Suboxone I have a question...

[kron114]

I’ve just been prescribed 8mg Suboxone tablets. I tried to start yesterday. I waited 17 hours and popped my first one. Waited a couple hours and didn’t feel better. I took another 8mg. Still felt anxious as all hell. I caved and got some heroin. My route of admin is smoking it. I felt better but I think it just chilled my mind out. Everything I’ve been read and been told is that it’s a waste of money to try and get high on Suboxone. I smoked up what I bought last night and today. Here’s my question... if I take today’s dose of Suboxone what will happen? Did the heroin do anything to derail the Suboxone? Will it throw me into withdrawal cause it hasn’t been that long since I smoked the h? Do I need to wait til I’m in withdrawal to start again? I’m really hoping that I can just take the Suboxone and continue on tryin to get clean. Any help would be great. This is my first time posting. I couldn’t find the answer online so I’m turning to you guys. Thanks

 

[JessFR]

I haven't been on subuxone so I don't have much personal experience.

But I suspect that if you take your subuxone dose soon after having taken heroin, that yes it is possible you may experience some precipitated withdrawal.

It may be worth waiting a little while for more of the heroin to leave your system.

Hopefully someone with more experience than I will come along to answer your questions soon

 

[tracedwards313]

They talk a lot about getting thrown into withdrawl and shit with subs but it never happend to me. You should be fine to just keep on with the suboxone.

Good luck with getting clean man. But don't trust everything they tell you about the long term program. Suboxone withdrawl is a mother fucking beast that is far worse than heroin withdrawl, because it can last for WEEKS instead of days. Those programs are a good starting point for people trying to find an easier softer way, but they dont work in the long run brother.

Still I wish you luck and at least your trying to do something better!

 

[OpiateKiller]

The transformation from heroin to Suboxone is tough, it’s like going from 100% to 50%
and there is a period where you will not feel great. Around 3-5 days to adjust. Suboxone is a partial agonist it won’t satisfy you like heroin did.

you also didn’t wait long enough, when you take Suboxone with heroin in your system(even up to72 hours later) what happens is Suboxone is stronger than heroin at connecting to the receptors of the brain. What it does is it kicks all of the heroin off.. instantly.
This is called precipitated withdrawals.

try and wait as long as you can and with Suboxone less is more, take 2 mg no where near 8.

good luck my friend honestly if I were you i would just detox I’m detoxing subs now and it is a hell. God bless

 

[kron114]

The transformation from heroin to Suboxone is tough, it’s like going from 100% to 50%
and there is a period where you will not feel great. Around 3-5 days to adjust. Suboxone is a partial agonist it won’t satisfy you like heroin did.

you also didn’t wait long enough, when you take Suboxone with heroin in your system(even up to72 hours later) what happens is Suboxone is stronger than heroin at connecting to the receptors of the brain. What it does is it kicks all of the heroin off.. instantly.
This is called precipitated withdrawals.

try and wait as long as you can and with Suboxone less is more, take 2 mg no where near 8.

good luck my friend honestly if I were you i would just detox I’m detoxing subs now and it is a hell. God bless

Thank you for the response. I really appreciate it. Seems like you know about suboxone so hopefully you can answer some questions.
1. When I smoked the heroin a couple hours after taking the subs I felt better. Was that just because my brain got what it wanted and it was all in my mind? Or was I feeling better cause the subs were actually working?
2. Just to be clear... you’re saying I need to basically start all over again with the subs? Wait til I’m in full on withdrawal again?

This was my second attempt at starting the subs. The first time I waited 15 hours and took a 2mg film. Nothing happened so I took another 2mg film. Felt even worse. I went into severe withdrawal and called my doctor and was told to go to the ER. I’ve obviously experienced withdrawal before but this was on another level. They gave me Ativan, Clonidine, Imodium, Robaxin, Zofran and 2 8mgs tabs of Subutex to stabilize me. Some were swallowed and some was given IV. This was over the course of about 3 hours in the ER. After talking with my doctor a couple days later (was back on heroin in the interim) she upped my dose to 8mgs tablets. The tabs seems to be easier for me to tell when it’s fully dissolved so I got those instead of the film. My doctor did not prepare me for the transition. I wasn’t expecting to feel as shitty as I did.

 

[OpiateKiller]

Thank you for the response. I really appreciate it. Seems like you know about suboxone so hopefully you can answer some questions.
1. When I smoked the heroin a couple hours after taking the subs I felt better. Was that just because my brain got what it wanted and it was all in my mind? Or was I feeling better cause the subs were actually working?
2. Just to be clear... you’re saying I need to basically start all over again with the subs? Wait til I’m in full on withdrawal again?

