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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards | negrogesic

Suboxone for Heroin Overdose

C

capRx

Bluelighter
Joined
May 19, 2007
Messages
107
I'm going to give the story of what happened. If you want it summed up in a sentence, you can scroll to the bottom.

**Story**

A couple nights ago, my friend called me up and told me he was in town. I haven't seen him in almost 6 months, so to celebrate I decided to give him some tar that I've been using for the past week.

He was drinking throughout the night, so to start off I prepped him and myself a small shot of H, probably around 25mg each. He handled it well. Three hours later he was asking for another shot, so I prepped another one with about the same amount as the last. I shot myself. It was taking him longer to hit himself, so I left the room to get something to eat.

While I was in the other room talking to my roommate, I shouted at my friend to come into the other room to get something to eat with us. I didn't get a response, so I went to the other room to find my friend lying on my bed; blue lips, blue fingers, labored breathing, and unresponsive.

His eyelids were shut and when I opened them, his eyes were rolled back with miotic pupils. Face pale, lips blue, fingers blue up to the second knuckle. At one point he had very labored, shallow breaths and there were times where he just wasn't breathing at all. Along with this, his heart was going crazy and the side of his neck was tuning red (I don't know why that happened).

I didn't know what to do. The first thing I did was try to talk to him; no response. I then started to shake him; still nothing. I started to give him CPR, then remembered that I had a Narcan kit. I stopped the CPR and looked for the kit all over my room, only to remember that I left it at my parents house (1 1/2 hours away from where I live). Fuck. I tried thinking of what else I could give him. I had uppers (meth, dex-amp, ecstasy), but didn't think any of these would help and all of the downers were out of the question. I then looked on my counter and saw a Suboxone package (they were the new sublingual strips that came out, not the pills).

**My thinking was that the buprenorphine would kick off both the 6-MAM and the morphine at the mu and kappa opioid receptors (both of which contribute to respiratory depression), and that it would only give a partial response at the mu receptor as a partial agonist, and no response at the kappa receptor as an antagonist.**

My hands were shaking, so I fumbled with trying to open the Suboxone package. I pulled out the strip and tried to cut it in half. I ended up with about 3/4 of the strip (so about 6mg buprenorphine/1.5mg naloxone), opened his mouth and placed it under his tongue. At first, it didn't seem to be doing anything so I did some more CPR and was about to pick him up to take him to the hospital. About 5 minutes later he was still unconscious, but started to slowly gasp for air. 10-15 minutes post suboxone his breathing started to improve, color started coming back to his fingers and lips, and he finally gained consciousness.


**Summed up Story**

My friend OD'd on heroin/alcohol and recovered after I gave him 3/4 of a 8mg/2mg Suboxone sublingual strip.


Have any of you guys heard of this working or had a similar experience with reversing an overdose? Thanks!

-CAP

(Disclaimer: I am not condoning the use of Suboxone for an opiate overdose. Suboxone still exhibits a respiratory depression effect and may not reverse the effects of all poly-drug overdose cases. If you or someone you know suspects an overdose to have occurred, immediately administer naloxone (Narcan) and call 911 or go the the nearest hospital for help. Also, the above story is fictional and used for entertainment purposes only. I have never possessed or administered heroin or any other illegal substance to myself or anyone else.)
 
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You precipitated w/d right at the right time. Great thinking, and great job bro. It was your quick thinking that saved your friends life, He should be in debt to your improvisation.
 
It was beautiful of what you did... I will keep saying this in different ways every time it gets a new post...
 
Yeah you did the right thing, makes u think twice about full agnostics i love my strips they saved my life :)
 
FPU4eva said:
Yeah you did the right thing, makes u think twice about full agnostics i love my strips they saved my life :)
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Yes...

You just proved yourself as a very loving person. If you live amongst a drug community, I'm sure you will be a hero.
 
Thank you Psychedelic Jay. But I don't think I should be looked at as a hero. I just did what anyone would have done if their friend OD'd..

