Bupe Suboxone/Buprenorphine FAQ and Megathread v.1; 2007 - 2010

[Captain.Heroin]

Do you really need to take 24mg a day? Is buprenorphine not effective at lower doses for you?

 

[chrisinabox]

^that is exactly what i proposed to him in the other thread called "swapping:bupe to methdone". it got tchort pissed off and he started that new bupe thread that "supposedly" debunks the less is more thing. anyways i said to "suessmayr" that maybe he should try taking a smaller dose and seeing if that is effective for him before he switches to an entirely different drug alltogether. tchort didn't like that cause he is a huge methadone fan apparently, and you know that mentioning to someone that they try taking less of a drug to get more relief before giving up on the drug is endangering people's lives.

i think "suessmayr" said that he used to take somewhere between 20-80mg of oxycodone. IMO, that is not enough to warrant 24mg of bupe but to each his own. i'm not sure if suessmayr ever tried a lower dose or not, cause tchort started his talk about how methadone is better overall and that bupe just simply cannot "give adequate relief at any dose" sometimes and how ppl that mention to other ppl that they try a lower dose are putting ppls lives in danger. personally, i dont believe any of that. plus, i'm not even sure if tchort has even tried taking less bupe to get more relief before, i believe i remember him saying how he took 32mg of bupe when he was on it but liked methadone better. anyways, sorry for the rant.

 

[DeLee]

Been using suboxone now for a while to try and stay away from heroin. Its working quite good i must say. Atleast so for.
Though I am using amphetamine sulphate still on occasion and of course my benso lunch like i like to call it, 60mg temazepam. 2mg clona and 10mg alpra, 2mg flunitrazepam and occasionally some Valium on top of it all. Mostly when im on amphetamine sulphate, ive come to the conclusion that diazepam calms my body and nerves down the best(of course with the rest of the meds).

Need to be quite calm and relaxed at work since i run a company with another guy and have responsibility of several things that can not go wrong.
So focus is of the essence, but all those bensodiazepines doesn't make me a drowling zombie, mainly of my tolerance (been on benso's for about 29 years. Different bensos and a variaty of dosages,)
and secondly its my use of amphetamine which i luckily have managed to down my daily dose to about ½ a gram evenly spread out over the day. At night 1-2mg of Rohypnol to ease the way to sleep.

Anyway, when im on heroin it starts to ruin my daily patterns, so i go on and off heroin to even it out.
Tried Methadone a couple of times, been in a clinic, gotten from docs for pain (opioid addiction is a pain. "in some ways" he he)
And sure it does the trick of getting me normal but i still crave highly potent heroin swirling in my veins! Buprenorphine eliminates that urge better for me. So now i only use the Methadone to get a buzz when of bupe.

So Sub is a good send, ive heard people say this many times and i agree. Its just very sad to se young boys and girls abuse this medicine without having any sort of opioid addiction to begin with. And to be honest, 99% of the times these children doesn't even know whats coming for them. Then when the withdrawal starts for them they brake down like a tip of a worn needle because this isn't what they were expecting. First time and all this is a big deal for them. They can suit themselves all i care though, theres enough problems in this world.

My daily dosage of Sub is between 24 to 32mg's. Wonderfull Sub-treatment program I go to, been in the prog before but couldn't stay very long time. Been taken back and its easy as popping a pill from a blisterpack to get Sub from doctors and such.
(Sadly some people abuse these sub-programs too, but eventually they get thrown out... for the most part anyway) he he he.

Smoke time then bed time.
Stay Safe!

 

[Jabberwocky]

leftwing, since you seem to know a little more than most about buprenorphine, let me ask you a question.

Why is burping/hiccuping such a frequent side effect, when on heroin I only got occasional bouts of hiccups?

ahhh shit, i know there is a thread around here somewhere that has an explanation of some sort, i can't remember exactly what it's caused by. i'll do a search in a moment and have a look and link you to it.

i've had bouts of hiccups on a few different type of opiates/oids, lasting for a couple of days at the most, and it was uncomfortable to say the least. my chest and ribcage felt like someone had taken to me with a bat.

here we go:

It's to do with your reduced sensitivity to blood CO2 levels (well bicarbonate ion actually) such that your O2 levels get so low that your diaphragm goes into spasm. Smoking a cigarette makes it worse as the carbon monoxide in the smoke binds to some of the haemoglobin more strongly than oxygen (carboxyhaemoglobin - cherry red colour), further reducing the level of O2 available in your blood.