This was my second attempt at starting the subs. The first time I waited 15 hours and took a 2mg film. Nothing happened so I took another 2mg film. Felt even worse. I went into severe withdrawal and called my doctor and was told to go to the ER. I’ve obviously experienced withdrawal before but this was on another level. They gave me Ativan, Clonidine, Imodium, Robaxin, Zofran and 2 8mgs tabs of Subutex to stabilize me. Some were swallowed and some was given IV. This was over the course of about 3 hours in the ER. After talking with my doctor a couple days later (was back on heroin in the interim) she upped my dose to 8mgs tablets. The tabs seems to be easier for me to tell when it’s fully dissolved so I got those instead of the film. My doctor did not prepare me for the transition. I wasn’t expecting to feel as shitty as I did.

Yes my friend your doctor did not warn you properly at all on how to adjust to
Suboxone. I’m sorry about that.

you can use heroin on top of Suboxone to fix the withdrawals but it does block a lot of the effects.

To me it sounds like you definitely went into precipitated withdrawals. What you want to do is honestly wait as long as you possibly can before you take Suboxone because I’ve been there and those precipitated withdrawals are the worst thing ever. If you can make it 48 hours great, 72 would be better.

If you google the COWS Suboxone protocol it shows a scale of how deep into withdrawal you should be before you take Suboxone, and honestly it should be pretty bad.

What you’re gonna wanna do for your induction is take a SMALL amount, Like 2 mg to test and See. If you are in withdrawals enough it will cause relief but you need to know that you’re not gonna feel great for a bit.

it can be a difficult transition but Suboxone actually can be a good tool it has really helped fix my life and finances.

personally I snort my Suboxone in water but I wouldn’t recommend that because that’s not really harm reduction.

so wait as long as you can, then take 2 mg,
And see how you feel.
After that you can take another 2 mg a few hours later.

the first few days aren’t gonna be fun but you will adjust and it will get better and you will feel normal again, try to have patience and trust the process it does work it just doesn’t work with heroin in your system

 

[kron114]

So if the suboxone is still in my system and I smoked h a few hours ago can I take more suboxone? If I do that will I go into precipitated withdrawal again? Does the h cancel the whole thing and I have to start all over? Sorry if I’m not understanding. I just don’t wanna throw myself into worse withdrawal. And again I appreciate you taking the time to explain this to me.

 

[OpiateKiller]

So if the suboxone is still in my system and I smoked h a few hours ago can I take more suboxone? If I do that will I go into precipitated withdrawal again? Does the h cancel the whole thing and I have to start all over? Sorry if I’m not understanding. I just don’t wanna throw myself into worse withdrawal. And again I appreciate you taking the time to explain this to me.

It's ok its kind of a weird thing honestly, so your situation is weird right now and I can't really tell you but there is a method a doctor used where he actually started patients on micro doses ( like 1 mg ) while they used heroin to induce them into suboxone if that makes sense.

You probably already went through the worst of it and the good thing is is you already still have suboxone in your system, If you do decide to take some I would take a small small amount like a tiny piece of the pill.

You just gotta remember it's gonna knock the heroin off your brain so if you did a lot of it it's gonna get kicked off and it's gonna hurt again.

 

[kron114]

Can you elaborate on the micro dosing while using heroin? That sounds like an intriguing idea. I keep using a smaller amount of heroin and take 1mg of suboxone? Do you know when I’d take the sub?

 

[OpiateKiller]

Case report: Successful induction of buprenorphine/naloxone using a microdosing schedule and assertive outreach - Addiction Science & Clinical Practice

Background The requirement for moderate withdrawal prior to initiation can be a barrier to buprenorphine/naloxone induction. Case presentation We aimed to use a microdosing regimen to initiate regular dosing of buprenorphine/naloxone in a high-risk patient with a history of failed initiations...

