Bupe Low-dose bupe to potentiate methadone

I take 1mg subutex everyday. I heard and read on bluelight that a low dose like <.5mg has no, or so little it would make no difference, antagonization properties. I took 20 mg of methadone today. I am wondering if take .5 or maybe a little bit less of subutex (hard to measure it in such small doses) like 6-7 hours after dosing the methadone, if it will synergize with it, and how well, in your opinion it will work.

Thanks guys.

Isn't it just the other way around and only analgesia not euphoria..
I mean I would get very sick if i took .5-1mg of Buprenorphine ontop of my methadone or heroin.
Please correct me if Im wrong I have not read these reports I only go on experience.

I think DeLee is right here. If you want something to potentiate methadone or bupe, I would suggest tramadol.

Lol do not mix buprenorphine with methadone, it will induce severe precipitated withdrawals in opioid tolerant individuals.

tricomb said:

Lol do not mix buprenorphine with methadone, it will induce severe precipitated withdrawals in opioid tolerant individuals.

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this. and it probably wouldn't potentiate anything anyways. don't bother. methadone and bupe are for WDs and that's pretty much all they're good for most of the time. unless a very high dose of methadone is taken but then it gets dangerous and you risk OD.

Tricomb I am addicted to buprenorphine. Stopping 1 day and taking methadone will not put me in precipated withdrawals. My question is should I take my daily bupe in a smaller dose when I randomly take methadone one day. You all misunderstood me.

no one miss understood you if you take methadone and the bupe later in the same day you will have precipitated withdrawals

i think he means that he takes 1mg sub everyday. he is dependent on the bupe. he wants to know that if he takes methadone after taking the bupe and then taking a small amount of sub afterwards will get him higher.

i personally think that you should not take any long lasting opiates while on bupe. you will risk the chance of precipitated WD's. your best bet wold be to not take bupe for like 2 or 3 days and then dose the bupe at a very small amount like .2mg and then the methadone an hour or so later. then wait around 3 days to take bupe again to not risk going in to precip wd's.

this is my opinion of getting the best of your medicines.

omg do not do this....im on 110mgs of deathadone and my sister who had a pill problem at the time said she had a tiny piece of opana left and she didnt want to do it, basically i talked her out of doing it and giving it to me, well she didnt know (claims she didnt know) it was a tiny piece of subutex. i crushed it up and blew it, knowing that if it was opana it would be like taking an aspirin IE do nothing, but instead, i felt that chill start going up my spine and my eyes strat to dialate. next thing i know im in the bathroom sick as a dog. i dont need to add the details but lets just say i came out like ten lbs lighter. thrashed and was basically in full blown WD. didnt sleep at all and went to the clinic as soon as it openeed the next morn, took 2 days to feel normal again. so no, do not try and mess around with bupe and methadone.

DO NOT!!! mix methadone with subutex/buprenorphine. You will end up with severe withdrawal effects as 2 of my friends have found out in the past. Same as mixing heroin with subutex/buprenorphine, it wouldn't be as bad a withdrawal but you will withdraw none the less as I found out myself years ago, mainly only sickness, diarrhea and a few aches and pains but it wasn't nice still!
If you're looking for a top up kind of buzz then the advice of others above me would be pretty sufficient, just stay away from any kind of methadone/subutex/buprenorphine mix at all costs unless you like pain and discomfort on a large scale!

EDIT:- Just a quick note on what someone said 2-3 posts above me. Dr's, when changing from methadone to buprenorphine/subutex usually ask the person to abstain from taking the 1 that they're on for approx 24 hrs so that it's mainly out of your system purely because of the fact that you can and will have major effects of withdrawal if you take the 2 to closely together.

This is so aggravating. I'm not on maintenance. I'm addicted to bupe. I switch between methadone and buprenorphine every other day. I WILL NOT HAVE PRECIPATED WITHDRAWLS. THE END. I am trying to potentiate the methadone with buprenorphine. Buprenorphine, in very low doses, is almost all agonistic activity. A sufficient blocking dose is arrived upon around >2mg. I am asking if taking .5, or maybe a little under, will add extra receptor activity, making me higher. I am not dependent on methadone!!!! YOU CANNOT GO INTO PRECIPITATED WITHDRAWALS ON SOMETHING YOUR NOT DEPENDENT ON. AND your most definetly not going to get P.W. from buprenorphine because your dependent on the opiate buprenorphine.