I'm just glad that no one was hurt and I didn't have to go to the hospital or have an ambulance come to my place (would have cost a shitload of $money$).

But the biggest deterrent for me not calling 911 or going to the hospital were legal issues! I didn't want the cops coming to my house and arresting me for possession or possible attempted manslaughter or asking me questions at the hospital, just for trying to save my friends life! its fucking bullshit if you ask me. There should be a law that gives amnesty to people who call 911 during a drug overdose..

just my 2 cents..
 
This happened to me today unfortunately, my friend usually takes subs but was injured a few weeks ago and has been shooting H because the pain meds the doc rx'd him didn't work with his tolerance (I'm guessing the doc never knew about his sub use, and I never bothered to ask).

Anyway, I'm on subs and was hanging out with my friend who had just scored a large amount of H. He was shooting up like usual (I've seen him quite a bit since he was injured and he hasn't hidden the fact that he's shooting up again.) then all of a sudden he was unresponsive. I thought maybe he was just nodding but I couldn't get any response out of him and he started to turn blue. I kept yelling at him, shaking him.. no response. I was scared to death and didn't know what to do, without thinking I took an 8mg sublingual suboxone out of my wallet and pulled his mouth open and put the sub under his tongue.

At this point I was terrified, I never had this happen to me before and I've never injected drugs before and don't normally hang around people who do. I was about to call 911 when he finally took a breath, he began to twitch a little bit and slowly came back around.

He said he didn't shoot any more H than usual but it was a new batch. He told me he didn't think the sub was what brought him out of it and I have no idea if it did either (ironically he's a medical professional who saves people's lives for a living). He was very out of it when he came to, said he was nauseous but was very appreciative that I stayed with him and gave him the sub and kept him awake once he began to come back. He's as shook up over the thing as I am, I've only ever smoked H and have never seen an IV user turn blue like this. My resolve to stick to subs is stronger than ever.

In hindsight I should have called 911 right away, the whole ordeal took about ten minutes or more but I was panicked, I'm still shook up by the whole thing, it scared the shit out of me. I have no idea if the sub helped or hurt but he was unresponsive until after I put the sub under his tongue. I had to pry his mouth open.

I don't know if subs work at all in an emergency situation like this and it's obvious that 911 should always be the first move. I don't know if what I did helped or hurt the situation, I'm just posting my experience. It's been a shitty day.

To anyone who has to go through this ALWAYS call 911 immediately, I feel guilty that I didn't. He and I were very lucky.
 
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My friend overdosed in front of me last night

Me and my friend hangout smoke cigs, weed together whatever but nothing like heroine which she told me several times that she used to have a problem with no big deal right? Well yesterday she came over and looked very fucked up and tired I thought she was just worn out and maybe a little drunk like usual (she drinks about a bottle a day of whatever she can get) so she told me that she did heroine before she came over and that that was the most she had ever done, she also showed me a balloon she had on her and showed me the track marks in her arm I diddnt yell at her but I tried to talk some sence in to a friend I care about. I remember sittin on our pourch and telling her I had a strange feeling about her (myself being stoned/drank a little bit) and I told her if she diddnt stop I thought something bad might happen to her. So me thinking everything was just fine we sat in my room and talked for a short period of time and she started to randomly nod off and i would yell at her from accross my room to wake the fuck up! I was still convinced she was just drunk, so she sits on my bed and lays down on her back facing me. she closed her eyes for a second and her face was pure white and her lips here blue me being very alarmed started to shake her really hard and scream at her to wake up and I looked closer at her and her eyes were open and she was not breathing at all i started to give her cpr and screamed at my sister to call 911 she did so and they gave her a reverse drug saving her life, after the fact a dickhead cop gave me an alcohol ticket because, i took a few sips of her vodka fucked up huh? also, they raided my room and warned me that they would find everything in it and take it which I have nothing to hide besides spice and cigs and they even failed to find that cops are fucking stupid and why would people call the authorities to save someones life if their just going to get fucked over because of it in the end I have read several stories about situations like this and heroine overdoses and alot of people used different methods to revive these people b/c they had such fear of the fucking cops!! its fucking horrible our system is very fucked I watched the soul and life go out of my beautiful 17 yr friend and if i had not called the cops and given her cpr she would be in a coffin right now now tell me that isnt fucked up.
p.s. good job for the whole suboxene save I want to go get some of that just in case I ever end up around something like that again ill never forget what happened the image is hard to get out of my head I honestly felt her dead body in my arms for a few minutes it was the worst feeling ive ever had
 
