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Bupe Suboxone/Buprenorphine FAQ and Megathread v.1; 2007 - 2010

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I think a lot of suboxone dr's just deal directly with their patients, thats the way mine does. Shes semi retired tho so it makes sense. it seems like there are a lot of dr's who are cashing in on the suboxone fad these days.

And no, your friend doesnt have to lower it to 40mgs, but it would be in his best interest since the switch over would be easier on a lower dose than a higher one. Plus if he gets the dose down to 40mgs he wont need to take as much suboxone which will be a good thing in the long run.
 
The transition will be a little easier if your tolerance is low, but no matter what you have to be in moderate withdrawal before dosing on suboxone for it to be effective and for you to not experience precipitated w/d.
 
As with any prescription, you have to be a medical doctor to write the script legally. With suboxone, you must have certification in the suboxone field to prescribe it. Suboxone is effective no matter what your oxy dosage is.
 
a lot of suboxone doctors aren't in traditional dr offices. my doc doesn't have a fancy professional office, and is also semi-retired. suboxone.com has a zip code lookup for doctors, there's a ton of them out there so if they're not comfortable with one doctor just call around.
 
As said above most SUb Doc's arn't in traditional DR's offices like family practce DR's. from what I've seen most In SLC,UT are the same dR's who work in the Methadone clinics,or just run an office for suboxone patients. I know that there is a method of regulation when it comes to what DR's can script it. From what my girlfriend says(she's a pharmacy Tech), The Dr's who script it have special DEA numbers, that the Pharmacy must check when the Rx gets filled.
Aparantly these DEA numbers verify the Dr's eligability to write Suboxone Rx's. There is also a limit to how many Suboxone Patient's 1 Dr can have(I think its 100 but don't qoute me). Do a little searching when your finding a Doc, A lot of these Dr's are cashing in on these SUB patients.I'm guessing becouse of the fact there are a limi9ted amount of prescribing physicians, some of these assholes charge $100-$350 a visit!!! And almost all of them turn down insurance,and only take cash. It's not unheard of aroung here for a SUb patient to pay between $90-$150 a visit,and the DR makes them come in once a week for a 5min visit to get a week supply at a time. But some of them are better, they will take your insurance if it covers, and will give a one month supply at a time(I think thats the limit not sure though). But you'll still pay $250-$350 a month for that script, if your insurance doesn't cover.
And sadly a Lot of the insurance companies don't cover it, and it runs between $4-$7 for each 8mg tablet(this depends on the pharmacy,$4 a pill was the cheapist I found here in Utah.
And the Dr suggesting that he lower his dose to 40mg of OC is for the sole reason of switching from OC to BUPE.The lower dose of OC your on when you switch makes the transition a lot smoother, you also generally have to wait till your dopesick before you take the SUB. I switched from 60mg of methadone daily to 12mg Bupe daily, and had only been of the Done for about 42hrs. And within 60min of taking the first 6mg of Bupe I was withdrawling so fuckin bad!!! so the lower the better!!! GOOD LUCK.
 
that's not exclusively true- my doctor refuses to write her DEA # on the sub scripts because she says "considering the type of clients i have, that'd be like publishing it in the newspaper!"
 
^ That's a little shady. If I were you I'd be afraid your doctor is eventually going to get in trouble with the DEA and lose his license or get it restricted. I heard about a guy in my area who had too many patients on suboxone. The limit is 100. They caught him and immediately limited his number of suboxone patients to 30. A lot of people were fucked. Some of them went to my doctor. This kind of shit happens.
 
How does the pharmacy fill the rx if your Dr doesnt write her DEA # on it? Do they have to call everytime you get it filled or something? I mean its a CIII drug and i can imagine the look on the pharmacists face when someone brings him a Rx for a controlled medication with no DEA# on it.
 
hmm i didn't consider that... she's one of the most generous people i've met, especially since i quit my last suboxone doctor because he was a cold hard money-grubbing douchebag... the new doc is the type to let you pay what you have, when you can, over as long as you need so long as you show you're trying. she said she accepted a payment of $.10 from a recovering physician one time.

the original patient limit was 30, and was recently raised to 100 right? for doctors that run their practice solely on suboxone patients that would average out to ~4.3 appointments in a 5-day work week, which would only fill half of the day-- most people on bupe treatment have to pay cash for these types of visits, so is the limit imposed to prevent doctors from capitalizing on that?
 
ellua said:
hmm i didn't consider that... she's one of the most generous people i've met, especially since i quit my last suboxone doctor because he was a cold hard money-grubbing douchebag... the new doc is the type to let you pay what you have, when you can, over as long as you need so long as you show you're trying. she said she accepted a payment of $.10 from a recovering physician one time.

the original patient limit was 30, and was recently raised to 100 right? for doctors that run their practice solely on suboxone patients that would average out to ~4.3 appointments in a 5-day work week, which would only fill half of the day-- most people on bupe treatment have to pay cash for these types of visits, so is the limit imposed to prevent doctors from capitalizing on that?

