DOSE:	10 mg		Pharms - Buprenorphine	(daily)
	1 mg		Pharms - Clonazepam	(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

92 kg

I'm just writing to illustrate some of the nasty side effects I got from taking opioids and benzos - I made them a favourite thing of mine for about thirteen years on and off, since I first tried them towards the end of high school. I have been on high doses of methadone and alprazolam in the past. I used to get so off my face that other junkies would steal my pills and threaten to bash me. I didn't care; I thought I had it made, getting government-subsidised drugs for next to nothing and sleeping some 18 hours a day, eating sushi and chicken snack wraps that I used to make while high.

I was homeless on and off for several years and would always seem to associate with the worst scum of society. My decent, hard-working parents were distraught, but I considered them hypocrites and preferred the company of those who seemed to 'understand' me.

I got out of jail towards the end of this May for a non-drug-related incident: a fire that I lit while in a psychotic state. Since then I have more or less cleaned up and made a full recovery (yet again), but I had something of a relapse not long ago and it has left me sick and irritated with several health problems which I shall henceforth outline.

Having completed my IT certificate and gone on school break, I decided the time was ripe to get off my face. Thus, I got on the buprenorphine about a month ago; was on it for several weeks, I can't remember how many. My psychiatrist prescribed me 20x 2mg clonazepam tablets 'for sleep' (obviously an off-label indication for what is usually a drug for epilepsy, at least here in Australia). My new doctor, who prescribed the buprenorphine, also put me on five Valium tablets a day to pick up with my Suboxone at the pharmacy.

At first I liked the Suboxone. It gave me energy and motivation and I had a great time developing a website dedicated to revising all my IT study from the past semester. Then, before long, I decided it wasn't working for me. My friend told me I looked 'sick.' My landlord caught me stuffing my face with beef stir-fry in the kitchen while heavily sedated, which was embarrassing, though I can't remember his exact comments. I had to pay $40 a week to the chemist and $40 a month to the doctor. Being stingy, I decided that the money was better spent on expensive rare trading cards (old-school Magic: the Gathering, for those of you that know that game), and so one day I just dropped out picking up the Suboxone, jumped off the benzos, and went cold turkey.

It was easy enough coming off 10mg buprenorphine per day after only a few weeks on it, but one major problem with getting off it was that I developed stomach problems and have not been able to consume alcohol or caffeine without serious aches in the gut and diarrhea. I have been taking loperamide tablets for most of this week and I am just waiting for the day I have a normal bowel movement. Indeed, intestinal health problems are one of the great woes of opioid use. It gets worse. At some point I noticed that I was forming boils under my skin, which I put down to the clonazepam use - it has this great tendency to shoot my immune system to hell and leave me with serious skin problems. Some of the skin started peeling on my face and I am left with a couple of brown blotches, one right in my forehead; not a major issue, but one I wish had never happened.

Anyway. Fairly mild health complaints for a short-term binge on pharmaceuticals, but annoying nonetheless. Watch out for problems with your gastrointestinal tract when coming off opioids and skin problems when on or coming off benzodiazepines. I built up a tolerance to them after a while to the point where they don't work any more.

Overall, a thumbs down for addictive drugs from my end.

Exp Year: 2017	ExpID: 109886
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 31
Published: May 31, 2019	Views: 2,457
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Pharms - Buprenorphine (265), Pharms - Clonazepam (125) : Combinations (3), Health Problems (27), Addiction & Habituation (10), Not Applicable (38)