Holy hell this is hard!!!

[2dark2see]

Wow I'm having a hard day with this recovery battle/journey/hell/whatever!!!! To condense things, I've been using suboxone to stop the 150mg+ a day oxy habit I had. My first day off oxy/on sub was Dec.9 so I guess that makes today 10 days into sobriety. I started out with 8mg that first day and was down to 3mg for the past couple days. The intensity of the urges to run to my dealer and use have been up and down, with the past few days seeming to be easier compared to before. But now here I am today - I took my 2mg dose this morning and the urge to use seemed to get stronger, then diminished a bit over an hour but went right back up after an hour. So I just took a 1mg dose (which I normally wait to take until sometime in the afternoon). I feel like the only thing that stopped me from going to my dealer was knowing that if I were to use today I wouldn't feel a thing from the oxy bc of the suboxone so I've been able to tell myself it's not worth it. I know it's not worth using for several reasons but in being honest the only reason keeping me from using was the suboxone and knowing it would block the oxy.
So I've got to thinking - maybe these strong cravings mean I'm on too low of a dose of suboxone and maybe should go up to 4mg again? It's only been 2-3 days that I've been on 3mg and before that was on 4... I don't know, maybe it doesn't really matter what dose I'm on, and that I'm going to have these urges regardless. But I can say I'm happy I'm on the suboxone bc without it I'm 100% certain that I would have given in and used today. I know from reading stories here that sub isn't for everyone and that everyone has different opinions as to how long a person should stay on it, but for me I know that it saved my sobriety today and for that I'm thankful.
Edit: was just thinking that my initial plan with the subs was to use them to help with the oxy detox and to only use them for a MAX 10 days. That initial plan has slowly changed over the course of things and now that I'm actually on day 10 now I can see that would not have been a very successful plan at all.... also, I initially only had 7 of the 8mg strips but was able to get 30 more strips this weekend, thankfully!

 

[2dark2see]

It's only been maybe an hour and half since I took that last 1mg sub dose but wow it really made a difference! I'm not sitting here counting the minutes and going back and forth with myself on whether or not I should contact my dealer. I'm able to focus on other things instead of obsessing on opiates like I was just a few hours ago. I work tomorrow so I'll definitely welcome that distraction.
I am curious about how people usually dose with suboxone... do most take their total daily dose all at once or do they break it up during the day. Before today I had been taking part in the morning and the other part in the afternoon.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I found it most effective to dose twice a day, with two smaller doses being more effective than one larger dose. At lower doses the medication acts more like an agonist than mixed agonist, so there is a bit more of a little buzz to it. It is very subtle and hard to notice, it actually took me a long time to really be able to distinguish the effects and get over the whole logic mind fuck that makes you think taking more will increase the effects. That isn't quite how buprenorphine works, more doesn't get you higher.

If you find yourself struggling with cravings on buprenorphine, you can potentiate your dose with cimetidine (Tagamet) and maximize sublingual absorption by washing your mouth out with Listerine before dosing. Taking 600-1000mg cimetidine with your dose will make it noticeably more effective. Just don't do this too often, because high doses of cimetidine has been known to cause rather remarkable side effects (gynecomastia).

Granted it is unusual and an extreme case (for instance, it would be quite unlikely if you didn't take the cimetidine every day and maintained a healthy diet), but it is something to be aware of. I used cimetidine and diphenhydramine to potentiate my buprenorphine for about a year. It worked really well at addressing cravings, but I got made sugar cravings while on it. I was living in a very unhealthy environment with family at the time, who had really unhealthy eating and exercising habits, a few of which I picked up, and I gained about 20lbs on it. It took me a few years of, granted not doing much other than realigning my activity and diet to healthy patterns, work to get back to a place I'm comfortable with.

If one is finding it necessary to regularly potentiate their buprenorphine with cimetidine though, I mean like on a daily basis, one really should look into methadone.

I am glad the buprenorphine is helping you out 2dark2see!

 

[2dark2see]

Thanks for your feedback and advice. I think I'll buy some Tagamet just to have on hand for situations like yesterday. And the side effect you mentioned might not be so bad - I'm actually a pretty thin woman so there are days I wouldn't mind a bit of a chest increase
But today is much better than yesterday (haven't even taken my normal morning dose yet) and I've got work to distract me today as well so that should help. Thanks again!