Try partial hyperventilation as that will increase the levels of O2 available & flush out the CO2. If it gets really bad, that's how you die (CO2 stimulates the autonomic breathing control centre in the medulla oblongata, but opiates decrease it's sensitivity to CO2 such that a big enough dose will not stimulate you to breath, regardless of the concn of CO2 in the blood plasma)

heres the thread it came from http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=5535732

 

[suessmayr]

^that is exactly what i proposed to him in the other thread called "swapping:bupe to methdone". it got tchort pissed off and he started that new bupe thread that "supposedly" debunks the less is more thing. anyways i said to "suessmayr" that maybe he should try taking a smaller dose and seeing if that is effective for him before he switches to an entirely different drug alltogether. tchort didn't like that cause he is a huge methadone fan apparently, and you know that mentioning to someone that they try taking less of a drug to get more relief before giving up on the drug is endangering people's lives.

i think "suessmayr" said that he used to take somewhere between 20-80mg of oxycodone. IMO, that is not enough to warrant 24mg of bupe but to each his own. i'm not sure if suessmayr ever tried a lower dose or not, cause tchort started his talk about how methadone is better overall and that bupe just simply cannot "give adequate relief at any dose" sometimes and how ppl that mention to other ppl that they try a lower dose are putting ppls lives in danger. personally, i dont believe any of that. plus, i'm not even sure if tchort has even tried taking less bupe to get more relief before, i believe i remember him saying how he took 32mg of bupe when he was on it but liked methadone better. anyways, sorry for the rant.

Dude you have repeated yourself on this point quite a few times and nobody has listened because it's a stupid fucking argument. You don't even try to infer from the facts of your own experience to what might occur in mine - you just kind of state things as law and treat me like an idiot for being on more bupe than you. If I started on 2mg and worked my way up to where I am because lower doses were ineffective, why would dropping back to those doses do me any good? I've heard your point, I don't care.

 

[chrisinabox]

haha where have i repeated myself on this a few times? i posted about it in the other thread and just did now in this one yes but that is it. you and tchort always seem to think im trying to say my opinions as facts. where did i do this? i gave my point of view, if you don't like it, then shut the fuck up. i never said its the only right answer and that everybody else is wrong. everybody is entitled to their opinion, including me. another thing, when did i treat you like an idiot?? i used your name in that post yes, but the only person i talked bad about was "TCHORT", not you. i said i didn't know for sure if you tried to use a lower dose of bupe or not yet, and was waiting for you to respond in this thread if you had or not, and you spew out this bullshit. me and all the other ppl that say lowe doses seem to work better for most people are saying just that, they work well for MOST PEOPLE. you obviously cannot read otherwise you would have seen that after i said the dose of oxy you used to take prolly didn't warrant that much suboxone, i said "to each his own". that means if the higher dose works for you, then all the better for you. nobody said you are wrong for taking higher doses. most people with lower tolerances don't quite need that much usually, but everybody is different, which is what we have been saying for a while now. how would you know if i infer my opinions from my own experiences if YOU don't even know my experience with bupe. my experiences is very similar to alot of ppl on here. i started out on 24-32mg because the doctor said to do that but noticed that it didn't work well and i had bad side effects so i used less and less and stopped at around 4mg and was very happy with that. i am on 2mg/day at the moment. you think i'm just saying stuff and have no idea what i'm talking about? i have just as much experience with it as most people on here. anways, i never saw that you worked your way up from 2mg when you got on bupe, otherwise OBVIOUSLY i would not have said to try a lower dose. i don't remember you saying that in any of your recent posts at all. why couldn't you have simply said, "i was already on a lower dose and that didnt work so i dont need to do it". how hard would that have been? one more thing, that post i wrote was NOT directed to you AT ALL, you say "ive heard your point, i dont care". well thats cool and all, but i wasn't even talking to you in the first place. i used your posts as an example, and tchorts as well, but was talking to "captainheroin", not you. looks like that oxy is making you cranky, maybe its the high dose of suboxone blocking the oxy from getting you as high as you want!

 

[suessmayr]

I read about two lines of that but gave up on the shitty english, bad grammar and lack of punctuation but yeah I think I see your point.

I shouldn't have written what I did - it was dishonest.

