something that can be scientifically explained and broken down?

Is there any way to tell our brains \ livers \ metabolism to pumpout a boatload of bupe-killing enzymes to make the half-life shorter?

I'm guessing the answer is probably no, but I still would like to hear some thoughts on this.

Sorry for all the weird questions, but I am just fascinated by how this whole thing works and would like to learn more.

Maybe theres just like tons of underlying concepts here that I just don't know (and can't be easily explained in lames terms) simply because I have little to no background in biochemisty \ pharmacology...
Ryan, you have brought up interesting questions - I'll contact resorcinol who is a walking encyclopedia & see if he can help us out.

[roxi*stardust]

http://www.suboxone.com/patients/suboxone/how_suboxone_works.aspx

This may help you understand how Suboxone wwwroks a little better. It helped a few people here understand it better.

[runormal]

Tonight I have to go to a social gathering and I am repeating to myself "don't take more.... don't take more.... never gonna feel it..... never gonna feel it" Crazy game.

Ugh that was the worst about being on bupe! Mind games all the time!!

Ryan I was the same way where WD came on if I didn't take bupe each day but towards the end I went 3 days without taking any at all. It was right where you described - goosebumps, anxiety, etc and I was freaked that it was going to get worse at any minute. Oddly it stayed right at that same level and never got worse over those 72 hours - my doctor called it a wash out period. It wasn't fun and I wouldn't have wanted to go to work or anything but it was do able over a long weekend. I realized that I prob could have gotten myself down to 1-2mg a day much faster than I had thought possible. I know this doesn't answer the half life question I just wanted to throw this in since you mentioned lowering your dose. I wish I had found it out sooner so like I said I would have tapered down much earlier on and maybe "enjoyed" myself a bit more...

[hydro chris]

http://www.suboxone.com/patients/suboxone/how_suboxone_works.aspx

This may help you understand how Suboxone wwwroks a little better. It helped a few people here understand it better.
holy shit there 26 sub doctors in a 8mile radius of my house.lol

sorry off topic:)

[stvip]

Why ask these questions here instead of just looking up 'Drug Metabolism' and 'Enzyme Kinetics' on Wikipedia?
Anyhow, your desire of shortening the metabolic half-life of buprenorphine is misguided. Also note that the manifestation of withdrawal is an extremely complex process and a simple examination of the serum concentration of the opioid can be misleading.

There are several substances capable of enabling dosage tapering with lessened or no symptoms. Look at my previous posts for a few suggestions. My own experience has shown Ashwaghanda (Withania somniferra) to be the most beneficial, by the way, but I'm sure there's much interindividual variation.

I intend to collect and annotate all this information soon in my site, but I'm in need of assistants for maintenance and quality control.

[resorcinol]

Half lives are a classic example of exponential decay. The body eliminates the drug faster while more is present because enzymes catabolize their substrate more quickly when more of the substrate is present, and activity of the enzyme falls off as substrate conc (conc of drug) decreases. This is why the curve for drug elimination is an exponential function of decay. Drugs can have linear elimination if the drug saturates all of the available enzyme at active doses (like alcohol) but most drugs do not do this.

"Half-life" (T-1/2) is an inherent mathematical property that occurs in exponential decay. With each passage of a T-1/2, the conc of substance in the bloodstream falls by 1/2. Say a drug has a 5 hour half life and you start with 50 mg in circulation. After 5 hours, 25 mg will remain in circulation; after 10 hours (another half life, 5 hours) 12.5 mg remains in circulation; after 15 hours 6.25 mg remains in circulation; after 20 hours 3.125 mg remains in circulation. You may have already known that but that's for people who really don't understand what "half life" actually means.

Any process that decays exponentially has a T-1/2. Biological elimination half life is the one we talk about on here. Nuclear half life is the half life of a radioisotope: the decay of a mass of radioactive nuclides is exponential just like drug elimination.