ascpjournal.biomedcentral.com

"A microdosing schedule for buprenorphine was first introduced and trialed in 2010 by Hamming et al. in Bern, Switzerland [16], followed by a more recent report of two cases of successful induction of buprenorphine/naloxone in 2016 [17]. The first case was induction of buprenorphine/naloxone using a microdosing schedule starting at 0.2 mg daily and titrated up to 12 mg daily over 9 days, with gradual reduction and eventual cessation of illicit heroin use over this time [16]. The second case was a gradual cross-titration of methadone and diacetylmorphine to buprenorphine/naloxone starting at 0.2 mg and titrated up to 24 mg over 28 days [17]. Both patients tolerated this induction without reporting the experience of precipitated withdrawal or need for withdrawal from opiates prior to induction. This method has been coined “The Bernese Method” [16]. The pharmacological hypothesis tested in the Bernese Method is that small amounts of buprenorphine doses should not precipitate opioid withdrawal, but because of its relatively long half-life, accumulates at the receptor gradually replacing the full μ-agonist (e.g. fentanyl, heroin) at the opioid receptor. This was successfully shown with these two cases presented by Hamming; however, this has not been replicated in the current practice literature [16, 17]. "

 

[kron114]

Seriously, thank you so much for taking the time to help me. In the time since you mentioned micro-dosing I’ve been researching it online. I’m gonna try it. My doctor is not gonna like it but I’ve reached FUCK IT and I’m gonna attempt it on my own. Gotta do more research on it but it sounds like it might be doable. You’ve given me light in this darkness and I’m so grateful. Thank you a million times over.

 

[OpiateKiller]

Seriously, thank you so much for taking the time to help me. In the time since you mentioned micro-dosing I’ve been researching it online. I’m gonna try it. My doctor is not gonna like it but I’ve reached FUCK IT and I’m gonna attempt it on my own. Gotta do more research on it but it sounds like it might be doable. You’ve given me light in this darkness and I’m so grateful. Thank you a million times over.

Glad I could help man. This forum has helped me countless times, it's cool people can care and make such a difference on here. Best of luck

 

[HoldBack]

It’s going to take three days before you feel normal on sub. You should actually feel somewhat good on your third day.

Assuming the sub was properly doses and absorbed, the h did close to nothing. If you weren’t thrown into precip previously, you certainly won’t be now. However, it would have been more effective if you had waited longer to dose the sub in the first place.

For the future, I recommend not doing any kind of switching into and off of sub (ie don’t take breaks from it or use it as a fall back when you can’t get high. That 3 days it takes to feel right on the switch becomes 5-7 days and a very rough 5-7 days at that. It got to the point that I couldn’t get myself back onto sub when I wanted to and I’m on methadone now (which works great for me but I can’t travel and have to stop by the clinic daily).

 

[Vinnie77]

1. Taking whole 8/2 Suboxone (8mg buprenorphine/2mg naloxone) at same time is pointless. Naloxone blocks effect of buprenorphine so taking half of the pill gives same effect as whole pill.
2. Just split the pill into quarters and snort that quarter 4 times a day. Don't smoke it.

 

[OpiateKiller]

1. Taking whole 8/2 Suboxone (8mg buprenorphine/2mg naloxone) at same time is pointless. Naloxone blocks effect of buprenorphine so taking half of the pill gives same effect as whole pill.
2. Just split the pill into quarters and snort that quarter 4 times a day. Don't smoke it.

This is incorrect. Naloxone in bupe actually literally does nothing. I know because I've shot, snorted and taken it. The naloxone is essentially inactive i dont even know why its in it

 

[Vinnie77]

So you wanna tell me you feel difference between half of the pill and whole pill ? I never snorted more than quarter at once because 2 friends told me that there is small difference between quarter and half and almost no difference between half and whole pill.

 

[Karamazov]

To the OP: you can just stay on suboxone. You do not have to start over. After that much sub the h really didn’t do anything. You’ll prob feel crappy for 3-7 days like others have said, but its totally doable.

 

[kron114]

To the OP: you can just stay on suboxone. You do not have to start over. After that much sub the h really didn’t do anything. You’ll prob feel crappy for 3-7 days like others have said, but its totally doable.

By now (3:50pm Friday) it’s been almost 48 hours since I last took the subs. Been smoking h since though. Not a whole lot, at least by my standards. About 2grams in the last 48 hours. In your opinion when should I take the subs at this point?

 

[Karamazov]

hmmmm, a couple of questions first.

you took 16 mg 48 hours ago, right?

are we talking 2 grams of tar or powder?

is the h hitting you? Are you high or just not feeling shitty?

 

[kron114]

hmmmm, a couple of questions first.

you took 16 mg 48 hours ago, right?

are we talking 2 grams of tar or powder?

is the h hitting you? Are you high or just not feeling shitty?

Yes I took 16mgs 48 hours ago.

I smoked 2gs of tar over the past 48 hours. At this point it’s been about 7 hours since I last smoked.

It’s hard for me to tell if I ever get high cause my tolerance is so fucked. I didn’t get the nods but I rarely do anyway. But I’m definitely not feeling shitty.