S

 

[chrisinabox]

shitty english- no, i might have abbreviated a few words but thats it
bad grammar- okay, fast typing does that to you
lack of punctuation- i dont really see how lowercase letters, lack of some periods and lack of some commas makes it hard to read something.

 

[suessmayr]

Someone else wrote that sub withdrawals would more or less be over by the 60-hr mark but I would have thought they'd be more or less beginning...given that bupe has such a long half-life, and that some people would take 24mg to last them 2 or 3 days.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

ahhh shit, i know there is a thread around here somewhere that has an explanation of some sort, i can't remember exactly what it's caused by. i'll do a search in a moment and have a look and link you to it.

i've had bouts of hiccups on a few different type of opiates/oids, lasting for a couple of days at the most, and it was uncomfortable to say the least. my chest and ribcage felt like someone had taken to me with a bat.

here we go:



heres the thread it came from http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=5535732

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense. I don't smoke tobacco at all, I'm very glad I don't. It's weird that that's what it is. I have tried the partial hyperventilation thing, and it worked some times, but not others.

The other very weird thing is that I'll pass into and out of bouts of it like with the drop of a hat...and it typically is very short lasting. Very irregularly has it lasted longer than part of an hour.

Fastandbulbous is a pretty reliable mod from what his posts have shown, so I totally believe this, it makes a lot of sense.

Dude you have repeated yourself on this point quite a few times and nobody has listened because it's a stupid fucking argument. You don't even try to infer from the facts of your own experience to what might occur in mine - you just kind of state things as law and treat me like an idiot for being on more bupe than you. If I started on 2mg and worked my way up to where I am because lower doses were ineffective, why would dropping back to those doses do me any good? I've heard your point, I don't care.

I actually agree with him; it makes more sense that norbuprenorphine is more effective as a maintenance drug than buprenorphine is; there are less side effects at lower doses, there are better patient responses, and studies have shown it's hard to differentiate from a 2mg dose and an 8mg dose.

Only few with huge opiate tolerances would notice the difference.

I read about two lines of that but gave up on the shitty english, bad grammar and lack of punctuation but yeah I think I see your point.

English is capitalized.

You know, if you're going to get on other people's spelling cases...you might want to fix yours first.

 

[ahlongsan]

[QUO

TE]

It does sting quite a bit, however this tingling sensation is the alcohol transporting the active ingredient across the mucous membrane of your mouth.

The positive side of using the alcohol is that you get more out of the pills, and it helps the pills dissolve rather quickly.

The fact is, you don't "have" to hold the pills under your tongue; there's membrane that will absorb the drug in other parts of your mouth. However, they say to keep it under your tongue because if you open your mouth while it's dissolving, some of the active drug can escape.

I'm sure you got what you were supposed to out of the pills. I get really talkative on buprenorphine (you can tell from all these huge posts I type on bluelight, one time JC was like "are you tweaking?" and I wasn't, but I was typing like I was lol), that is normal. The 6 hours of euphoria and then the nap sounds about normal in my opinion.

When people without an opiate tolerance take 0.5mg or 1mg of buprenorphine, they typically get talkative, somewhat sedated, and tend to nap near the end of the high. They'll wake up feeling refreshed.

My advice to you is to use less alcohol; for the dose you took, you only needed about 10, maybe 15 units of alcohol. This is a very tiny amount of alcohol, like 1/1000'th of a shot glass, really.

I think 1ml of hard liquor is needed for every 8mg for optimization. You took ~0.5mg, so you would only need 5 to 10 units of alcohol, max. 1/10 of 1 ML of hard liquor.

So if you want to try this again, I'd try less liquor. Sounds like it was a success overall though.

The only way to get "more" out of buprenorphine is to buy micron filters, and to filter the active ingredient out of the pill for injection. However, this is a very troublesome thing to do, and IVing buprenorphine will shorten its duration by a lot.

I think your best bet is to use less hard liquor. It's hard to quantify 1/10 of one ML....but that's all you need for a ~0.5mg dose.[/QUOTE]


Hey Capt H, u've been such a helpful bloke mate and really i cannot thank you enough for all you help......i will follow your advice and use less alcohol today..

Capt H, due to my work requirement which requires me to talk heaps(but not everyday) i'm thinking of dosing again later today which is about 30hrs+ after my last dose yesterday and also doseing tomorrow 24hrs+ after today's doseing...do u reckon the same dosage of 3x0.216mg pills +10mg diazepam will work for me today and tomorrow?? and will i suffer from WD the day after tomorrow(which is dosing 3 days straight in a row???)