If you've been on bupe a long time, as you can see, traces can remain for a long time due to this. Of course, math is an approximation of reality. The exponential function approaches an asyptote such that the value never reaches zero -- in real life exponential decay, zero is reached -- so they're not PERFECT exponential decay functions, but so very close that the properties of exp decay functions like half life can be utilized.

Half life varies from person to person because different people have differing amounts of enzymes. If you have less enzyme, the reaction will always be slower in your body.... if you have more, it will be faster.

You're probably very sensitive to the blocking effect of bupe. Either that, or you're accustomed to a longer duration, and bupe can cut duration down for quite a bit longer than it can fully block a full agonist ... and the reduced duration is what's getting to you. It WILL go back to normal though, just give it time. Also, keep in mind, bupe is in the same family as etorphine: it's a partial agonist and no good for getting high, but it can really make your tolerance skyrocket

[stvip]

Err, not quite.



Half life varies from person to person because different people have differing amounts of enzymes.

There are several factors influencing intraspecies differences in xenobiotic metabolism at a given time; "differing amounts of enzymes" doesn't quite cut it.

If you have less enzyme, the reaction will always be slower in your body.... if you have more, it will be faster.



Not necessarily.

Half lives are a classic example of exponential decay.

More of a nitpick: a constant half-life defines a true exponential decay, rather than being an example one.

Also, keep in mind, bupe is in the same family as etorphine: it's a partial agonist and no good for getting high, but it can really make your tolerance skyrocket

What does etorphine have to do with anything, why do you call it a partial agonist, and why do you believe it is non-recreational?

[resorcinol]

1)Fair enough. Metabolism isn't a simple one step or one pathway process, so it isn't as simple as I made it sound. However I don't see the need to get deep into elimination kinetics for this question...

Also, available enzyme levels do vary from person to person to a degree (even before considering other drugs that might be hogging the enzymes that metabolize bupe).

2)I was assuming the concentration of the drug (substrate) is held constant. YEAH I know it still doesn't make the statement TOTALLY true, but it's a fair enough generalization.

3)You're right on this one -- that was incredibly poor wording. I did however state later in my post that "half lives are a consequence of the mathematics of exponential decay" or something to that effect.

4)Buprenorphine resembles etorphine chemically: it's that small saturated ring at the end of the chain on the N that makes bupe a partial agonist. I NEVER said etorphine was a partial agonist, it's a full agonist. I'm just pointing out that bupe, because it has such high affinity for the mu receptor, may have tolerance increasing properties that are disproportionately great for the degree of opioid feeling it gives. I never said for sure that the fact that bupe is etorphine-like chemically gives it tolerance boosting superpowers either, but it's POSSIBLE and somethign to consider. What does give it tolerance boosting power is its long T-1/2: the mu-receptors never get a break.

EDIT: I will admit that I'm far from an expert on drug elimination, I just feel like you got really overly nit-picky especially with the poorly worded first part of my post (which I corrected with a later statement). Also, it'd be nice if you'd elaborate on elimination kinetics for MY benefit, because I do want to learn it in more detail. My answer was probably sufficient for this post, but you pointed out certain oversimplifications -- cool -- but, could ya teach me where I'm oversimplifying (without just stating the fact, tell me HOW)? This is how we learn.

[roxi*stardust]

Err, not quite.
There are several factors influencing intraspecies differences in xenobiotic metabolism at a given time; "differing amounts of enzymes" doesn't quite cut it.

Not necessarily.
More of a nitpick: a constant half-life defines a true exponential decay, rather than being an example one.

What does etorphine have to do with anything, why do you call it a partial agonist, and why do you believe it is non-recreational?

Why the nitpicking? The answer given was more than sufficient for the thread. The idea was to explain a highly complex function in a way that was not WAY over everyone's head and I think resorcinol did a pretty damn good job of it with his post. There is simply no use in getting so super highly technical that the OP gets more confused than they were originally. If you have a better way to explain it, why not explain it rather than just picking apart his post without explaination?