There is a thread on here talking about potentiating opioids with a very, very low dose of buprenorphine (<.5 mg or at most <1m) Read it. I'm sure tricomb has , but I doubt so for the other few talking about P.W.

Actually you can go into precipitated withdrawals because whatever drug is on your receptors is knocked off immediately. It might not be as bad for you as it was for the dude who was taking 110mg methadone daily and then took bupe (seriously WTF?), but taking more suboxone less than 12-24 hours after taking methadone will only make you sick and not high.

I've never heard of anyone doing what you're doing, but if there's a thread about it you should ask there.

h4x0rm1k3 said:

EDIT:- Just a quick note on what someone said 2-3 posts above me. Dr's, when changing from methadone to buprenorphine/subutex usually ask the person to abstain from taking the 1 that they're on for approx 24 hrs so that it's mainly out of your system purely because of the fact that you can and will have major effects of withdrawal if you take the 2 to closely together.

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When transitioning from methadone to buprenorphine you want to wait a lot longer than 24 hours. The standard is that patients are tapered down to 30mg, and then wait 72 hours before being inducted onto subutex. However it's more ideal to taper down to 30 mg or lower and then stabalize on that dosage for two weeks, then wait the three days before transitioning (often people will switch to a short acting full agonist to stave off withdrawal for the first 48 hours).

To the OP,
I understand what you are saying. When I was on Bupe (at low dosages, .5mg 2x/day), I could use heroin in place of my morning or evening dose of sub, and then take the buprenorphine as usual twelve hours or even less later without experiencing precipitated withdrawal. However, if I switched for a few days to just using heroin, then I would experience precipitated withdrawals. With methadone it would seem (never tried it) that it might present more problems due to its very long half life. However, regardless of precipitated withdrawal, I would not add .5mg of buprenorphine. I do not think it would potentiate. At its best, I imagine it would do nothing, otherwise it would either cause precipitated withdrawals (though it sounds like in uh our case it doesn't after 24 hours, so I imagine it wouldn't be too rough on you), or it would dull the effects of the methadone.. There are so many other easily obtainable potentiator's that don't run these risks. I don't mean to be a broken record, but methadone just isn't the best opioid to use for recreational purposes, especially when you're taking vacations from partial agonists.

Bruce Haze said:

I take 1mg subutex everyday. I heard and read on bluelight that a low dose like <.5mg has no, or so little it would make no difference, antagonization properties. I took 20 mg of methadone today. I am wondering if take .5 or maybe a little bit less of subutex (hard to measure it in such small doses) like 6-7 hours after dosing the methadone, if it will synergize with it, and how well, in your opinion it will work.

Thanks guys.

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Your title works, but the opposite that it is spelled out...Low dose methadone to potentiate buprenorphine (NOT SUBOXONE!)
It works, but is a horrible idea, and once the combination saturates you it's a forever downhill battle (I would imagine)
Dont do it.

Bruce Haze said:

This is so aggravating. I'm not on maintenance. I'm addicted to bupe. I switch between methadone and buprenorphine every other day. I WILL NOT HAVE PRECIPATED WITHDRAWLS. THE END. I am trying to potentiate the methadone with buprenorphine. Buprenorphine, in very low doses, is almost all agonistic activity. A sufficient blocking dose is arrived upon around >2mg. I am asking if taking .5, or maybe a little under, will add extra receptor activity, making me higher. I am not dependent on methadone!!!! YOU CANNOT GO INTO PRECIPITATED WITHDRAWALS ON SOMETHING YOUR NOT DEPENDENT ON. AND your most definetly not going to get P.W. from buprenorphine because your dependent on the opiate buprenorphine.