Yes, the previous limit was 30 and is now 100. I believe the limits are set to prevent doctors from getting too rich off suboxone patients.
I can tell my doctor loves doing suboxone treatment, it's a great way for him to make supplemental income. He runs a laser center where he does all kinds of procedures related to anti-aging, acne removal, hair removal etc. He also happens to prescribe suboxone and gives "urgent care" to people who are sick. I doubt he has too many urgent care patients. I found my doctor by posting a request on naabt.org and he actually replied to my request. Has anyone else found their sub doctor this way?
 
My old Suboxone doctor was recently arrested for writing Schedule IV-II scripts for $$$.

Buprenorphine will not be effective for high tolerance addicts. Theres a reason why Methadone maintanence patients have to taper to at least 40mg/day before making the switch to Buprenorphine. Due to the ceiling dose effect, Bupe won't remove withdrawals in people with habits bigger than the equivalent of 32-40mg Buprenorphine.
 
I used to be on suboxone. Go to www.suboxone.com and they have a doctor look up. Also I was doing acouple off 80s a day and the doctor still prescribed to me. Also you cant eat it if you have done dope within 48 hrs,so you have to start withdrawing before one can begin treatment. But it does work as you get sick if you do dope while on suboxone. Hope that helps a little.
 
^ That's quite a waste of oxy. Buprenorphine has a high binding affinity for mu receptors so it blocks the effects of all other opiates. Maybe that's why your doctor prescribed you sub.
 
Too many doses said:
I used to be on suboxone. Go to www.suboxone.com and they have a doctor look up. Also I was doing acouple off 80s a day and the doctor still prescribed to me. Also you cant eat it if you have done dope within 48 hrs,so you have to start withdrawing before one can begin treatment. But it does work as you get sick if you do dope while on suboxone. Hope that helps a little.

You don't go into withdrawals if you try using while taking Suboxone. You just don't get high.
 
^ Very true. It's the other way around. You can go into precipitated withdrawal if you take suboxone while you're already high on a full opioid agonist.
 
biggerstronger said:
I've never heard of any regular tests or even non-standard tests that test for bupe. Unless you get one that tests specifically for it or a toxicology test that tests for all known drugs
I had to report and she gave me the standard 5-panel test. The opiate line was very faint...her exact words "very very faint". She took a copy of the lines on the drug test on a standard copy machine and the line was so faint it didn't even show up on the copy. Who knows. It was enough to have me concerned though. She didn't act like it was a big deal since it was so faint. I hope she doesn't come up with something later, however, this is treatment by my physician and I don't think they can hold that against me. I'm trying to overcome this addiction thing. It's been a hard road though. I am going to beat it. My life will be completely happy once I'm off of everything, I don't want to have to take anything to feel good. It was that way at one time, I want it that way again. I hope for only the best for all of you!!!
 
Tchort said:
Buprenorphine will not be effective for high tolerance addicts. Theres a reason why Methadone maintanence patients have to taper to at least 40mg/day before making the switch to Buprenorphine. Due to the ceiling dose effect, Bupe won't remove withdrawals in people with habits bigger than the equivalent of 32-40mg Buprenorphine.


yes, why is that? It seems like buprenorpnine will win out over anything else(Methadone, etc.) Its more powerful/binding than anything else???
 
couple of questions, new to suboxone maintenance (have used it for detoxing in the past.)

my doc put me on 2mg, 3 times daily. How quickly will tolerance grow taking this amount and how long will it take to develop a habit? Will I withdrawal badly after a couple months of taking this amount?
 
^
Not sure why you're taking it 3 times a day. IME, it's best to take your full dose once a day.

I'm not sure what you mean by habit. If you mean physical dependence, well, you're already dependent if you're on Sub maintenance. Opiate dependence being one of the prerequisites...

Yes, you'll go through withdrawal if you stop suddenly. It won't be as brutal as withdrawing from a full agonist, but you will have symptoms. You'll be fine if you employ a slow dragged out taper.


Good luck.
 
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