Bupe Using heroin while on suboxone - also no precipitated withdrawal

[cjb017]

Hi all,

I have only been using heroin by IV for about a month now, the first 2 weeks was only half a point a day and now its up to about 4 points a day. My question is that the last couple days I have been taking 8 mg suboxone in the morning and then I give in to my routine of using and craving and I shot up and used my usual 4 points today. My question is I did not feel any of the heroin I used so I guess it was blocked from the suboxone which is good, does that mean that my body won't have absorbed that and it won't be that detrimental to my staying clean cycle? I mean if I keep using heroin while on suboxone the heroin doesnt do anything so is it almost the same thing as being clean? I am going to stop using since its a waste of money I just couldnt not give in to the temptation.

Also another question I have is that I can take suboxone about 6 hours after my last use of heroin, before I am in any withdrawal and I don't go into precipitated withdrawal. does that mean I wasn't going to even withdrawal to start anyway since i've only been using a month now?

anyway thanks for any feedback!

 

[illmantos]

Yeah the suboxone is deflecting the heroin it has no effect while the suboxone is in your system. You have to wait until you go into withdraw , it means your not that addicted / dependent on the heroin. Some people don't get the precipitated withrdawal.

 

[Znegative]

Everyone is capable of precipitated withdrawal. The OP used heroin once, and it was blocked by the suboxone, meaning it did not connect to the bodys opiate receptors. Therefore, taking more suboxone should not cause precipitated withdrawal, as there are no full agonist opiates attached to the receptors that the buprenorphine can kick off (causing precipitated withdrawal).

Also, one can still get high on heroin while taking suboxone. It just depends on the dose of suboxone the person is taking. On 1mg of suboxone I could easily get very high on heroin. Suboxone begins to block around 3-4 mg, though at those dosages, I've found that I can still feel around 60% of the heroin effects.

As for how to view this experience.. Well, it technically is a slip, but I wouldnt get to broken up about it as feeling guilty isn't going to benifit you in anyway, all it can do is give you an excuse to use again. Just look at it as a mistak and try and move on with your routine. Recovery from addiction is a process, and while blowing this slip off as nothing would be a mistake, you also have to have compassion for yourself. You're on suboxone, trying to stay off of heroin, and you had a slip-that's all. If I were you though, I would continue to take a blocking dose for a while. When you start experimenting with your dose early in recovery, you're putting your recovery in jeopardy, or at least that's been my experience.

 

[Swimmingdancer]

Not getting precipitated withdrawals does not mean you were never dependent on heroin in the first place. Precipitated withdrawals are more likely to occur if you haven't taken any Suboxone, then use heroin, then take some Suboxone. If you are just taking your Suboxone as scheduled and use some heroin during the day and feel nothing from the heroin, you are not likely to get precipitated withdrawals, becuase the Suboxone is already blocking your opioid receptors, so the heroin doesn't reach them and the bupe has nothing to bump off causing PWDS.

Everyone is capable of precipitated withdrawal.

Is that true? I thought only someone who is dependent on opioids can get PWDS. Like if an opiate naive person does some heroin for the first time ever and then does some bupe, they wouldn't get PWDS. Is that incorrect?

 

[cjb017]

I wait a few hours to see of PW would happen first before dosing

 

[Znegative]

To SD,
Yes, perhaps that was a bad way of putting it. What I meant was that everyone who has a dependency to opiates/opioids can get precipitated withdrawals.

For people that dont use opiates, taking suboxone would not put them into precipitated withdrawal.

 

[Mafila]

From my experience, you only get precipitated withdrawals when you take Suboxone with a full-agonist still in your system. The only times I've gotten precipitated withdrawals were when I did Suboxone after Methadone, even after waiting 32 hours I still got PW's.

 

[opie89]

i'm new here and I know its been awhile since anyone posted here but figured id give it a shot as a friend is currently in a similar situation. if the OP is around maybe you can share on your experience...if you did more subs while still having some H in you. my question is: if my friend used 4 mg of suboxone film, then a few hours later he was still not feeling all that great so he used some H to relieve the rest of the pain, does that mean he is back at square 1, starting all over with his withdrawal. or would he be ok to continue using the sub without waiting any amount of time since he already had some in he system? this is all to avoid precip. withdrawal. he claims he didn't really get high from the H, but that it definitely got rid of what the sub didn't get rid of...mostly the aches and pain, and said he was able to walk around without feeling like crap.

so to sum up...if he used 4 mg of sub. strip, then used H a few hours later to help relieve some symptoms, does that put him back to square 1 and start withdrawal all over, or would he be ok to continue the sub maintenance as if he didn't use any H at all? any advice would be great, thank you. oh and he IVs the H by the way.

by the way, he wants to get clean and stay clean which is why he wants to continue using suboxone. he just couldn't withstand the pain since he was forced to go into work and knew a little H would help. so yeah hes trying to quit incase anyone was wondering.

 

[InHerOwnWrite]

^^^
I have done something similar when sub wasn't taking away enough of the sickness. Your friend should be able to continue taking subs, don't look at it as a complete failure bringing him back to square one. The important thing is he's trying to quit

 

[RTrain]

Also another question I have is that I can take suboxone about 6 hours after my last use of heroin, before I am in any withdrawal and I don't go into precipitated withdrawal. does that mean I wasn't going to even withdrawal to start anyway since i've only been using a month now?

anyway thanks for any feedback!

If you did Suboxone in the morning, then heroin in the afternoon and suboxone at night, the heroin would be blocked so the suboxone wouldn't cause precip w/d.