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Yeah I have shot a ODing person up with Subs and it brought em back within a few seconds. this should be common knowledge in opiate using circles.
 
^^First off, I'm happy to hear about these stories of people stepping up and saving lives! It's an amazing feeling. cheers!

lifeExperiances said:
p.s. good job for the whole suboxene save I want to go get some of that just in case I ever end up around something like that again ill never forget what happened the image is hard to get out of my head I honestly felt her dead body in my arms for a few minutes it was the worst feeling ive ever had
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@lifeExperiances: If you want to prepare for something again like this in the future, I would suggest getting a Narcan (naloxone) kit if you can. It works alot better than suboxone for a reversal of opiate OD, i just used suboxone bc that's all I had. I usually carry a Narcan Kit with me. Some needle exchanges hand them out.

And sorry to hear bout the cops busting up ur place. I'm trying to get a petition to pass an amnesty law that if you call 911 to save someones life they can't bust you for simple posession. Some colleges have it where if someone has OD'd on alcohol, and you call 911, you can't get an MIP (minor-in-possession) charge if you've been drinking. Its a step in the right direction..
 
I don't know what the etiquette on bumping is... but it's more accepted than creating a new thread when there's already a relevant one, eh?

My girlfriend smoked a pile of H she found today (there's a lot coming and going through areas we frequent( and her breathing promptly slowed, her face grew pale and started to turn blue and her lips grew dark blue. She was able to move for the moment but her footsteps were stumbling and erratic and she needed to wall to stand up. Her eyes rolled back and she stayed still and I felt sure that if she were to sit or stop moving she would have fallen into a full OD..

I had a half an 8mg of suboxone laying around and my question is this - I looked on the internet before administering it to her and I read a few websites that disencouraged it - there were no life saving stories such as here on bluelight. Do you think it would have? It seems from what I've read here it's a lifesaver, but reading " A lot of opiate ODs are caused by people trying to save their friends without calling first an ambulance.
 
capRx said:
But the biggest deterrent for me not calling 911 or going to the hospital were legal issues! I didn't want the cops coming to my house and arresting me for possession or possible attempted manslaughter or asking me questions at the hospital, just for trying to save my friends life! its fucking bullshit if you ask me. There should be a law that gives amnesty to people who call 911 during a drug overdose..

just my 2 cents..
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I hear you on that. When I Oded on meth guess who were the first to show up? But of course PD and were they concerned about me possibly having a heart attack or not being able to breathe? Maybe a little but their main thing was trying to stick it to me and have me catch a case. Thankfully they didn't arrest me that horrible night but I sure as shit got a letter in the mail a week or two later with a court date. Sure enough they charged me. As if lying in the ER all night gasping for breath thinking I was seriously fucked wasn't punishment enough. I too wish there was some sort of amnesty law regarding 911 during and OD but thems the breaks I guess. Now I get the pleasure of court ordered drug classes. Better than jail I suppose but not fun either.

Anyhow I will join in saying props to you for saving your friends life. There are scumbags out there who would have dropped if him off on some curb somewhere just to save their own ass. Great job.

EDIT: Wow I just realized this was a really old thread!:? Oh well, props to the OP anyways.
 
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Good job guys, these are inspiring to hear. Good fast thinking. These people are in your debt.

