Bupe Help, want to stop shooting buprenorphine and start taking it sublingually again.

[joeburden]

I Quit about 92 days ago

Haven't used suboxone since.

Look into other activities to get your mind off shooting up; this helped me a lot.

and WOW, congrats captain!! I used to frequent the suboxone megathread on this board and your name was one of the ones I remembered as being one of the most helpful, its really encouraging to hear that you could stop for over 90 days.

how long did the worst last? any tips that worked for you that you havent seen plastered all over these forums?

either way congrats man, I hope to say the same thing this summer

 

[sstalker]

Same story here guys..I wrote in almost every bupe related thread,hoping to get help and opinion from different people..I shoot this lame ass bupe every singler day 4 year and half.Got addicted to the needle before and now i just can't stop..I quit the bupe once,2 years ago..Let me tell u how...

I took 5 tramadol and 1 diasepam 5mg every day 4 two-3 weeks.Did some H occasionally.Mabye 4 -5 times in that period.I started feeling great again.I'll never forget that feeling.And being the junky that i am,i said to myself: man it was easy to quit the bupe,i can do it every time i want to..Now i got hooked on bupe again and got the worst needle fixation.I'm shooting 2-3 times a day.Someday if i have the force with me i shoot only 1.I curse and swear myself every day 4 that.And the most ironic is that i know all the damage i do to my body and i still do it...Sometimes i feel so desperate about this and i think i'll never stop again...I want to snort it as a substitude but my nose is always shut from previous drug snorting..So that fails..SL ,no way cause i don't feel shit..I have to take 24 mg that way...Now i am on 6mg.

I know i may be bothering with the same thing buy i really really need some help..I know it takes willpower,wich i have..but the thing is i enjoy it a lot.I want to stop only because of the fear of loosing any limb..That terrifyes me..But still i do it.Like i'm cursed.PLZ HELP! And good luck to all of u guys who have the same problem..I'll share a verse from 1 of my favourite bands Goribor:

,,I hope that the force that have been saving my veins so far,will still be with me'' ........

 

[rockhousesally]

Hello All,
This is my first post. I have gained some information from this site in the past; however things weren't bad enough for me to take the time to actually register, post, etc. I am 32 years old and am engaged. I am a Sociology student and my fiance and I run a Masonry company. Bottom line: we were both Heroin addicts on and off for many years. We've done well and gotten our lives together on more than one occasion for years at a time. I have been recently "sober" for a year and a half. When I use (Black and White) I am homeless, I weigh 115 pounds, and I am MIA from all friends, family, and society at large. When I met my fiance I was in this state of being. Existing only to get high. He had been off of black for 2 years at that point but was "shooting sub." I was homeless and had a lot of potential. So we fell in love and he allowed me to hustle and helped me to get dope for about 2 months until I was told I needed to get on sub or he couldn't live like this anymore. So I did. He had been shooting sub for 2 years and had worked in UCSD Lab doing addiction research for several years post-grad. So I trusted him that it was safe. However, when our pharmacy changed from Roxanne Lab Subutex to High Tech we started noticing horrible side effects. i got thrombosis and "popeye hands." I can't even wear my engagement ring anymore. Anyway, I know it is in the opinion of some that it's better just to shoot dope again. But I can't do that. He can't do that. We have built our lives and are able to exist and thrive in society as a result of sub. But we CANNOT stop fucking shooting it!!! I am afraid that the cornstarch is building up in our hearts/lungs but I can't find many scholarly articles on the long term effects. Is there anybody out there that TRULY knows about this stuff. Not just speculation or subjective interpretations. I mean real medical knowledge. We need help. Thank you, Julia.

 

[HelloFelonKitty]

I was shooting bupe for a while, 6-7 months or something. But, what made me stop.. is that I was destroying my veins and I realized that I was doing so in vain (no pun intended). My veins were already damaged from years of shooting dope and coke, so I had to cherish the ones I had left.. and shooting my suboxone was killing them. So, when I would go back to using dope (something actually worth IV'ing), it was so much harder because I had fucked up my veins with dumb ass bupe. That made me say fuck it, I'm done pointlessly doing this.

So, you asked how to stop.. think about it logically. You're doing tons of damage to your veins, taking all the health risks of IV'ing, all for basically nothing.. as bupe has no rush, etc. It basically feels the exact same way as taking it SL. You'll have to take about double whatever dose you are IV'ing when you switch to SL and you'll become used to it pretty quickly.

If you're really having an issue stopping and staying away from the needle, then start slowly maybe. Start taking it SL half the time for a while to get used to it, and get a little further from the needle, and then switch to taking it all SL. That way the change wont be so sudden.