[resorcinol]

Further info about bupe:

We don't know very much about BMT compared to MMT. The experience that U.S. MDs that specialize in addiction, and particularly maintenance programs, is much higher for MMT than for BMT simply because buprenorphine is a newer drug that is approved for this purpose.

I personally believe that BMT should be the choice of opioid dependents with lower-end tolerance (perhaps 100 mg oxycodone or equivalent of another opioid or less to get a moderate buzz), while MMT should be reserved for larger habits than that, due to the difficultly of ever stopping MMT should one want to. I think the MMT clinics handle patients who decide they want off opioids totally in a seriously suboptimal way. It should be done like this IMO: 1)Patient is switched to equianalgesic dose of a short half-life opioid like oxycodone or morphine, but not given the full dose they'll be put on until 3 days after last mdone dose so as not to boost tolerance more due to methadone still having high serum concentration on those days 2)after patient is on the full dose, they should be kept on it for 8 half lives of methadone to ensure the metadone is almost totally out of the system before a taper begins 3)When the former two stages are complete, a standard taper for short acting short half life opioids should be begun

^This would require that the patient visit the clinic multiple times per day during the period of switching over to a short acting, getting a steady dose in the system, and then executing the taper from the short acting opioid. However after the taper is finished, visits to the clinic are no more (assuming the patient can acclimate to an opioid free life and doesn't decide to get back on done). It would be really inconvenient for a few months to carry out a slow taper. It would, however, be relatively painless if the taper rate is reasonably slow, and so much easier than tapering done will EVER be by a longshot. Perhaps what gets in the way of this is that clinics are bound by FDA approved uses tighter than individual MDs are, and they can't use short acting opioid drugs for this purpose even with supervised dosing. IMO they need to change the rules to allow this --- it would ameliorate the "liquid handcuffs" deal with methadone.

About BMT, since we don't know as much about it, and it's a partial agonist that exhibits behavior different from full agonists, I do worry about docs overdoing it with BMT. BMT patients do NOT need 30 mg of bupe per day! If your habit is that large, you need MMT. IMO bupe maintenance is not useful above 8 mg / day and patients who aren't covered by that have huge tolerances: MMT candidates.

Bupe is a bastard child of the etorphine family of opioids, and I do worry that it can boost tolerance at such crazy high doses like some sub docs rx without causing typical opioid effects we've come to know and love from full agonists.

EDIT: Of course, tolerance level is difficult to determine for heroin users because heroin users have no clear method for determining how many mg they're taking per day. Pharm users have a leg up here in that they know EXACTLY what their tolerance is. Also, methadone dose required to cover for a habit is NOT, let me make this clear, NOT AT ALL, a good indicator of tolerance level since methadone bioavailability varies quite a bit from person to person. They should "test" for tolerance level in heroin-only users who don't know their opioid tolerance down to the mg by using a short acting opioid like oxycodone (oxycodone b/c it has reliable high, around 90%, oral bioavailability across the population --- better yet they'd use injections of oxycodone HCl ampoules meant for injection to better emulate the heroin injection ritual) in various doses, starting low and increasing -- until the patient says "this amount makes me feel as high as my usual heroin shot" -- then by asking how many shots the person does on average per day -- the clinic has a much clearer idea of the person's tolerance.

[ryan]

Thanks so much for the info resourc...it helped alot.

And stvip, I am not a moron, I did try researching on my own, but the great part of a forum is having cool people here like resourc who can explain things better.

Isn't that the whole point of asking questions here?

:-P

[stvip]

Again, I'll have to detain a full post for later (possibly on a new thread, the issue that interests me is not the specifics of the particular mistakes made here):

If you have less enzyme, the reaction will always be slower in your body....


This is a very wrong answer, not nitpicking - in the sense that if this were a question in an exam, I would not give the answer even partial credit (I'm not a particularly strict grader either), in the sense that it shows a deep luck of understanding of metabolism and Biochemistry, not merely aflub or poor phrasing of an answer.

