Articles by alfa

Smoking Cessation Products: There are a vast array of smoking cessation products available, however, availability differs from country to country. These products include: Transdermal patches (16 and 24-hour in varying strengths.) Chewing Gum (varying strengths) Lozenges that are dissolved...

Quitlines Quitlines are a phone support service which can help in the process of quitting nicotine addiction: Country Organization Website Telephone Australia Australian National Preventative Health Agency quitnow 131 848 137 848 Austria Rauchertelefon rauchertelefon.at 0810810 013 Monday to...

a) Benzodiazepines. These are very often used to assist with the anxiety and sleeplessness of withdrawal. I have not seen conclusive evidence to sway me either way as to their efficacy. They will not help you sleep in serious withdrawal, at least not in "sensible" or even moderately stupid...

My own view is no; ideally not. Stimulant use is utterly contraindicated, as although it might temporarily relieve the stress and boredom, the comedown and/or anxiety will seek a natural resolution in opiate use. Alcohol is for the most part a no-no, as it lowers inhibitions and consequently...

Because 5 days is enough, by my reckoning, to adjust to a 5mg drop in dose. Ideally a slow taper should contain good days (i.e. the 5th day after a drop) but no "stagnation days"; hence I haven't said drop 5mg and stay on that for two weeks or a month, before making the next drop. In such a case...

Although lofexidine is approved for home detox, clonidine is not. The main reason is that clonidine is a hypotensive (it lowers blood pressure). It is a very good idea to invest in a blood-pressure monitor and to miss a dose of clonidine if your blood pressure falls below 90/60 [These are APA...

Fairly quick taper. From a stable dose of methadone, reduce by 5mg a day until you stop. From 20mg down use alpha-2-adrenergics (preferably lofexidine, if available, otherwise clonidine). On the 20mg methadone day take 2 0.2mg pills lofexidine (Britlofex) each pill being 0.2mg) or 2 0.1mg pills...

If you wish to switch to buprenorphine, reduce as above (if necessary) until you hit 20 mg, then after 5 days of methadone 20mg, wait between 36 and 72 hours (the longer the better) until you are experiencing as severe a withdrawal as possible then switch to 16mg mg buprenorphine a day. I have...

From a stable dose of methadone, reduce by 5 mg every 5 days until you hit 20mg. Then reduce by 2.5mg every 5 days and then stop. Although adding an alpha-2-adrenergic agonist to a slow taper is not shown to significantly increase success rates, I would nevertheless suggest consider taking 2...

Chances are you're going to resort to more conventional means. The fact that there are so many tapering strategies rather than one definitive method lends credence to the idea that no one way is universally better. To get some idea of the complexity of the issue, the following meta-analysis in...