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Bupe Help with suboxone

O

outoftown

Bluelighter
Joined
Aug 2, 2011
Messages
67
Hi everyone - need some suboxone help. Couple questions.

First - I started taking suboxone 3mg once per day about a month ago. I tapered down to 2mg (taking 2mg every 3 days for a few cycles...then every 2 days for a few cycles)...I've been at 2mg for a little over 2 weeks. Things dont seem to be getting easier. I take my dose in the morning (8am) and by night I have anxiety and just feelings like its "wearing off". I don't know if thats in my head or not. But then I wake up in the morning and I most definitly have the start of withdrawal...anxiety, runny nose, cold flashes, sweats, yawning...all mild but I have it up until I take my dose at 8am. I figured after 7-10 days this would build up in my system and get adjusted. But day 15 was exactly the same as day 1 (on 2mg). Has anyone ever experienced this? My doctor says my body processes opiates weird (I have a fast metabolism or something along those lines). I just kinda weirds me out on what it'll be like with continuing to taper...I really figured by now my body would stabilize on 2mg.

Second - because I havent fully adjusted...I decided to take 1mg today. so I took that at 8am. Tonight I'm feeling worse withdrawal (like I do usually in the morning...but its set in tonight...). Its been 13 hours...and I was thinking of taking 10mg oxycodone IR...just to see. What will this do...anything because I'm in withdrawal? Will it be easy to continue on suboxone (2mg) tomorrow then? Just wondering if this would cure my anxiety/withdrawal tonight or have any effect at all? And what will tomorrow be like for me?

Thanks!
 
smaller doses of the suboxone but more often? Like 1mg twice a day? Or .5 mg 4 times a day? It just seems weird to me...I've been on 2mg for over 2 weeks and I never felt "ok". Today when I took the 1mg this morning...I never felt fully "ok" (the 2mg would make me fine for about 12 hours or so)...do you know anyone that ever struggled on low doses of suboxone like this? On 3mg and above I was fine day in and day out.
 
That is withdrawal and it's not just in your head. Even when you adjust to a dose of bupe (which should take around two weeks, as it takes 12 days to eliminate the built up half life of the previous daily dose), it doesn't mean that it will keep you out of w/d for 24 hours, especially if you do have a fast metabolism, and are on a low dose.

The thing with buprenorphine is that it's pretty damn easy to taper from say 16mg down to 8mg. In fact, you probably won't notice any difference at all. Similarly, jumping down from 8mg to 4mg is really not all that hard either. I've found that the hardest jumps occur under 3-4mg. This is most likely due to the fact that the ceiling effect occurs somewhere around 4mg. When your at a dose of 16mg, you are significantly above this cieling dose, which means that all you are really achieving by dosing this high, is a blockade effect towards other opiates, and a build up of buprenorphine which will keep you out of withdrawal for a significant period of time (which is why people on such high dosages can usually go around 3 days easily without dosing suboxone before feeling withdrawal.. The buildup allows them to feel completely normal because until around the 72 hour mark, as the ammount of buprenorphine that has been eliminated, is still not enough to dip below this ceiling).

When you are at a dose of bupe which is either right on the edge of this ceiling, or slightly below it, bupe will act more like a full agonist, and you will also experience an earlier onset of withdrawals, as the blood levels are at this point are now rising and dropping more dramatically. Over time you may find that the morning withdrawal is not as bad, and your dose may feel as if it holds you longer, but you'll never be able to easily skip a couple days like you can at 16mg. I would really recomend splitting your total daily dose in half, that was the only way I could really function productively when I was taking 1mg of suboxone/day (and I was on that dose for months..)
 
Thank you Znegative...really good information here! Helps me a lot!

So I've been taking 2mg for 15 days. Today I took 1mg this morning. Should I take 1mg tonight...and stay at 2mg for awhile (taking 1mg 2 times per day)? Then try and decrease down to 1.5mg or 1mg? I figured 15 days was long enough to stay at 2mg...but maybe not? If not - when is the right time to try and taper down?

Also - should I be dropping to 1.5mg a day...and not going from 2mg to 1mg? (I was planning on dropping in cycles as I did going from 3mg to 2mg...which wasnt easy but I did it)
 
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