There is a thread on here talking about potentiating opioids with a very, very low dose of buprenorphine (<.5 mg or at most <1m) Read it. I'm sure tricomb has , but I doubt so for the other few talking about P.W.

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I actually don't think I'm aware of this thread you're talking about, can you post a link? I'd be interested in checking it out. Sorry for the misunderstanding regarding you being on maintenance. Honestly I posted with haste because I didn't want someone who's dependent to 'accidentally' induce PWD by mixing the two drugs.

DeLee said:

Isn't it just the other way around and only analgesia not euphoria..
I mean I would get very sick if i took .5-1mg of Buprenorphine ontop of my methadone or heroin.
Please correct me if Im wrong I have not read these reports I only go on experience.

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Your first sentence is the way this works..."in small doses" please note OP.

iirc, no MMT will accept you, even with a valid prescription, if you are taking benzos, because of the synergy between methadone and benzos. I never felt anything from methadone, even boosted with benzos; others have died from such a combo. I dont think such a small dose of bupe (even suboxone) would cause pwd, but I seriously doubt it would potentiate methadone either.

I think i know the theory that your talking about. I've also read that minute doses of buprenorphine can potentiate other opiates... But, were talking MINUTE doses. Keep in mind that a sub is 8mgs. Buprenorphine when prescribed(mostly in other countries) comes in 200ug tabs. Yes, that means a sub is 40 ordinary pain relieving doses. So 1mg still is quite a bit from that stand point. I think the paradoxical effect of using bupe as a potentiator is more in the 1-5 nano-gram range. I'm not sre of the exact dose but it is so extremely small that you would not be able to logistically or practically divide and take...or even to see w the naked eye. If i am correct about this, and i do seem to remember this article, it is the type of thing that occurs in a laboratory. Do some more research and youll prob find it. Best of luck. That Bupe/Mdone rollercoaster sounds like it's gonna get rickety at some point and just might shake apart. Happens all the time at playland(so i just go for the fireworks,lol) health and hapiness to you

Why not just drink some white grapefruit juice. Potentiation is not worth risking precipitated withdrawal IMO.

@Kid Amine, that is not true. I was on (and still take) benzodiazepines by prescription and I was let into my methadone clinic with no questions asked. Most MMP are going to be more concerned with making money than possible drug interactions.l mean, what you're saying makes no sense as methadone maintenance patients are notorious for using benzodiazepines.

So, do I understand correctly that:
- you are dependent on buprenorphine; you are not dependent on methadone
- as you understand it, bupe should not cause PWD when someone is not dependent on the other opioid (this is what I have heard too but I would love if anyone can confirm this for certain)
- you find you are able to get noticeable effects from methadone even though you are on bupe maintenance - I assume you normally wait a day in between taking the bupe and the methadone?
- you want to take a small amount of bupe with methadone, because in theory in small amounts the bupe should not have enough antagonist effects to block the methadone
- your question is is this going to potentiate the methadone?

Honestly, I think it will probably be different for everyone and there is no way to predict whether it will lessen the effects of the methadone, do nothing, or have an additive effect. I don't think it would potentiate the methadone, potentiation is when one drug makes the other noticeably stronger, (such as A + B = A + BBB), there is a stronger than additive effect. As far as I understand, taking 2 opioids together only has an additive effect (like 1 + 1 = 2). Am I mistaken?

Znegative said:

@Kid Amine, that is not true. I was on (and still take) benzodiazepines by prescription and I was let into my methadone clinic with no questions asked. Most MMP are going to be more concerned with making money than possible drug interactions.l mean, what you're saying makes no sense as methadone maintenance patients are notorious for using benzodiazepines.

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It actually varies greatly depending on where you live. For example, where I live (western Canada) MMT patients are NOT prescribed benzos and are regularly drug tested for benzos. Whereas in other places (many parts of the US) benzo use by people on methadone is rampant. And while many people who have been on methadone for a long time can safely take small therapeutic doses of benzos, there have been so many ODs from this combo that many clinics (in various places) are increasingly hesitant to initiate someone on methadone when they are taking benzos, especially if they are not prescribed the benzos.