I use to be an addict to smoking H proper 15years ago and i know the WD is something i never want to feel ever again so what do u reckon??

Thanks heaps again in advance Capt H, i owe u bro..

Cheers,

 

[ahlongsan]

It does sting quite a bit, however this tingling sensation is the alcohol transporting the active ingredient across the mucous membrane of your mouth.

The positive side of using the alcohol is that you get more out of the pills, and it helps the pills dissolve rather quickly.

The fact is, you don't "have" to hold the pills under your tongue; there's membrane that will absorb the drug in other parts of your mouth. However, they say to keep it under your tongue because if you open your mouth while it's dissolving, some of the active drug can escape.

I'm sure you got what you were supposed to out of the pills. I get really talkative on buprenorphine (you can tell from all these huge posts I type on bluelight, one time JC was like "are you tweaking?" and I wasn't, but I was typing like I was lol), that is normal. The 6 hours of euphoria and then the nap sounds about normal in my opinion.

When people without an opiate tolerance take 0.5mg or 1mg of buprenorphine, they typically get talkative, somewhat sedated, and tend to nap near the end of the high. They'll wake up feeling refreshed.

My advice to you is to use less alcohol; for the dose you took, you only needed about 10, maybe 15 units of alcohol. This is a very tiny amount of alcohol, like 1/1000'th of a shot glass, really.

I think 1ml of hard liquor is needed for every 8mg for optimization. You took ~0.5mg, so you would only need 5 to 10 units of alcohol, max. 1/10 of 1 ML of hard liquor.

So if you want to try this again, I'd try less liquor. Sounds like it was a success overall though.

The only way to get "more" out of buprenorphine is to buy micron filters, and to filter the active ingredient out of the pill for injection. However, this is a very troublesome thing to do, and IVing buprenorphine will shorten its duration by a lot.

I think your best bet is to use less hard liquor. It's hard to quantify 1/10 of one ML....but that's all you need for a ~0.5mg dose.[/quote]


Hey Capt H, u've been such a helpful bloke mate and really i cannot thank you enough for all you help......i will follow your advice and use less alcohol today..

Capt H, due to my work requirement which requires me to talk heaps(but not everyday) i'm thinking of dosing again later today which is about 30hrs+ after my last dose yesterday and also doseing tomorrow 24hrs+ after today's doseing...do u reckon the same dosage of 3x0.216mg pills +10mg diazepam will work for me today and tomorrow?? and will i suffer from WD the day after tomorrow(which is dosing 3 days straight in a row???)

I use to be an addict to smoking H proper 15years ago and i know the WD is something i never want to feel ever again so what do u reckon??

Thanks heaps again in advance Capt H, i owe u bro..

Cheers,

 

[Captain.Heroin]

Hm...will dosing suboxone 3 days in a row produce WD's..

I'm guessing no, simply because I've heard of people coming off of H benders, and they used suboxone for a week for a quick taper - and it worked, they weren't addicted to buprenorphine.

Buprenorphine's WD is a very prolonged one, so I understand where you're coming from in not wanting to go there.

You should be fine, however I would definitely stick to the 10mg diazepam all 3 days, so you have extra diazepam afterwards, so if you need something to help you through it you will.

Odds are you should be fine.

Even if you did feel some sort of WD from 3 days use, it would be mild at best, especially with the fact 0.5mg in a day is a very low dose.

Buprenorphine is something which doesn't have a huge tolerance build up, so a steady dose of it should be fine. And you shouldn't have any WD symptoms.

However, I'm not entirely sure. If anyone else wants to venture a guess, let's hear it.

I think you should be fine though. I wouldn't go longer than 3 days in a row, though up to a week should be fine, the closer you get there the more likely it is more unpleasant upon cessation.

 

[ahlongsan]

Hm...will dosing suboxone 3 days in a row produce WD's..

I'm guessing no, simply because I've heard of people coming off of H benders, and they used suboxone for a week for a quick taper - and it worked, they weren't addicted to buprenorphine.

Buprenorphine's WD is a very prolonged one, so I understand where you're coming from in not wanting to go there.

You should be fine, however I would definitely stick to the 10mg diazepam all 3 days, so you have extra diazepam afterwards, so if you need something to help you through it you will.

Odds are you should be fine.