(briefly: enzymes are proteins, and are subject to genetic variation; they are subject to various regulatory mechanisms and a given mammalian metabolic enzyme is often part of a complex suite operating together; lastly, their environment can and will be vastly different; these factors mean that a given quantity of enzyme can have vastly different activity levels in different people)

I want to emphasize that I'm not attacking Resorcinol personally - this is a different situation from, say, Hammilton's or OxyContinuously's charlatanism - and I'm not questioning his integrity. However it is representative of a wider problem.

[Lil_T]

When I think half-life I think radioactivity...Like carbon dating (decomposition of carbon)...or the decomposition of uranium or the like...

Are the processes similar? Different radioactive atoms in nature have different half-lives; different drugs in the body have different half-lives...

Radioactive atoms, just naturally decompose at a certain rate so that at a certain point in time there will be half of the original mass left. So drugs in the body are decompsed by certain enzymes at a certain rate so that after a time period there will be half of the original mass of the drug left in the system.

Maybe I was just simplifying it in my own mind :)

Edit: I was simplifying it in my own mind...resorcinol, I admire your chemistry knowledge, you would have made a great lab partner, you actually remind me of a good friend I used to have.... I always loved my science teachers, chem and org, chem especially, I think you would make a great one some day :)

[OrangeLude]

Further info about bupe:

We don't know very much about BMT compared to MMT. The experience that U.S. MDs that specialize in addiction, and particularly maintenance programs, is much higher for MMT than for BMT simply because buprenorphine is a newer drug that is approved for this purpose.

I personally believe that BMT should be the choice of opioid dependents with lower-end tolerance (perhaps 100 mg oxycodone or equivalent of another opioid or less to get a moderate buzz), while MMT should be reserved for larger habits than that, due to the difficultly of ever stopping MMT should one want to. I think the MMT clinics handle patients who decide they want off opioids totally in a seriously suboptimal way. It should be done like this IMO: 1)Patient is switched to equianalgesic dose of a short half-life opioid like oxycodone or morphine, but not given the full dose they'll be put on until 3 days after last mdone dose so as not to boost tolerance more due to methadone still having high serum concentration on those days 2)after patient is on the full dose, they should be kept on it for 8 half lives of methadone to ensure the metadone is almost totally out of the system before a taper begins 3)When the former two stages are complete, a standard taper for short acting short half life opioids should be begun

^This would require that the patient visit the clinic multiple times per day during the period of switching over to a short acting, getting a steady dose in the system, and then executing the taper from the short acting opioid. However after the taper is finished, visits to the clinic are no more (assuming the patient can acclimate to an opioid free life and doesn't decide to get back on done). It would be really inconvenient for a few months to carry out a slow taper. It would, however, be relatively painless if the taper rate is reasonably slow, and so much easier than tapering done will EVER be by a longshot. Perhaps what gets in the way of this is that clinics are bound by FDA approved uses tighter than individual MDs are, and they can't use short acting opioid drugs for this purpose even with supervised dosing. IMO they need to change the rules to allow this --- it would ameliorate the "liquid handcuffs" deal with methadone.

About BMT, since we don't know as much about it, and it's a partial agonist that exhibits behavior different from full agonists, I do worry about docs overdoing it with BMT. BMT patients do NOT need 30 mg of bupe per day! If your habit is that large, you need MMT. IMO bupe maintenance is not useful above 8 mg / day and patients who aren't covered by that have huge tolerances: MMT candidates.

Bupe is a bastard child of the etorphine family of opioids, and I do worry that it can boost tolerance at such crazy high doses like some sub docs rx without causing typical opioid effects we've come to know and love from full agonists.

