Opioids Suboxone Ruins Opiate Receptors?

[xburtonchic]

I was on Suboxone for two years. I've only been off of it for about six months now, but I can still get a good nod going from shooting dope. My opiate receptors seem fine. They do jack them up for a few days after your last dose though. I don't even bother trying to slam any heroin if I've done Suboxone within the past 24 hours or so.

 

[Swimmingdancer]

I think it can happen with any high dose long-acting opioid, such as methadone or buprenorphine, and that it really depends on the person, their own unique brain and metabolism, their age, and how long they take the drug for. There is definitely some evidence that being on opioids long-term can cause permanent changes to how opioids affect you. For example, once fully withdrawn from opioids, if someone later starts taking them again, even intermittently, a tolerance will develop much more rapidly than if they had never used opioids before. It is not yet clear, exactly what causes this, tolerance itself is very complex and involves more than just receptor desensitization and down-regulation. Another interesting potential factor is that long-term use of opioids can cause pain or heighten pain and pain itself increases one's tolerance to opioids.

Anecdotally, I have heard of many people, including myself, who seemed to have like a permanent tolerance after being on maintenance opioids, and have never since felt the same effects from opioids. I don't think it's specific to bupe though.

I don't believe that the fact that there is little research on this topic in any way proves that it is impossible or that thousands of people are just imagining they have a permanent tolerance. There is no money in this kind of research, and it is very difficult and complicated, which explains why this area of research is lacking. In addition, there is little legitimate or financial reason to study tolerance to euphoria and tolerance to euphoria develops differently/much more rapidly ("selective tolerance") from tolerance to other effects of opioids, such as pupil constriction, which is often used as a marker for opioid efficacy in studies. In fact each effect of an opioid has different tolerance development. Another problem with studies is that morphine is the most widely-studied opioid, but it barely downregulates opioid receptors in comparison with methadone or buprenorphine (of course morphine certainly still creates tolerance, as I mentioned above tolerance is very complex and involves more than receptors). There has been some research that has found some other (non-opioid) drugs do create permanent tolerance. What is so hard for some people to believe about opioids doing it? The fact that it doesn't happen exactly the same in everyone?

The other thing is, even if the brain can recover, why do we assume it should be able to recover so rapidly? Why couldn't it take just as long to recover as it did to alter it in the first place? So if someone has been on opioids for 20 years, why would we assume their brain should be back to normal in a couple of months? Why couldn't it take 20 years without any opioids to recover? That wouldn't be permanent, but in practical terms it would certainly seem like it.

 

[beengerman]

do you think it's more like weed? You smoke everyday and get used to the high and you'll never get back to those first couple highs because you mind is so used to it. the same thing could happen here. On Suboxone your body and mind just become do accustomed to the opiate high that it will never blow you away again. I don't know. This just scares me.

 

[hamwaggle]

i was on subs for 1.5 years and actually got a naltrexone injection after. After the naltrexone my receptors seemed as fresh as the day I started using. Maybe it's because the vivitrol blocks even natural opiates so my receptors literally had shields on them for 2 months...

 

[redmand headband]

i used to take up to 48mg of suboxon a day on a basis...needless to say it was a big mistake and i deffinitly dont feel my opiates like i used to. i try not to touch the stuff anymore

 

[laCster]

I don't care, using sub is alot better than sniffing or booting dope. Today my life is great, I have a phone, a carz, my family trusts me, I have friends and I get to go back to school. A couple months ago I was homeless sleeping on park benches and now I have fucking air conditioning...miracles do happen hahahah. Maybe ruining my opiates receptors is a good thing, I don't need boy or oxy in my life anymore ....

 

[beengerman]

i would still like actual proof of this. does anyone have any scientific articles or facts they can post. I'm an very interested in this

 

[QueensJunky]

"One time I failed a drug test FIVE DAYS after my last use of snorting dope and I had only been using every rthird day before that so I was not even a heavy user".

Do you have hep-c because thaat can cause substances to filter throuh your liver more slowly. At least thats what the doctor told me after the same thing had happened to me a good 6+ days after.

 

[QueensJunky]

The suboxone has changed their brains. These super potent synthetic drugs with strange effects tend to cause more long term problems than natural opiates. But nothing as good as suboxone comes for free. There always has to be a downside and the downside of suboxone is long term damage.

I think it can happen with any high dose long-acting opioid, such as methadone or buprenorphine, and that it really depends on the person, their own unique brain and metabolism, their age, and how long they take the drug for. There is definitely some evidence that being on opioids long-term can cause permanent changes to how opioids affect you. For example, once fully withdrawn from opioids, if someone later starts taking them again, even intermittently, a tolerance will develop much more rapidly than if they had never used opioids before. It is not yet clear, exactly what causes this, tolerance itself is very complex and involves more than just receptor desensitization and down-regulation. Another interesting potential factor is that long-term use of opioids can cause pain or heighten pain and pain itself increases one's tolerance to opioids.

