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Bupe Chronic pain patient snorting suboxone

areros18

Bluelighter
Joined
Sep 10, 2012
Messages
154
I'm on suboxone maintenance therapy. I am supposed to take 3 /2. 0.5 mg pills three times a day. I decided to stop taking them to see how long I can go without. I couldn't go without longer than 24 hours. I was a mess.
So I read online that I didn't need that much.
I'm also a chronic pain patient.
So I quartered my pills and held 1/4 under my tongue. I ended up swallowing half of that 1/4. So I had to re- dose almost an entire pill. Took me 3 hrs to full recover from wd.
I found out that if I snort that 1/4 I'm great all day. I don't even have to redose until bed time or the following day. Meaning I'm using much, much less.
How bad is it health wise for me to snort a tiny amount daily instead of sublingually take 8-12 mgs a day?

Are there other routes besides oral and nasal. I'm NOT I'V' ING anything.
 
Well plugging is always a possibility...Snorting subs is no worse for you than snorting any other powder. It is definitely better for your health to take it sublingually but if you follow safe use practices and wash your nose (you can follow THIS TEK HERE if you'd like) I don't think you will have any significant problems...
 
As a CPP, you are much better off taking <2-4mg/day of suboxone sublingually, as buprenorphine, a competitive partial agonist with a much higher affinity for the mu opioid receptors (MOR) and the delta opioid receptors than its metabolite, norbuprenorphine, does.

Norbuprenorphine is a full agonist that is responsible for most of suboxone's euphoria, analgesia, etc, so give it (along with your natural endorphins) a chance to get through to your receptors by taking <2-4mg/day so the norbupe can fully agonize at least part of your opioid receptors, giving you the analgesia you desire.

Did you just finish an opiate binge or something? You say you are a CPP, yet are also on Bupe Maintenance Therapy, so give us more background info and we'll help ya out. :D
 
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Ergic. I'm experimenting with keeping my sub doses low because I do want to be ably to take an opiate vacation every once in a while.
What I am noticing with low, low levels of subs is that I'm exhausted and depressed and in pain constantly. It takes a long time to come out of my body- I have to be in WD to start using opiates again and in WD to get back on Subs. It's a lot of work. I snorted 1/4 of a pill 8 hours ago and I'm out. I have to get up and clean and I feel hung over. I plan on using opies on Thursday (today is Tuesday) hopefully by then ill get a good high. Last time I used I hardly felt the 70 mgs of norco I ingested. I also plan on doing CWE so I don't puke out my liver.
There's got to be someone out there that's mastered this balancing art!!
 
Buprenorphine's BioAvailibility/absorption through insufflation is around 50% wheras sublingual administration is 30%, that's why the same dose effected you more efficiently. There is a way to increase sublingual administration by putting some Alchohol under your tongue before you put the suboxone there. I've never done it, but it boosts the BA to at least 50%, if not higher (click this link for more info-Alchoholic solutions for a higher sublingual BioAvailibility.

Also, while many people don't like to plug because they're afraid of their assholes, its a really great ROA, the best IMO. It hits you just like IV does but lasts as long as sniffing. It feels much cleaner, gives you a rush and lasts a real long time.
 
Buprenorphine's BioAvailibility/absorption through insufflation is around 50% wheras sublingual administration is 30%, that's why the same dose effected you more efficiently. There is a way to increase sublingual administration by putting some Alchohol under your tongue before you put the suboxone there. I've never done it, but it boosts the BA to at least 50%, if not higher (click this link for more info-Alchoholic solutions for a higher sublingual BioAvailibility.

Also, while many people don't like to plug because they're afraid of their assholes, its a really great ROA, the best IMO. It hits you just like IV does but lasts as long as sniffing. It feels much cleaner, gives you a rush and lasts a real long time.
So I would just shove half a pill up my butt with lube? Do I crush it first? I hate sublingual administration.
 
On this reply I am not necessarily coming from a harm reduction perspective but I understand what the OP wants and is saying. First of all, do you really want to start shoving things up your butt? It takes addiction to a whole other disgusting level. We, as addicts are going to do things that in the end will likely make certain that we are not as healthy as someone who does not use, BUT...... I don't think your snorting sub is any worse than any other habit we pick up. Snorting will save your sub by quite a bit and for now if its working better, than do it. Its not like your snorting 3 8mg pills a day. I suggest tapering off the sub however you use it, and quit.....but if you must....your bit of snorting is not a big deal in my opinion.
 
