A New Idea for Opiate Withdrawal

[Morfiend]

NOTE: If this has been considered before or researched please let me know, I am not trying to take credit for someone else's idea

I wasn't going to share this yet because I haven't been able to test it, but I figured what better an opportunity to have it tested than to share it with the community! After all, I can't go through withdrawal enough alone to test it. However, I want to make it clear that I am not a doctor and can not guarantee any results. If anyone could test this or add to the idea/refine it that would be fantastic. I think this has potential to really alter our perception of what treatment really is.

I noticed that our mentality when considering how to fix a symptom is always "what should I take?" ... well if opiate withdrawal can make you feel terrible by altering the brain in a certain way temporarily, then why couldn't the withdrawal of another drug alter the same part of the brain in "the opposite way" and essentially medicate opiate withdrawal?!

Well as many of you know, clonidine is effective in treating opiate withdrawal because it decreases adrenergic neurotransmission from the locus coeruleus while opiate withdrawal increases the firing of these neurons. This is all fine and good, but clonidine has it's own withdrawal syndrome... replacing addiction is not curing addiction. I spent many days in the library searching for a drug that would increase adrenergic neurotransmission from the locus coeruleus and thus possibly decrease neurotransmission if a dependence to it was established.

So the concept is that a certain number of days before discontinuing opiate intake, you would take this other mystery drug regularly and in slightly excessive doses and then discontinue it at the same time as discontinuing opiates. The withdrawal syndromes of each drug would counteract the other making it a manageable transition without the administration of any drugs during withdrawal!

So what is this mystery drug? Well after some research I discovered that Orexin-A, a hypothalamic peptide with analgesic properties that is naturally occurring activates locus coeruleus cell firing. Orexin neurons are activated by a drug that goes by the name of Modafinil (marketed as Provigil). Although some claim that Modafinil lacks a discontinuation syndrome, there is a lot of evidence to the contrary and some scientists blame a recent increase in narcolepsy (which it is prescribed to treat) on the abuse of this drug. This drug is schedule IV and easily makes it past customs and law enforcement is lenient with it. [And btw it's the best drug in the world to counteract mental fogginess from opiates]

I believe that a possible treatment of opiate withdrawal could be to take approx 400mg of Modafinil per day for 5 days straight WITH your normal opiate dosing and discontinue both Modafinil and your opiates at the same time.

I have not tested this yet and can't vouge for it other than this brief explanation of the research I have been doing and answering any questions you may have. I would be extremely grateful if anyone tested this and posted results or did any supplementary research on the subject. There may be a much more appropriate drug than Modafinil, but I haven't found it yet. This is all theory at the moment.

[hovadagod]

interesting. Just dont take provigil with kratom. Some dude died allegedly from that.

[Duckfeet]

No Free Lunch...every few years they come up w/new treatment...I've yet to run across one that was any good, or that worked better at getting over this shit....I can't stand kicking at all anymore, and get strungout on just a few perks, etc.and always, inevitablly, end up back on heroin, even tho I hate Calif tar, so I"m slowly, once more, trying the only detox that was ever painless, which is methadone...and "painless" I realize is a relative term....

[Morfiend]

My first intuition was caffeine because taking 600mg or so of caffeine for 4 days straight and then not taking it eliminates elevation in metabolism in the locus coeruleus. The effects of chronic caffeine administration may be highly effective as this area of the brain has a different adenosine concentration since it is in the brain stem and not the neo-cortex. Caffeine is also legal and more available. Can anyone refute this right off the bat?

[nick]

Provigil huh.Good luck with that.

[DCBA]

Yeah, being wired while on withdrawal,

Not my cup of tea, but hey there are people who do coke while on opiate WD so who am i to say its not a possible way.. but surely not for me..

[mart1n]

One problem I'm seeing with all of this is Clonidine doesn't really help that much with W/D. (At least not for me). So if you're trying to find the W/D of some drug that has the same type of effects as taking Clonidine, I wouldn't be that interested unless it does it much better than Clonidine and actually does something to help with W/D. That's just my 2 cents, but maybe Clonidine does help some people better than It helps me.

[Morfiend]

Yeah, being wired while on withdrawal,

Not my cup of tea, but hey there are people who do coke while on opiate WD so who am i to say its not a possible way.. but surely not for me..

You aren't taking the stimulants while withdrawaling... I don't understand, you become dependent on them and then discontinue taking them when you discontinue taking opiates

@mart1n: I've never used Clonidine myself so I only know what I've read... so if what you say is true for most people then that's definitely a reasonable concern as far as the effectiveness of this method would go.