^This, right here. Same exact thing except I was ruining my veins so much (not to mention getting cotton fever more than I'd like to admit) that I resorted to hitting in my foot. One day, I hit in one of those really touchy veins; The kind where you have it, then you breathe and it's enough t make you miss. Yay! a register! Nope, that burns, ugh. t was getting bad, like taking longer and longer and an hour later i'm all bloody and nasty and wanting to just die. Anyway, after about an hour of trying to hit this one touchy little vein in my foot, I needed to get out of my bathroom so in frustration, I just pushed what was left. Big mistake, burned like hell. Bigger mistake, it hurt real bad the next day, then I felt nothing. The skin looked bruised, but was just blackened and sinking in-necrosis. One day a hole appeared; I peeked in and could see my tendons and bones. Took months to heal and I'm glad I didn't lose my foot/toes, but after that and never being able to hit when I actually had something decent, I just accepted the fact that I needed to double my SL dose and knock it off.

 

[zunny18]

Hey, I'm the OP of this thread, and I know its been a while since I posted. I was actually glad to see all the replies! I am also glad to learn I wasn't the only one being foolish and IV'ing my subutex. I'm on methadone now, I had a baby so I switched off the subutex after he was born. In the past two weeks I've recently started back IV'ing things. I moved from SC to AZ and was introduced to meth (YAY me, right?!) and we found out my partner of 3 years has Hep C, and we shared a needle like ten or more times a day since we met. It was surprising to me to find out that I don't have it. Our clinic keeps testing me every month and I'm still negative. I'll probably try to find a thread on that topic, although I'm having trouble learning how to do that, but if anybody wants to reply to me about what they think may be up with that I'd really appreciate it.
To everyone who may read this and may be struggling with needle fixation or IV'ing buprenorphin, please stop. I got a blood infection from hell and I had to have an emergency IV placed in my neck. That freaked me out. My veins are all gone, like someone said above they are hard and have a weird layer covering them. I can't even imagine what they look like on the inside from my bad decision making. Switching to methadone saved me from my love affair with needles for about 6 months. Probably would have been longer if I wasn't living with someone who still uses anything and everything daily.
Just don't do it if you can bear not shooting up. 2 years of it completely destroyed my veins. I mean, unless you enjoy getting your blood drawn from the inside of your wrists (which sucks a big fat one, btw).

Now, if only I could beat the desire to do meth out of me now, too.

 

[valhallaex]

I personally had this experience yesterday. I have been shooting subutex and before that I went through a faze where occasionally shot my suboxone. Well I got some dope yesterday and had trouble finding a vein and missed a two bag shot I was so mad at myself. Also does subutex block opiates in the same way suboxone does? Because I know the dope was decent and I had done a subutex the night before but I didn't feel it. I might have taken some suboxone with the subutex the night before but I am not sure.

 

[watermellon]

There's hope man i made a thread just like this a few months ago and walked away from the spike. Same needle fixation as you man it was hard as fuck, almost as hard as giving up dope but with a little will power it can be done. Do your self a favor and look up all the complications related to shooting bupe, that's what really made me walk away from it. I shot about 1.5-2mg a day for a year and half. By the grace of god I didn't fuck up any of my veins, and i didn't have the best hr either. Re-used spikes 5,6,7 times, didn't micron filter, never rotated injection sites, I used the 2 veins in crook of my elbow b/c all the other veins would roll and i would miss. The 2 i used i never missed a drop so I take it that's part of the reason I didn't loose any veins. I walked away with 2 tiny scars that's all but you might not be so lucky

Good luck man

 

[Ejay050916]

Ive been injecting for almost 4 years. I want to stop also. My mood highly depends on if i get a hit or not...

 

[tacodude]

Just reduce the IV until you can take 8 mg sublingual with 30℅ bioavailability, which is equivalent to about 2.6 IV. it will be as difficult or simple as you make it for yourself

 

[Treefa]

I'd like to agree, but I think it all comes down to priorities.

IF you have this so called "needle fixation" I'd agree with that "Dumbass hospital Doctor" that it does not exist.
BUT deeply rooted, crippling drug addiction does exist, and if you're that attatched to the needle, it's more than likely that you have a problem organizing your priorities. Or just a very, very serious drug problem. Maybe a combination of both.

As long as you put drugs first above everything else in your life, you might as well be injecting, cause that's no way to live anyhow. There's a balance in life.

I agree with Tacodude^, You can do this the easy way, or you can do it the hard way.

It's completely up to you....but if those poor people can wake up at 5am over there in Syria and Iraq without commiting suicide by noon, I don't see any reason why somebody couldn't kick ANY drug, by ANY R.o.A. Given the required amount of determination.

But if you're not 100% committed don't even waste your time, cause it's gonna take a lot of work.

It's gonna take some pretty serious devotion to abolish yourselves from that hell, but It can be done.
You just have to want it bad enough.
The only thing that can really even try stop you from kicking it is yourself....or perhaps possession by a demonic spirit, but that's for another thread!

Godspeed, and never forget what amazing things even the feeblest of human beings can do when circumstance demands it...you'd be surprised how tough we are, even alone.

 

[kleinerkiffer]

Ive been injecting for almost 4 years. I want to stop also. My mood highly depends on if i get a hit or not...

How much do you IV ?
And please use a micron filter!