There is every reason for you to want to snort buprenorphine versus taking it sublingually given the higher intranasal BA others have pointed out (e.g. in my experience 1mg snorted equals 4-6mg sublingually). Also sublingual dosaging is more variable (depending on what part of your mouth you place the tab, whether you brushed your teeth recently, use of listerine, etc).

So yes, as has been pointed out, especially considering you're a CPP you're best off snorting your Suboxone AT LOWER DOSAGES than you'd take them as prescribed sublingually (buprenorphine acts more like an agonist than antagonist at lower dosages, providing more pain relief at 1mg than 12mg).

NOW, on to your question as to if this is safe, and if so if it's safe in the long run. IME I'd say yes. Bupe and naloxone don't seem to cause any problems in terms irritating your mucus membrane, sinuses, lungs, etc. What you should be concerned about is the inactive ingredients. Some pills have talk, which upon building up can cause major problems.

Knowing what all the ingredients in pills are when using them in any way other than directed (or even then) is important because, in most cases, pills are mostly made up of inactive ingredients. Suboxone pills are the perfect example of this, as an 8mg Suboxone brand pill weighs 400mg, but the active component, bupe (sans naloxone), is only 2% of the entire pill's mass! Its been a long time since I've seen a 2mg Suboxone brand pill, but I'd imagine the inactive-to-active ingredients ratio is similar.

Moral of the story is, knowing what and how the inactive ingredients in pills will affect you is important because, in almost all cases, you're mostly snorting/injecting/plugging those inactives! Anyways, moving on...

Here is a list of excipients (inactive ingredients) in suboxone brand 2mg/0.5mg tablets:

Lactose monohydrate (42mg of lactose)
Mannitol
Maize/Corn starch
Povidone K 30
Citric acid anhydrous
Sodium citrate
Magnesium stearate
Acesulfame potassium
Natural lemon and lime flavour

This is taken from http://www.drugs.com/uk/suboxone-tablets-2mg-0-5mg-spc-16544.html (it's near the bottom of the page and work your way up to find this table). On a side note, it would seem the 8mg/2mg Suboxone brand tablets have the same inactives as the 2mg/0.5mg brand tablets.

I don't see anything dangerous there, so sniff away. Make sure you take good care of your nose and sinuses otherwise though. Rinse with saline once in a while. Petrolium jelly, creams, ointments, whatever works to keep your nose and mucus membrane as healthy as possible. If you do this for the rest of your life, sniffing pills I mean, of whatever kind, you'll probably end up with a deviated septum.

THE GOOD NEWS about this is that with these pills, as a CPP, you will be snorting a very small amount of material (the 2mg/0.5mg pills are small to begin with and you'll only be snorting a quarter or them - tiny bumps we're talking here). So you're a lot better off than folks snorting the old school OC's one after the other after the other, or whatever.

Best of luck OP! I have found bupe at low dosages (3-4mg sublingual, given low BA, 1-2mg intranasal and 0.5-1.5mg IM to work really well for my nerve pain issues, although I'm hardly a worst case CPP).

EDIT: Intranasal BA is high enough already, don't go snorting it mixed with ethanol or something stupid that'll destroy your sinuses. IF you prefer to take it sublingually, you can increase the BA by using some sort of ethanol preperations, of which there are lots of recipies for around here. However, in my kind long (almost four years know that I think about it) love affair with bupe (fav opioid) I've found that in terms of increasing sublingual BA, the easiest thing to do is:

  1. Brush your mouth thoroughly
  2. Rinse with some antiseptic mouth wash with ethanol (like Listerine, which I use every time I take bupe sublingually)
  3. While swishing the Listerine in your mouth take a couple minutes to crush the pill up as finally as possible (if the burn is too much crush pill up before brushing teeth)
  4. Place the bupe directly under your tongue in the proper place DIRECTLY after spitting out the ethanol solution/mouthwash (the idea being there is still some ethanol in your mouth)
  5. Do no eat/drink/talk/spit and keep tongue/mouth as still as possible for I'd say 5-15 minutes (although you probably can get away with less) to ensure all bupe gets absorbed
  6. And finally, swallow :p

Honestly, either methods (using Listerine or snorting) will work as well as the other. In terms of LONG TERM use the Listerine/ethanol prep for sublingual use is safer and healthier, but you shouldn't worry about snorting a quarter of a 2mg brand name suboxone pill unless you're planning on doing it every days or more than once every day for years and years and years.

