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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards | negrogesic

Suboxone after methadone

C

Cizarny

Greenlighter
Joined
Mar 13, 2017
Messages
16
I have been on methadone for 4 months after quitting heroin and I'm tired of it. I asked my doctor if he could switch me to Suboxone and he said yes, but I would need to wean down to 60 mg and take 3 days off before starting the Suboxone. I went down to 60 milligrams and I'm currently on my third day with nothing. Tomorrow, I go into the clinic and take 16 mg of Suboxone. He assured me that I would not go into precipitous withdrawal if I waited 3 days. Here's the thing. I'm not sick. It's kind of freaking me out. The one time I ever took Suboxone while I was doing heroin and I took it before I felt sick, it put me into the worst precipitous withdrawal episode ever. Has anyone done this? I really want some reassurance that that's not going to happen.
 
DO NOT TAKE SUBOXONE IF YOU ARE NOT IN WITHDRAWAL. No matter what the doctor says. I've heard stories like yours end very badly. Wait until you feel like shit. Oh by the way, I think clinics usually try to get the methadone dose down to 30mg before switching. 60 seems a bit high.
 
That part might have been my fault. I was pretty insistent that we go faster than the way they wanted to do it. I'm seriously questioning what I should do tomorrow, though.
 
Cizarny... What happened with the suboxone dude? Did you go through precipitated withdrawals? Did you tell your doctor it was too soon? What happened bro? Inquiring minds would like to know LOL
 
It's my personal advice that you should probably start looking for a different provider while you have the chance. The issue with all of these Buprenorphine prescribers, is that the government is licensing them left and right without these prescribers actually receiving adequate training. It's my understanding that the process for obtaining licensure amounts to a weekend course or two.

In short, these guys do not know the ins and outs of this medication and it is by nature, a very complicated substance to deal with. Making one wrong move is the difference between a comfy, functional patient and a hellacious case of precipitated withdrawal. If your doctor is telling you that it's okay to take 16mg Buprenorphine before exhibiting symptoms of withdrawal, he doesn't understand the first thing about this medication.

You should wait until you are fairly sick to medicate with the Buprenorphine. It's painful, but you will totally pay the price if you don't wait long enough.
 
DrewDogBaby209 said:
Cizarny... What happened with the suboxone dude? Did you go through precipitated withdrawals? Did you tell your doctor it was too soon? What happened bro? Inquiring minds would like to know LOL
Click to expand...
I'm so sorry! I guess my phone doesn't notify me when people reply to my posts. I went in the next day and took two mg and sat there for about half an hour to make sure I wasn't going to go into precipitated withdrawal and, when I didn't, I took 10 mg more and was fine. I stayed on Suboxone for 4 weeks and then weaned off of it and was completely clean.
Then a couple months later I moved back to Chicago, and... well... Not so clean anymore lol
 
Yeah, that's a good point Keif. Suboxone clinics are popping up everywhere. Government is all in it. Many don't know the medication nor the recovery process. A friend of mine went to one, took him down to zilch in 2 months. Back to his old ways now. See it all the time. Good to know it didn't mess you up.
 
Fairly Painless Methadone to Suboxone Switch

There's a method of suboxone induction that some Drs are now using called the Bernase Method. It slowly introduces microdoses of Subs while person is still on regular dose of Meth, providing person means down to 50ml of Methadone mind you I've heard of Drs using the method with patients who are taking upwards of 75ml of Meth a day. I just completed the switch! I'd been tapering off my 120ml/day Meth over the past year and was finally down to 50ml, Yahoo!
Complete switch took me 2 weeks...ALL FROM THE COMFORT OF MY OWN HOME! I was able to continue on in my daily life as usual, go to work, the gym, drive, eat, play with kids etc with just 2 days of very mild withdrawl (lethargic, gooseflesh, shivers, bit of diarrhea and just not feeling like self 100%). The 2 days of withdrawl began 3 days after I took my last dose of Meth. Had I gone to my doc on that 3 day mark I would've suffered NO WITHDRAWLS but couldn't get there. Doc increased my Subs dose on the 4th day and now I'm golden!
There's ALWAYS a way around switching things up & it was amazing to not have to go inpatient to do the switch or have to be completely off Methadone prior to taking Subs!!!
 
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