EDIT: Of course, tolerance level is difficult to determine for heroin users because heroin users have no clear method for determining how many mg they're taking per day. Pharm users have a leg up here in that they know EXACTLY what their tolerance is. Also, methadone dose required to cover for a habit is NOT, let me make this clear, NOT AT ALL, a good indicator of tolerance level since methadone bioavailability varies quite a bit from person to person. They should "test" for tolerance level in heroin-only users who don't know their opioid tolerance down to the mg by using a short acting opioid like oxycodone (oxycodone b/c it has reliable high, around 90%, oral bioavailability across the population --- better yet they'd use injections of oxycodone HCl ampoules meant for injection to better emulate the heroin injection ritual) in various doses, starting low and increasing -- until the patient says "this amount makes me feel as high as my usual heroin shot" -- then by asking how many shots the person does on average per day -- the clinic has a much clearer idea of the person's tolerance.

just read your post and not sure if you have been following swim situation in other thread. thank you for your information above. particularly interested in your idea of -- MMT-->short half life opiate taper-->opiate free detox.

swim had 150-250/day oxy/hydro pendancy.
has gone onto mmt and is in process of third successful day.
curious if you have given thought to dosage amounts for the detox you describe above or if you have a calculation that could be used.
ie - if swim were to have 200/mg day oxy/hydo dependency and proceeds to 30/40/50 mg day mmt - for how long does swim need to be on mmt & what is the calculation for taper detox plan on oxy/hydro for getting off the mmt?
what is the fastest way to detox swim safely?
what is the suggested detox taper for swim at the suggested length of mmt?

tried to keep the thinking concise - would be most appreciated if you could give it some thought. realize that there is a curve int he calculation as there is a combination of oxy & hydro which should be given a different value. if you think you want to look at that way cool but if not would suggest using a consistent value for oxy/hydro combo - unless you think differently?

let me know if this interest you and if can be of any help to make calculator?

'Lude

[ImOnOxy87]

Ok guys, so i know most of you probaly dont know me. I've only posted a few times. Besides that though, is that after my car accident and sort of/kind of recovering, they put me back on BMT. It's been about 7 months back on BMT and have recently run into my long time dealer who got me whatever kind of opiates I could possibly want.

Point being, I'm sick of being on bupe, and definately wouldn't mind getting high. So my question to you guys is, How long is it until I can use? My sub doc scripts me 24mg a day, i usually only take about 8-12mg a day. I've UTFSE,and all the reading through of the half lives, and all that other jazz that might be easy to understand when you can use again if your only on subs for a short amount of time, but I have 4 100mg Kadians staring at me, wanting to know when they can enter my veins! As well as some 100mcg patches wanting to be smoked! So if ya could, try and help me figure out when it is that i can use withhout it being a complete waste. Again, I tried my best to understand some of this info dealing with all this, but to no luck, nothin has come to mind. THanks guys. Appreciate any info that will help me back into my oh so lost world of opiate joy!!

[ryan]

Well, if you've read my first post, you would know that I have friends on BMT who take similar amounts that you do that can get high after 6-12 hours of taking a bupe dose.

Me on the other hand, it takes me at least 2 to 3 days of no bupe to even remotely feel a shot of dope.

At first I thought it was the dope but then I went on a run or two with some buds and they were getting thrashed off of it..

So the answer is...there is no answer
Everyone is different...

But-as resource said, bupe is great at doing 2 things..

1.) Raising your tolerance, so when you do use, you will be using alot to get off
2.) Blocking other opioids, so again, if you don't wait long enough or do enough dope, it owns it so it's basically like throwing money down the pisser.

Wish it could be great at getting high, or at least taking cravings away for dope, but god knows it does neither of those things.

Only thing you can do is experiment on yourself, with 2-3 days being the most probable length of time that you will have to wait -- but believe me, it's hard to go that long without taking anything, especially when you have a script full of the mindfuck known as suboxone -- junkie thinks pills will get him high or at least make him feel better, but believe me, they dont and will not.

The one thing I can say though is be careful. Every time you go back and forth your tolerance gets a tad higher. If you do it enough, you just may get to the point where I was a few months ago -- unable to get back on suboxone because it's not strong enough for taking your withdrawals away because your tolerance is so high. Check out the thread "Anyone had buprenorphine not work for them?"