Once the generic pills come out I'm going to go back to snorting the pills to get the most out of the BA without having to prep for IM which is even more a PITA than the whole ethanol prep for sublingual use thing. I will however be using IM bupe if I ended up doing the long ass final taper I originally planned, but that will be to accurately control dosages (i.e. it's easier to titrate dosages when a drug's BA is 100% than 30-60% ).

Im my experience, especially if you have problems with opioid related constipation, bupe's intranasal BA isn't much worse at all to make a significant diff for most people than its rectal BA. Hell, the rectal BA isn't hugely better than ethanol prepped sublingual BA if you are constipated at all from regularly opioid use.

That said, rectal bupe can work very well. You just have to make sure you're all cleared out down there. Which can be really difficult for people who use opioids nearly every day or daily. In other words, the only times I've EVER had success using ANY opioid rectally (and yes my method was proper) was after I had a professional enema done or whatever they call that colon cleanse where they flush your bowels out OR was in withdrawal and had major diahrea that had already cleared everything out.

If you don't like sublingual use, even with the higher BA ethanol provides (which I can understand cause the pills taste like shit, even compared to strips, or so is the opinion of most people I know), stick with snorting for now. If you develop problems with stuff like irritation or the skin on the outside of your nose getting really dry and flaking off, maybe try rectal admin. But like I said, since the general state of my bowels these days is to be plugged up and constipated, rectal admin isn't practical for me and hasn't worked unless I take extreme enema measures.

No harm in trying, that is for sure (and it's so easy to do after all, and absolutely painless unless you're a raging homophobe - in the sense it doesn't hurt putting the proper kind of needle-less syringe up your anus - there is no reason not to try). If rectal admin works and is practical for you, stick with that, because you'll avoid any possible, unforeseeable issues that come with intranasal use of Suboxone (although I've never run into any in my two years of snorting those damn orange pills.

GOD I CANNOT WAIT UNTIL the GENERIC COMES OUT! I just hope it too is no less safe to snort in terms of inactives as the brand name bupe tablets were.

And, um, we are talking about bupe tablets right? Not the strips?


EDIT Round 2: Use of Potentiators to Increase Analgesia and Agonist Effects of Low-Dose, High-BA ROA Bupprenorphine is Not to be Underestimated!

And if you want to get the most agonist/classical opioid effects (i.e. analgesia, euphoria, sedation, etc) Tagamet/Cimetidine and Bendryl/Diphenhydramine can really make bupe a whole other drug (i.e. I get legit high when I take 600mg Cimetidine three hours before I dose my bupe and 75mg Diphenhydramine directly before dosing my subs.

Long term use of Cimetidine, especially considering this is heavy use, can lead to some problems though. If you have a heart condition forget this (although after a year of using it way too much I have developed no problems as a result).

Also, long term, high dose use of Cimetidine has been known result in Gynecomastia (i.e. create man boobs). But if you keep your diet healthy and exercise and are otherwise not significantly overweight the gynecomastia issue probably won't be a problem - it seems to most often be a problem for those who gain a lot of weight while on suboxone, don't exercise, have poor diet, etc. Given my healthy diet and some exercise it hasn't been a problem for me at all.
 
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Just my two cents on this topic. I also use the nasal route for when I take suboxone. Considering I still use opiates and switch between that and sub, I keep my dose as low as possible.

So, it goes like this. When I get paid, I'll binge for approxiamtely 3-4 days...Usually oxymorphone, but I got lucky and have been getting the old school OC's. Then for about 7-10 days, I use sub. The first day, I may snort 2mg's. However, my normal dose is 1mg. I haven't had to resort to taking more in quite a while and only going for a few days doesn't lay me up too bad. It's more mental than anything.

This is not the healthiest route and I should just keep going on the subs. I did that for 18 months and miss it. However, I find that if I do take a vacation from the subs, I'm not as blocked up as others. I actually had a dream last night, since I typed this and had a flashback here, that I couldn't get high because of suboxone when I did a pill. Weird how that just came to me.
 
My own and from what I've heard from many others is that the more one switches back and forth from suboxone to any traditional full agonist (e.g. oxycodone/heroin/etc), less effective suboxone is. At first it's all good, even for years of going on a month run then using subs to detox or maint. But then eventually you recognize you need more sub to detox without getting really sick or to maint at the same level of comfort. Eventually it becomes a shit show.

Suboxone works best, and even gets one high (especially at <2mg dosages IV/IM/intranasal/rectal and with potentiation), but for this to work best one has to religiously stick to suboxone and not take any significant vacations.

