Yo, it has to do more with the dose than with the time, though 72 hours is what i always recommend (half life being 36hours)....when I took blocking dose (~2mg) I had to wait or take hefty doses of opioids to get a slight buzz...but when I was wearing the Butrans patch (wearing just one, preferably a 10mg one).
I thought with patches it was all the same causse i've been scripted 4x20ug/hr 20mg Butrans at first...there were no pills and I needed it for manteinance, as I said I'm blessed with having doctors with empathy and knowledge about addiction.....
Well big mistake, once I was traveling thru South America with my later to be former wife.... I forgot.lost the patches and i got in a panic, called all my doc contacts and my int'l medical insurance, I was at the best hospital in the town 4 hours after getting of the plane...and well we looked like foreig drugged out drug geeks... They treated me like shit until I started calling my doctor/professor/connected people list and putting them on speakerphone...the nurse put me in a wheelchair and in 10 mins i was with a rotor who wanted to give me morphine, I explained about the precipitated wf's and I also explained how I had read that county's Vademecum and knew they had Buprenorphine patches (he had no idea what Bupe was and was the head of the polytoxicomany dept.)...well he couldn't believe I was articulate, let alone smart and leading a life being on all the drugs I was scripted, he was scared shitless about how much benzos I took....well I got the patches, didn't expect much, ended up wearing up to 5 35mcg/hr together a day (well3 days, that's how much they lasted) Transtec patches cause there were no bupe pills for manteinance on that country, and no opioid could break through, I nodded and was great for sex, eventually I weaned off the obscene amount, the docs were so dumb they thought there was just one patch in the box when there were 5 (I saved so much $) so I was getting 5 20mg 35ug/hr patches every 3 days, at a really conservative country with more conservative doctors...and they were more amazed at my benzo tolerance, my medical knowledge and contacts and the fact I didn't hide I was Jewish and wore more make up than my 10year younger Asian American Girlfriend that spoke no spanish, and the fact that we were obviously big time druggies but had all these academic knowledge, were Aesperger weirdos in such a Catholic country (the 2nd most Catholic country in the world, the country of Pinochet) scared them way much more and they ended up being much more script happy...I could always call an American Psychiatric Association asshole and put him on speakerphone and i ended up telling the Pinochet Loving 70 year old Doctor what and how to write and the local laws regarding the drugs he was gonna script me....can't complain, I heard a story about this guy that forgot to take Loperamide to Cuba....Shitty Trip literally), taking really low sublingual doses doesn't interfere with the high of other opioids.....but I'm talking 125mcg doses, I also felt great on the first days before withdrawal set in...I'm clean of bupe for 29days, think 30 today
if you have access to both H and Bupe an dunno if you're gonna be using H that day try doing sub-blocking doses, that way you also get more of the norbuprenorphine which I found really anti-depressant!
A combo I liked doing but that you'll probably all hate is Buprenorphine and Tramadol, doesn't matter the dose bupe doesn't block Tramadol, and tramadol doesn't cause precipitated wd's...guess I lime more the antidepressant and really light opioid effect....but when 30mg hydrocodone don't break through 300mg tramadol did....sorry for the rant hope was hopeful....you scripted the bupe? for how long you've been taking them?