Yes, keeping bupe doses low IS key, especially in the first day or two. A lot of people go for "the big one" (8-16mg) on day 1, which naturally seems like the way to go, but it is not a good idea. That much suboxone will knock off any tiny shred of opiate you may have left in you and leave your receptors with a shitty replacement, which will make your body very upset. The trick is to use just enough sub to fill the vacant spots on the receptor without kicking off every single full agonist molecule all at once. And, if you do, your dose will be so low that you can easily replace some of those full agonist molecules yourself with a small dose of dope if the post acute wd starts kicking in. However, as the week goes on, your bupe doses should be getting higher and higher so that, eventually, the bupe will completely cover the opiate receptor and you won't be getting much/if any stimulation from your full agonist at the end anyways..making you (and your brain/body) completely ready to be fully reliant on the partial agonist. This method helps you ease into using a partial agonist instead of shocking your system by replacing what it *thinks it* needs with a half-ass substitution.
I could probably write a good official post on this, TPD., from my own personal experience + research I've found on the internet. There's only been one actual study on this, from what I've researched anyways, but it seems to point to this method ACTUALLY working. There's a lot of people online who say "Don't do dope!" if you go into post-acute withdrawal, that it "just makes it worse". I've even seen people say that, not only will adding more dope to your pwd make it worse, but you should just take more subs...but that's not true, at least from my experience, and I feel like people are making their situation worse when they don't have to. Obviously, if you're trying to quit doing dope (or any full agonist for that matter), taking MORE dope seems counteractive, but if it helps ease into suboxone use easier, I don't see the harm in recommending it. A lot of people have a difficult time adjusting to subs, especially folks with long-term and/or heavy habits. I know, from my experience, it was a lot more difficult to induct than I had thought it would be and if I had not had the mental determination to get through the hell week of induction regardless of how bad it felt, I might have slipped back into using (well, you know, before I actually DID end up doing that...but I digress...). There's a lot of people who give up on subs because the induction can suck so bad and I think if people realized that there's an alternative to having to be in withdrawal for 2 straight days first (or deal with shitty pwd), more people might be more keen to try subs again.
Let me know I can go about getting something written for your approval, TPD. If you'd be cool with that, that is. I've been to college, I can properly cite sources and whatnot if I must