These days though I'm not trying to catch a nod - far from it. But I still do treasure the buzz, a legit albeit not hugely intense high, my daily little dose of suboxone gives me. Best, least destructive and or problematic in the long term pick me up I've ever found.

Of course one must be very careful when getting off it, but if done properly with the right meds and support there isn't any serious issue even there. There is however a big difference from coming off it properly after taking it for thirty days versus jumping off at 8mg let alone 2mg after a six months or a year or more of daily use...

Coming off it properly after X amount of time with the right support is nothing like jumping from any X.Xmg dose after daily use of six months or longer without good support. Although I'm sure there's one or two lucky freaks out there (I use that in as a respectful term in this context), I sure as hell wouldn't bet on being one of them, considering the needless suffering involved if I bed wrong.
 
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Take it from me...it does become a shit show..I've been on subs for a decade..and the longer u take them the less they work when your doing shorter acting opiates. And they messed up all of my hormones...it's a shitty drug and will be exposed in the future..it's only been out for 11 years at the ridiculous dosing that its prescribed...before that it was prescribed in mcg not mg...so basically our generation is test mice, and I'm a test mouse where this drug has caused many many quality of life issues...wish I would of dealt with my addiction when it got bad instead of resorting to maintenance or chose methadone...
 
snorting takes a lot less pill but it fucks up your nose
2 years off opiates and I cant think of how I did so many of it get off of your opiates i'm ok, your ok
 
timetohunt said:
On this reply I am not necessarily coming from a harm reduction perspective but I understand what the OP wants and is saying. First of all, do you really want to start shoving things up your butt? It takes addiction to a whole other disgusting level.

thats just you being a homophobe.

There are legitimate medicines designed as rectal suppositories, its not just another way for a junky to get high. Grow up and show some maturity.
 
I'm new to this site so bare with me.. iv been on opiates since I was 18.. I'm now 35 and I went from pills to dope to fentyinol and back again to me subs are the most efficient and safe way to live with what will probably be a lifetime addiction.. now to get to the point, when I started subs they were orange stop signs and a quarter crushed and snorted got me very nice feeling since then they switched almost everybody to the film's Wich I feel like I need at least a half to get the same feeling the only drawback is with snorting I think I come down quicker and it's a bit more intense
 
Also, while many people don't like to plug because they're afraid of their assholes, its a really great ROA, the best IMO. It hits you just like IV does but lasts as long as sniffing. It feels much cleaner, gives you a rush and lasts a real long time.

Now I'm interested into putting thing into my asshole. Any word on the procedure with subutex ? Just degrade it in water then plop ? Any risk of OD considering I plan to use 2mg and I'm at 4mg a day ? Is this that strong high that I risk to never forget (I never injected dope - in this case Ill not do that) ? thx
 
Lots of ways to stick things up your asshole on the forum lately. If you've been using subutex films, that are meant for under your tongue or in your cheek pouches, sticking it up your butt will be probably indistinguishable. Like when you put it in a little liquid and squirt it up your nose. If it works those ways, it'll work up your bum, along with any side effects, discomfort, and only at about the same speed.

How much/fast/and well a drug soaks through your various mucous membranes depends a lot on a lot of things, and so it will vary a lot, even for the same person, at different times of the day. Seriously, stuff like relative humidity is gonna play some role in absorbing things in your nose (and maybe your butthole too, I don't judge how you choose to air it out, just, please not around me, thanks).

I bring this up after the plugging suboxone thread just a few innocent days ago (not the title, the one where her eyeballs hurt, I think). I found an early paper on buprenorphine sublingual v. intranasal absorption (and exact numbers won't apply to you, because it was crushed tablets not films); only four good readings, range 9-42% for sublingual at 4mg. (Intranasal was listed around 38%.)

See, if you hear that BA=30% by hole A, 40% by hole B, the correct answer is not to do every last drop by hole B at all costs.

The details are: hole A: 30% +/- 15%; hole B: 40% +/- 14%, n=6. That data right there actually says they have identical BA. No statistical difference between holes.

That makes sense because we're comparing mucous membranes: different square footage, different rents, same basic floorplan. OK, well, the ones in your mouth can taste horrible, the ones in your nose can burn, the ones inside your butthole can make your guts churn and writhe in agony.


Don't think I'm discouraging you from putting stuff in your butt, just don't make an imagined 7.8% better bioavailability be one of the reasons. And always switch fingers between attempts.
 
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