It worked well for me. I absolutely love buprenorphine.
When I broke my right arm and suffered the severe/excruciating pain I did, I'd have to say the only reason I'm alive and still here today is for IV buprenorphine. The pain was so bad I was constantly suicidal during this point in my life (and in this phase I also had access to a handgun which I no longer have access to).
I should warn you that you're not going to get
serious pain relief from buprenorphine. It will only take the edge off. But seriously, the edge being taken off, was all I needed when I was in such severe pain. Without constantly being on high dose IV buprenorphine during that point in my life, I likely would have died several years ago.
When I went to the ER, I cried when I left with a prescription for twenty x 5mg percocet / 325mg APAP tablets. I even went to an orthopedist to get a second set of xrays; fourty x 7.5mg / 750 APAP tablets. Utterly a joke. I could have gone through all of these tablets in a matter of a few days, at best, and would have had such minimal pain relief.
Buprenorphine is the only substance I had on hand that would have lasted me as
long (time-wise) as I needed for my recovery (1-2 months as far as I remember).
The only reason I would recommend it for chronic pain is because chronic pain is different from severe acute pain. The pain I was experiencing was for severe acute pain; which it doesn't work well at all for. For chronic pain, it's a lot better, as the partial agonist nature prevents a tolerance build up, so you never find yourself endlessly raising the dosage, and you should still always get a good "feel" out of it, if you don't require so much for analgesia that it starts to antagonize the mu-opioid receptors.
Everyone is unique, and I'm sure not everyone could handle only buprenorphine (yes I said
only buprenorphine...it's nothing to sneer at as opiate-naive people will puke on it - but for someone with a serious opiate tolerance, it won't cause you to puke if taken correctly) for chronic pain. If it was severe chronic pain, full agonists might be literally required to address the pain properly. However, for my level of chronic pain (mild; tendinitis from the surgery I needed to repair my arm from the severe actue pain due to it breaking above), buprenorphine is a blessing in disguise. I'm thankful to never have to use full agonist opiates, never have to come off of them (bupe comedown+withdrawal is amazingly mild by comparison), and to always have it when it's really needed, while also easily going many hours in between dosages without cravings or feeling bad due to under-dosing or over-dosing.