 

[RTrain]

^^^
I have done something similar when sub wasn't taking away enough of the sickness. Your friend should be able to continue taking subs, don't look at it as a complete failure bringing him back to square one. The important thing is he's trying to quit

I have done it, too, but its kinda just prolonging the inevitable. It takes like 36-48 hours after I last used H before I am feeling fine on Subs, and it gets better over the next 2-3 days until it stabilizes. I take my Sub at 12-16 hours after my last dose, which is at night so I take the Sub in the morning. A few times I have still been sick that day so I scored a little and took the edge off. But 1. it doesn't take the edge off that much(or at all if you dose like 8 mg or more of Subs since the blockades too storng, but if you do like 2-4 mg doses at a time it will have effect) and 2. its just going to take longer to stabilize on the Subs, so as I said you are delaying the inevitable when starting Suboxone, which is a mild w/d for maybe 2 days. Its still not the worst stategy, especially if you are having trouble sleeping and eating the first day taking Subs, then maybe at night you do a hit to ease your stomach and get a nights sleep. Its the sort of thing that tests self control a little too much, and we all know as dug addicts that is a major lack of our personalities.

 

[opie89]

^^^
I have done something similar when sub wasn't taking away enough of the sickness. Your friend should be able to continue taking subs, don't look at it as a complete failure bringing him back to square one. The important thing is he's trying to quit

I think he was just more worried about going into precipitated withdrawal. unfortunately he scored more than he wanted to and ended up using instead of taking another sub. so now he is trying to stock up on a couple subs and try again. because yeah honestly he does want to quit, I can tell. he was just afraid that if he did a sub, then dope, that he would have to wait until he was feeling shitty again before he used another sub, or if he was able to use a sub just whenever he wanted, to avoid feeling shitty at all

 

[opie89]

but if you take a sub in the morning then maybe use dope at night to help sleep, or help the pain or whatever, do you have to wait until you are in mild-moderate withdrawal to use a sub again (like originally when you wait to take your first dose of sub) or can you dose on sub again as if you never did use dope again at night, while still having some sub in you? I hope that makes sense. thanks

 

[Slum Survivor]

yeah i want to know basically the same thing... and i dont want to get P/W trying to find out on my own.

say u are on subs, regularly tho, and you skip a day and do some H or another full agonist. If the full agonists werent blocked and you actually did get high, do you then need to wait until you are in W/D again to take any sub again?

 

[Mr.Scagnattie]

yeah i want to know basically the same thing... and i dont want to get P/W trying to find out on my own.

say u are on subs, regularly tho, and you skip a day and do some H or another full agonist. If the full agonists werent blocked and you actually did get high, do you then need to wait until you are in W/D again to take any sub again?

Usually, no. If you are stabilized on bupe and have your receptors constantly occupied by it, than using once is not going to change anything besides potentially increase your tolerance. I've done this many times where I had been on bupe for months and months, took a night off to get high, and then went right back to take bupe before withdrawals set it and been fine, no PW's.

There is a fine line though. If you are on a very low dose of bupe and then use, you could still end up with PW's.. also, if you use more than a day or two in a row, you could end up messing with your receptors and have to wait again until full withdrawal to dose the bupe.

Going back and forth from bupe to using is not a good idea. It confuses your brain and eventually the bupe looses a lot of its efficiency and it becomes a lot harder to make the transition onto it.

 

[Slum Survivor]

^thx for the reply exactly what i was looking for...

u know... crazy thing is i just went to the hood store near me for a pop and my old dope buddy parked next to me. weird that i was thinking about this already today, and then i see him.
i didnt give in, and probably wont tonite. not after taking my sub dose already for the day(4mg subL using vodka for BA). it would most likely block all of it

 

[dopemegently]

I did shoot bupe around an hour after using heroin. luckily, I had no dependence to opiates at the time, but still the expedience was far from pleasant. There I was on heroin cloud nine, euphoric as hell, and as soon as the bupe hit, it was like a slap in the face; I went from high as a kite to stone cold sober in a matter of seconds. It was precip sobriety, not precip WD's, so it could have been a hell of a lot worse. But still....the feeling was not good at all.

Also, I've been tempted to shoot suboxone but 1: I'm finished with my needle fetish; it's bad shit. 2: I don't want to risk precip WD's, even considering the bupe v naloxone binding affinity argument; I've heard of it happening, and that's risk enough for me.

 

[Mr.Scagnattie]

I did shoot bupe around an hour after using heroin. luckily, I had no dependence to opiates at the time, but still the expedience was far from pleasant. There I was on heroin cloud nine, euphoric as hell, and as soon as the bupe hit, it was like a slap in the face; I went from high as a kite to stone cold sober in a matter of seconds. It was precip sobriety, not precip WD's, so it could have been a hell of a lot worse. But still....the feeling was not good at all.

Also, I've been tempted to shoot suboxone but 1: I'm finished with my needle fetish; it's bad shit. 2: I don't want to risk precip WD's, even considering the bupe v naloxone binding affinity argument; I've heard of it happening, and that's risk enough for me.

Haha, I like that. "Precipitated sobriety". I've never experienced that, only the PW's. Must feel weird as hell to go from high to sober instantly.

 

[dopemegently]

I'd describe as being in a relaxing sleep, having pleasant dreams, and then some bastard throws an ice-col bucket of water on you. Not good.

 

[Slum Survivor]

man i keep scaring myself into just taking my sub for the day instead of trying to get high... perhaps thats not such a bad thing. maybe that "brain change" stuff is finally happening lol.

thats quite an experience there dopemegently. ive been in full blown P/W before. i ended up in the ER because it made my sciatica so bad.