 

[CruelBri]

Best bet and the closest i have found to shooting is plugging... but what i had been doing is splitting a 8 mg pill (the white circles into quarters and just shoving a little quarter of the pill up in my bum before i go into shower and by he time im basically out of the shower i feel it.... idk how effective this is because i dont make it into a liquid form first but i still feel it. It releives me from constipation, and the dry nose i get when i shoot subsutex. I myself am gonna try and stop shooting subs once i run out of microfilters just because its still really not healthy.

 

[Ilove2nod]

Yeah I am stuck on IV bupe as well... cannot go back to any other ROA, unless I am absolutely forced into it! But usually that doesn't happen.. I have to agree with CruelBri, that plugging is most definitely the next best ROA, and is totally harmless for your body, possibly even being safer than taking it sublingual! I have seen long time sub addicts, who only ever have taken it sublingual since subs were put on the market... they lost teeth, and had horrible tooth decay from the binders/fillers in suboxone and the flavor/coloring is what was the main culprit I believe, with both the strips and the pills.. seriously! its not good on your teeth if you take it a lot for a long time, sublingually.. I guess they prob could have avoided this by simply brushing their teeth more often, which they claimed they did daily.. but I don't believe that..

Anyways, when I have plugged bupe in the past, its truly not far off from how IV bupe feels... has a fast onset, not like IV fast, but still kicks in, and kicks in strong like 5-8 mins at the most, after plugging it... I have always made it into a liquid solution, just like I would prepping it for IV, using only 2mg or less at a time... and the first time I did this, I was amazed by how strong it felt! It truly felt something like a potent full agonist opioid/opiate! Around 4-5 mins after pushing the solution in my bum, I felt this heavy, strong and warm opioid buzz come over me... cant even compare it to anything else I have done.. almost felt like oxycodone and dilaudid mixed together, just not THAT strong.. it lasted longer than IV does for me at least, and had me feeling great all day, from just 2mg plugged...

So, yeah...now that I have a pretty much unlimited needle supply, I just cant help but want to slam it every dose... sublingual is my LEAST favorite ROA to take subs... I hate the taste of pills, even just plain bupe/subutex... its fucking gross, and I hate how I have so much saliva build up in my mouth.. and I also hate not being able to talk to anyone for like 30 mins, as I will not swallow or spit out the bupe before 30 mins, even though it still works if you do it less time, like 10 mins-15 mins... I just had this weird obsession of taking it for no less than 30mins when I sub'l took my bupe.. Sniffing is my next favorite ROA to plugging, out of the 4 I have tried, and really are even possible, besides oral which is useless with bupe.. its also got a fairly fast onset, not as fast as plugging or IV, but not nearly as long as sublingual has, and lasts around the same amount of time plugging it would last... but its not very good for you, so I don't recommend it..

Plugging bupe FTW.. its harmless and works great, with a nice buzz too! If I didn't have a needle addiction, which most definitely IS a real thing, I would surely plug my bupe again...

 

[Ilove2nod]

You should just shoot H if you're going to be using a needle man. It's hard to stop shooting bupe but it can be done. Try switching to intranasal before going strait to subing. That might help things out. Best of luck, brother

Worst advice I have ever read, just shoot H??? Why would that help anyone? That kind of defeats the entire purpose of suboxone/subutex maintenance.. that is why subs exist, to stop people from craving dope... it stopped me from craving it, just took a week or two of getting used to, to fully want the subs instead of dope... and also taking it other ROAs than sublingual, which wasn't totally working out for me... didn't like the subtle effect it gave, and numerous other factors with that ROA, but when I switched to other ROAs, sniffing, pluggin, etc... I actually fell in love with bupe..

Not saying its good to inject bupe either, but its definitely much safer, if you use a proper and clean technique to shoot it, and aren't totally clueless.. Neither dope or bupe is good to shoot, but the chances of dying from shooting bupe are much slimmer, OD wise at least... still, its never good to shoot pills, and I regret ever doing it.

 

[needlejuice]

God I haven't been on here in years. I've been shooting subutex for the last six plus years. A long time. I'm only 29 and got on suboxone when it first came out. I know I am an anomaly bc I am the only one out of my friends who have accessible veins left and never had endocarditis or even one abscess. I have been pushing my luck so hard and two days from now will be the first time I've seen a sub dr in five years. I am troubled bc I know if he gives me subutex I will make enough money off them to quickly get on my feet and get a new car and house. However if he gives me suboxone barely anyone in my area wants to buy those and I get no benefit from shooting it. I know it doesn't make u sick if u shoot it but I'll be damned if the naloxone doesn't have a peripheral effect. I have switched to sniffing for a few weeks when I leave town n don't wanna carry rigs and have had no problems which makes this even more ridiculous. I have sooo many reasons to stop and have lost people I was so close with due to this. I still don't know if it's a needle fixation or what but the only thing that really strays me away is when I get super stoned. For some reason it makes me trip on needles and I throw them all away but getting high is bad for my brain as well