Even if you did feel some sort of WD from 3 days use, it would be mild at best, especially with the fact 0.5mg in a day is a very low dose.

Buprenorphine is something which doesn't have a huge tolerance build up, so a steady dose of it should be fine. And you shouldn't have any WD symptoms.

However, I'm not entirely sure. If anyone else wants to venture a guess, let's hear it.

I think you should be fine though. I wouldn't go longer than 3 days in a row, though up to a week should be fine, the closer you get there the more likely it is more unpleasant upon cessation.

cheers Capt H, nice bloke you are mate.

 

[suessmayr]

I read in passing there that someone else was getting "6 hrs of euphoria then a nap" on bupe and just thought I'd check that I read it in context. Since the DAY I stated on bupe, even on 1mg, I have always followed that pattern, just not with euphoria. I get nothing in the first hour, then two of a faint buzz, then two coming down, then i just sleep for hours. Every fucking day.

 

[subisjustokay]

Okay so I went to my sub doctor today for my monthly check up/ prescription whatever... and he popped a 10 panel drug test on me out of nowhere... Now I haven't been doing ANY opiates at all while i've been on suboxone but I have been taking Alprazolam....

***In your opinion(anyone)** Do you think he's gonna be pissed about that? and will it cause me any problems?? He seems pretty damn cool but I just don't know how doctors usually feel about this... anyone happen to go through this with their doc???

Any opinions would be appreciated cause I'm kinda sweating it...

 

[mangtheanimal]

Okay so I went to my sub doctor today for my monthly check up/ prescription whatever... and he popped a 10 panel drug test on me out of nowhere... Now I haven't been doing ANY opiates at all while i've been on suboxone but I have been taking Alprazolam....

***In your opinion(anyone)** Do you think he's gonna be pissed about that? and will it cause me any problems?? He seems pretty damn cool but I just don't know how doctors usually feel about this... anyone happen to go through this with their doc???

Any opinions would be appreciated cause I'm kinda sweating it...

I don't know if you are aware of this, but taking xanax while on a sub program can be pretty dangerous to depressing your cns and breathing. If I was your doctor, the only reason I would be pissed is because I could potentially be dealing with a patient who could kill themself.

 

[subisjustokay]

I don't know if you are aware of this, but taking xanax while on a sub program can be pretty dangerous to depressing your cns and breathing. If I was your doctor, the only reason I would be pissed is because I could potentially be dealing with a patient who could kill themself.

I realize the danger... But it's not like I'm taking 10mg of xanax and bupe at the same time... It take on average 1mg at night time....

Trust me with the combo of drugs I've used in the past this is nowhere near as dangerous... I've just had problems sleeping since I got on suboxone and he was prescribing me clonidine but then just up and switched to ambien which wasn't doing the trick... so I tried the alprazolam which works GREAT... b

But thank you for your input mang...

 

[ellua]

if a suboxone doctor cut every patient on bupe off just because they took drugs without telling them, they wouldn't have any patients left.

its up to you to be honest with your doctor though... lying to the one doctor you should be able to trust and tell the truth about your using to isn't going to help you at all, and if they get the feeling you're not serious about staying clean then you dig your own grave. i've had 3 different sub docs and they have never been upset with the drugs i admitted to using while on maintenence (from dope, oxy, methadone, klonopin, and blow)- actually, the only drug they seem to get upset about is alcohol. i've never been drug tested from them though, but if i had been there wouldn't be any surprises.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

Find a new doctor who isn't going to drug test you. Why would someone on ORT be doing drugs? *GASP*...

...

*rolls eyes*...

I wouldn't have consented to such a thing.

Also, you're fine taking 1mg of xanax at a time. (Personally, I only take 0.5mg at a time.) People blow the whole "benzos + suboxone" thing out of the water because they don't know how high of a dose of benzodiazepines you'd have to take to have a risky situation.

Typically, when people have low benzo tolerances, and stick to taking low doses of them, they are OK. However, if you take a whole bunch of benzos while on suboxone, you're likely to encounter a rough situation - one where you're more inebriated than you planned to be.

I watched someone try to eat a PB&J while on suboxone and 20mg lorazepam; they ended up mangling it so bad it was a big pile of mess, and it was all over their face and hands. Someone else tried to assist them clean it off of them, and they resisted at first because they didn't know what was going on.

The person didn't OD, but it certainly wasn't a good situation.