Anecdotally, I have heard of many people, including myself, who seemed to have like a permanent tolerance after being on maintenance opioids, and have never since felt the same effects from opioids. I don't think it's specific to bupe though.
.

Dancer, what opiod caused you the damage, was it methadone? Methadone seems to have destroyed my opiate receptors and I speak about this phenomenom in depth in a different thread that I just posted today.....

 

[hamwaggle]

Guys I am fairly sure you opiate receptors are not "destroyed" but rather your tolerance has just been nearly permanently increased from the years of subs or methadone (I consider methadone to be 10x worse than dope so stay the fuck away from that shit).

 

[Tommyboy]

"One time I failed a drug test FIVE DAYS after my last use of snorting dope and I had only been using every rthird day before that so I was not even a heavy user".

Do you have hep-c because thaat can cause substances to filter throuh your liver more slowly. At least thats what the doctor told me after the same thing had happened to me a good 6+ days after.

Nope. I failed those drug tests a while before I went to rehab and I was tested for hep-c there, and have been tested since. Also I don't do anything that would lead me to get hep-c anyway. 5 days isn't that long to still be testing positive for opiates after last using, and I have certainly heard of people taking longer to piss clean.

Guys I am fairly sure you opiate receptors are not "destroyed" but rather your tolerance has just been nearly permanently increased from the years of subs or methadone (I consider methadone to be 10x worse than dope so stay the fuck away from that shit).

I think that's exactly what they mean by destroyed. They don't mean that you will never be able to get high again or something, just that it's never the same after being on maintenance for a while.

 

[Gordon]

The more and longer you take sub the worse you will feel. You will feel unmotivated. depressed, bored and feel un-interested in just about anything. Thats what happens when you feel over-medicated or take long half life acting meds such as suboxone or subutex. Then there is the mission of comong of it. Staying on it is just as bad as withdrawing from it. Many have lostr their homes, their cars, their girlfriends or boyfriends, their family even because of suboxone/subutex. Its worse then dope, more and more people are realizing this everyday once they have been on the sub for 6 months and over.

 

[burn out]

I don't care, using sub is alot better than sniffing or booting dope. Today my life is great, I have a phone, a carz, my family trusts me, I have friends and I get to go back to school. A couple months ago I was homeless sleeping on park benches and now I have fucking air conditioning...miracles do happen hahahah. Maybe ruining my opiates receptors is a good thing, I don't need boy or oxy in my life anymore ....

Thats true man, but its still way better to be sober than hooked on sub. What will you do in a few years if the sub starts causing emotional blunting and depression and other side effects? And then you cant come off? Remember every drug addiction starts out fine.

 

[Swimmingdancer]

Dancer, what opiod caused you the damage, was it methadone? Methadone seems to have destroyed my opiate receptors and I speak about this phenomenom in depth in a different thread that I just posted today.....

Yes, after being on methadone for a long time opioids just don't affect me nearly as much anymore, even for killing pain. They also don't last very long.

 

[hamwaggle]

The more and longer you take sub the worse you will feel. You will feel unmotivated. depressed, bored and feel un-interested in just about anything. Thats what happens when you feel over-medicated or take long half life acting meds such as suboxone or subutex. Then there is the mission of comong of it. Staying on it is just as bad as withdrawing from it. Many have lostr their homes, their cars, their girlfriends or boyfriends, their family even because of suboxone/subutex. Its worse then dope, more and more people are realizing this everyday once they have been on the sub for 6 months and over.

Okay, whoa whoa whoa, wait a second there buddy. Saying suboxone is worse than dope is incredibly stupid. I agree methadone may be worse than dope but when it comes to getting an addict out of that lifestyle, these drugs can work wonders. I know a few people who literally are alive today because of suboxone. Also please explain how someone can lose their home on suboxone...if anything that will save their home. I paid 1/100 a month for 60 8mgs versus what I paid for a DAY of dope. And coming off suboxone is NOTHING like coming off of methadone, they are in two totally different leagues. I posted a while ago about my experience coming off of suboxone and I slept every night like a baby, had minor aches a pains and it was over in 7 days (obviously with proper medication like librium/clonodine/gabapentin/promethazine/etc). People make it out to be this impossible task so much so that people in my clinic are DEATHLY afraid of tapering and the thought of coming off. I honestly have never felt better in my life getting off the shit, I have so much energy, my head is clear and most importantly I am not constantly thinking of medication (where it is / do I need to bring it). I do agree that it does make you unmotivated and a can make you a tad depressed but saying that it is worse than dope is just dumb.

