First day on Buprenorphine (subutex), bad bad withdrawal symptoms

[bullet_and_the_gun]

Hi everyone. My boyfriend started subutex this morning and he is having very bad precipitated withdrawal symptoms. Do you guys have any idea how long that will last and if there's anything he can do to feel better?

He has been on methadone for years (was taking 40 mg) and stopped taking it 6 days ago so he could start the sub. He's been doing lines of dope in the meantime. The doctor told him not to do any opiate after midnight last night. He did dope last night before midnight, but he also did a small line of (crappy) dope this morning at 7:30am. He took 4mg of subutex at 10am and started feeling withdrawal symptoms. At 12pm he took another 2mg. It's 12:30pm now and he's feeling horrible (stomach hurts, legs like lead, cold, can't get out of bed...). He called his doctor and he told him that all he could do was wait. Apparently that small line this morning triggered that precipitated withdrawal. He didn't know it would be that bad. He'd been on subutex before (years ago) but never experienced that.

Thanks for reading this, any help would be much appreciated!

 

[bullet_and_the_gun]

Oh, and also, he knows he shouldn't do any dope nor take any more subutex, and he's not planning to, as apparently it would only make things worse...

 

[Tripman]

He should have listened to his doctor.

There is often a very good reason for the things they say.

However I would always wait 48 hours to dose bupe... Always...

 

[bullet_and_the_gun]

Well yeah, he should've stuck to what the doctor had said, that's for sure, he knows that now... I also think the doctor should've explained the risk better. He asked him to stay clean for 9 hours only, I wonder if that would've been enough. The doctor told him not to take any more bupe (and that's what my bf wants to do), but I just read that taking more bupe would alleviate the precipitated withdrawal. Could that be right?

 

[Tripman]

He shouldn't take more that is correct.

9 hours is not a sufficient amount of time to wait, his doctor sounds pretty shitty to me.

 

[bullet_and_the_gun]

Thank you. Yeah, I feel the same way about his doctor. The guy is specialized in drug addiction and yet he failed to explain pretty basic stuff that's all over the internet. We should've looked all that up before.

 

[OxyMorphMan]

There really is no exact time from as to when to take it...my doctor just told me wait until I am in full withdrawals before taking suboxone. For some people I've read about they don't experiencing withdrawals until 2-3 days after their last dose. As for the precipitated withdrawals, there is really nothing that can be done. There is no way to reverse it. Taking more bupe won't cure it and even using dope wouldn't because bupe has a higher receptor binding affinity. Sorry, but he's just going to have to tough it out for a good 12+ hours. He shouldn't have done any dope this morning, and definitely shouldn't have taken subs before he was experiencing moderate to severe withdrawal.