Although some people on here jump back and forth all the time and have no issues.

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- bupe is one of the STRANGEST drugs I've ever seen in the fact that it varies so differently from person to person.

[resorcinol]

Again, I'll have to detain a full post for later (possibly on a new thread, the issue that interests me is not the specifics of the particular mistakes made here):




This is a very wrong answer, not nitpicking - in the sense that if this were a question in an exam, I would not give the answer even partial credit (I'm not a particularly strict grader either), in the sense that it shows a deep luck of understanding of metabolism and Biochemistry, not merely aflub or poor phrasing of an answer.

(briefly: enzymes are proteins, and are subject to genetic variation; they are subject to various regulatory mechanisms and a given mammalian metabolic enzyme is often part of a complex suite operating together; lastly, their environment can and will be vastly different; these factors mean that a given quantity of enzyme can have vastly different activity levels in different people)

I want to emphasize that I'm not attacking Resorcinol personally - this is a different situation from, say, Hammilton's or OxyContinuously's charlatanism - and I'm not questioning his integrity. However it is representative of a wider problem.


Thanks. I was admittedly unsure of that statement as I was posting it, so I'm glad you cleared it up. I have some understanding of feedback mechanisms, genetic variation (genes code for our proteins, I know that), and environment is something I honestly wouldn't have even thought of. I had a hunch that you were getting at the fact that I was ignoring critical variables (that's often the problem when somebody tries to comment above their level of knowledge, it seems). It's alright that you're not giving a full elimination kinetics lecture in a single post -- what you posted is much appreciated :) .

I'm just curious about your last comment. OxyC, yeah, we know he's a charlatan: I think most of us never did believe he was an organic chemist working in industry like he claimed; he pretty much just either "agreed with robojunkie" or dodged comments / questions that he knew he wouldn't even be able to try to answer and it showed.

I'm wondering what makes you think Hammilton is a faker, though (I have no opinion on the issue either in his defense or in agreement that he's a charlatan, since I haven't really scrutinized his posts on here or on bluelight enough to even consider passing judgment). You've got me curious now (I suppose I have a nosey streak in me) -- what's the deal with Hammilton?

[resorcinol]

When I think half-life I think radioactivity...Like carbon dating (decomposition of carbon)...or the decomposition of uranium or the like...

Are the processes similar? Different radioactive atoms in nature have different half-lives; different drugs in the body have different half-lives...

Radioactive atoms, just naturally decompose at a certain rate so that at a certain point in time there will be half of the original mass left. So drugs in the body are decompsed by certain enzymes at a certain rate so that after a time period there will be half of the original mass of the drug left in the system.

Maybe I was just simplifying it in my own mind :)

Edit: I was simplifying it in my own mind...resorcinol, I admire your chemistry knowledge, you would have made a great lab partner, you actually remind me of a good friend I used to have.... I always loved my science teachers, chem and org, chem especially, I think you would make a great one some day :)

Yes they are similar: they both closely follow the mathematical model called exponential decay (and half life, or t-1/2, is a property of drug elimination and radioactive decay, as half life is a property of exponential decay in general).

Stvip is more knowledgeable by far in biochemistry than me, though. I don't have his level of knowledge (yet, it's an aspiration of mine to know it better). It's knowing that there are others with a deeper understanding than I have (robojunkie in org chem, especially the labwork side of it but also synthesis, as I only know synthesis stuff they teach in orgo I and II; stvip in biology / biochemistry as demonstrated in this thread) that makes me a tad uncomfortable with being put on such a revered pedestal like that (although I don't think there's any harm [it's a good thing actually] in being inspired by my DESIRE to learn this stuff ... and it's, well, flattering that I'm an inspiration to anybody, since my family and friends view me as more of a negative influence to junkie like behavior than anything [or is that just by damaged self esteem talking? who knows.] ). I just have to admit that it's a little uncomfy being revered like that when I know damn well that there are peeps here who are way ahead of me in the game of Prometheus so to speak, if that is understandable. I'm not asking you or anybody to stop saying things like that if you wish to and genuinely feel that way (but please, and this isn't referring to you Lil_T but all 'philes in general, only say it if it's a genuine sentiment -- that's all I have to insist), but I'd be out of emotional alignment if I didn't acknowledge and openly admit to my slight discomfort with being flattered with regard to this stuff.