 

[hamwaggle]

i used to take up to 48mg of suboxon a day on a basis...needless to say it was a big mistake and i deffinitly dont feel my opiates like i used to. i try not to touch the stuff anymore

Either one you are lying or two your doctor is the biggest fucking moron on the planet. Bupe has a ceiling level of 32mg so being prescribed 48mg makes absolutely no sense. On top of that, any doctor that believes you need 32mg of subs a day is a fucking retard. I believe that no one even needs to be on 8mg a day...4mg should be the starting dose.

 

[beengerman]

anyone have any solid proof of this yet? or nah

 

[Tony Williams]

Been on in an unstable fashion Subs for a 1y but was on it for longer switched with meth and just back to bupe. Now if I take my 16mg 2 half lifes later usually I'd get near the full rush. However I've subbed 16mg finshed the day and the day after So it was just under 48hr however I did not have a build up of 16mg only a dose I slammed 4 bags just when I was gunna kick it for good I got a massive DONT LEAVE ME RUSH

Snorting keeps me well much longer than shooting too, about 40% longer believe it or not. Thats why I wonder if I had shot up every thrd day rather than snffed, if perhaps I could have avoided getting a habit, since all the dope woulda been out of my system sooner. One time I failed a drug test FIVE DAYS after my last use of snorting dope and I had only been using every rthird day before that so I was not even a heavy user.

long vs short drugs - they are bad in thier own ways. Had you shot it 3rd day you'd wind up day on and off days then hooked still. You'd crave the rush more. Thing with tests heavy users detox it better so an addict stopping *ignoring wds* would pass it quicker, from what I know and personal exp.

 

[Australopithecus]

I have been on 10 mg daily of suboxone in strips sublingual for two and 1 half years so far. I still get that opiate shiver of pleasure/euphoria running through my body every dose (of suboxone).

Remember, to feel opiates they must fill your receptors.

If 'tolerance' develops this is your brain building MORE receptors. More receptors require more opiates to fill them up. Suboxone is incredibly potent opiate and probably causes extreme growth/multiplication of receptors. Thus suboxone does not damage your recptors or brain but sends you tolerance INCREDIBLY HIGH.

I reckon that after you come off suboxone (if thats what you plan to do) you should take a several months course of naloxone to reduce your number of receptors.

 

[DooMMooD]

I have been on 10 mg daily of suboxone in strips sublingual for two and 1 half years so far. I still get that opiate shiver of pleasure/euphoria running through my body every dose (of suboxone).

Remember, to feel opiates they must fill your receptors.

If 'tolerance' develops this is your brain building MORE receptors. More receptors require more opiates to fill them up. Suboxone is incredibly potent opiate and probably causes extreme growth/multiplication of receptors. Thus suboxone does not damage your recptors or brain but sends you tolerance INCREDIBLY HIGH.

I reckon that after you come off suboxone (if thats what you plan to do) you should take a several months course of naloxone to reduce your number of receptors.

EVERYTHING IN THIS POST IS IN LAYMAN'S TERMS (this is not ADD) IN ORDER TO KEEP THE DISCUSSION GOING:

This is a somewhat intriguing theory and line of thought. So your brain 'grows' receptors in order to take advantage of and accommodate the massive amounts of buperenorphine present? but wouldn't the bupes constant binding to said receptors change them in some way/shape/form? As it is constantly (ant)agonizing each receptor?

This is definitely some interesting insight into PAWS. if you are correct I could see why paws would exist....because now your brain has more opiate receptors than normally should, meaning it needs more chemicals to fill it, which are already severely repressed by you taking said opiates for X amount of time. But we also must remember that addicts already have vastly differing levels of receptors/chemicals than the average person. It is theorized depressed (addicts) people have less endorphin production and less receptors for said chemicals naturally. This might be bringing these people up to average, perhaps?

So does this mean all opiates cause an increase in the amount of opioid receptors, just to different extents? Hence why PAWS from suboxone are worse than heroin (stimulates more receptor growth).

This definitely would lend water to the idea that less is more with sub. Because if you started yourself off at a lower dose (minimum) then you would have less "receptor growth" meaning less empty receptors when you get OFF the subs!

Although you also forget: tolerance is not just a byproduct of # of receptors. Whether or not said receptors are blocked, downregulated, or changed altogether play just as large, if not a larger, role in tolerance than sheer number of them. Meaning that receptor growth alone would not account for massive tolerances following suboxone therapy. So theres definitely more at play...

Definitely a fascinating thought and concept. I'm sure theres MORE AT PLAY than just this, but TBH the more I consider it the more I think this is, at the very least, a part of things.