I highly second the motion to institute a law which grants amnesty to people who call 911 to save someone from ODing. It's definitely a step in the right direction. Problem is, America has a tough time moving in the right direction. It takes soooooo long to institute progressive change.

I want to second the motion that a Narcan kit is definitely the way to go, but in a pinch, a pre-prepped syringe with a strip of suboxone dissolved in distilled water is the next best choice. I'm pretty sure the buprenorphine itself will dislodge the H bound to the receptors (the naloxone is inert due to bupe's higher binding affinity).
 
Johndoedoe.junk said:
Anyhow I will join in saying props to you for saving your friends life. There are scumbags out there who would have dropped if him off on some curb somewhere just to save their own ass.Great job.

EDIT: Wow I just realized this was a really old thread!:? Oh well, props to the OP anyways.
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This is why I was asked the question I asked earlier in the thread... because I was told that using suboxone (obvs before I read his thread) would help the ODand if I tried pumping her full of stimulants or naloxone I"d further increase her risk of dying. Dumping her on the street corner and calling an ambulance would be much more painful mentally/emotionally but I don't think that makes me a scumbag because it would have been, to my knwledge, the best way tp save her.
 
I have saved a half dozen of my friends from dying by overdose. It's a shitty experience to say the least. 911 should always be your first option, every time. However I have used a method in which I'd like to share just for the sake of maybe helping somebody save a life. If there's no naloxone available and no suboxone available and for some reason or another the paramedics won't come, I get the person into ICE COLD shower/bath. Dump ice and veggies from the freezer into the tub with the cold water. I seriously get them as close to hypothermia as I can. This has worked all 6 times someone stopped breathing in front of me from opioid OD and a benzo/opioid combo OD. All the while sacking them as hard as I can in the face and shaking them. I will say that every time I ever did this, I did it almost IMMEDIATELY after they fell out and breathing came few and far between. Anyway, this is my first post and I hope it helps in some way.
 
My friend was at my house last nite and he ODs so fast. I've seen plenty of these in my day but I've always been able to revive them with cold water and smacking them in the face. But after 10 slaps and seeing him turn black and his eyes rolled all the way in the back of his head I knew I had to call 911 and we both would have went to jail so a light bulb goes off in my head my gf left her subutext at my house the orange 8 MG ones so I run to the kitchen grab a big spoon fill it with water graphics a pill crush it in the water as fast as I could run back to the bedroom where he is making noises trying to breathe the death noises omg I gotta hurry I graphics his syringe and a big cotton run back to the kitchen sick up what I could as fast as I could run back to him stick it in his arm luckily he has good veins shoot him up and he comes back to life just starring at me then falls out again I run back to the kitchen fill it up again and run back to him I try to shoot him up again but he won't let me thank god! He's alive. When he was out his mouth turned black and so did his veins I was terrified. I was shaking for hours I took him home right after though cause he lives in a halfway house and has a cerfew so I call him an hour later and he wants to know why his bag of dope tastes like suboxone he then proceeds to tell me he thinks I made all that up to steal .1 of dope out of his .3 bag. And that I put suboxone back in its place. I try to convince him otherwise and argue into the morning swearing on my father's grave etc. Like wow who does that I showed him the subs the spoon the needle full of subs everything but he believes I stole from him while he was just nodded out even saying he was just kidding and that he saw me do it. OK so me slapping u in the face as hard as I can didn't wake u up but u were just kidding? U even said your face hurts. He says he feels so weird and feels like shit but I didn't shoot him up with subs to save his life he thinks he was fine and that I made it up to steal from him. So I told him how I felt and we're not friends anymore. Y are people in such denial after an overdose I've never odded
 
He also woke up with a bloody arm from where I hit him but swears that's from when he did the dope. I've never seen such a person in denial it's so rediculous I'm still so pissed. Just too many signs he odded but he won't believe it and not only doesn't appreciate the fact I saved his life he accuses me of stealing from him what a POS!
 
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