I sometimes feel that the fact that I'm more of a feelings and harmony oriented than logic oriented person (remember MBTI, based on Jung's cognitive processes, I test INFJ and the F isn't even close to the middle, I'm a solid F, which means I prefer to decide things from the emotional / human element than by solid logic, although being introverted and intuitive also certainly encourages the INFJ peeps to try to incorporate logic into their emotions-based values systems as much as possible). Where I (and others like me) have to be careful is that we don't twist logic fallaciously to MAKE IT FIT our values: it's best, if the logic doesn't work with a value integral to myself, for me to simply say that it isn't logical and not to try to make it so. It's ok to incorporate logic if it stands solidly alone in defense and/or to persuade others of the intrinsic value of the value :p

I'm guilty of sometimes abusing logic (geeze, I'm just an all around abuser, opioids and logic abuse, whoa). I'm trying to be better about it though and only incorporate logic when it stands up as logic into parts of my values system. If a part or particular value is simply not logical, I have to get used to just accepting that and saying so if queried about it.

I also sometimes feel as if being an "F" makes me view science differently than "T" folks who are into science. This is not necessarily "wrong", not at all, although correctness absolutely matters -- and that's not what I'm really getting at here anyway. It's more that ... this is difficult to explain ... I view science from a very abstracted and conceptual point of view, and vicariously through the human element. This sometimes leads me to under-consider hard "scientific method" experimentation and blindly theorize without doing a valid experiment to "test" it before I move right on to the next theory. I know I've gotta watch this if I go down a science path in my life. I'm not the only "F" to do so, but while being introverted and intuitive gives us conceptual prowess equal to the INTs, we're behind the curve so to speak when it comes to the colder, logical, hard experimental side of science. The other part of it is that science fields are dominated, at high levels of concepts and mathematics alike, by "T / Thinking" individuals (who are typically also N, and more I than E too) -- leaving the few of us INF types who do find interest in science feeling just a little alienated. I like stvip's approach of trying to teach me v. criticizing me for my gloss overs (including flat out incorrect info like the enzyme part). One thing "INF" types who are into science bring to science is the ability to "interface" with non-geeky people that "INT" types seem to, at least anecdotally, categorically lack. We're the great de-jargonizers; we can put techie speak more in reach of non-techie people (although some topics are still very complex even when re-framed to be easier to grasp, and some people just won't be able to wrap around it, which isn't a character flaw -- people are different. some of those folks may be incredibly kinaestetically intelligent... great dancers, artists, singers ... equally great talents. Or logistically intelligent ... great managers, leaders, decorators, finders of applications for innovative technology ... more equally great talents).

I just feel very afraid sometimes that more logic oriented people already up in the hard physical science cabal will be intolerant of my viewing of science vicariously through the human element and the emotional values system that I feel is what I need to achieve self actualization. It's a fear of mine that is there ... honestly, it really is. I like to believe others will help me not be so behind the curve with regard to logic and the cold hard experimentation ... build my weaker skills ... and that they'll take my theories and help me test them. I just worry that some folks who are very "T", very logic, in the sciences, will have no tolerance whatsoever for the way I simply cannot help but being... it is who I am. It sometimes scares me to death.

Even if you don't buy the "MBTI" personality cognitive processes one iota, this is still applicable (that I have more "emotional" than "logical" traits yet am still excellent at conceptualizing, theorizing, and have interest in physical sciences).