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Bupe Suboxone/Buprenorphine FAQ & Megathread v3; 2010 - 2022

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OP, the BA of suboxone is significantly higher for instranasal than sublingual (and oral).

(Lowest BA) Oral < Sublingual < Instranasal < Rectal (Highest BA)

HOWEVER if you wash your mouth out with some ethanol mouth wash/Listerine or use ethanol/drinking alcohol to aid in sublingual absorption, the BA of sublingual and intranasal are not very different. Without taking such steps, the sublingual BA for bupe varies from person to person as well as according to a lot of factors. Some days it might be as high as intranasal for some while for most others most times it's about 2/3-1/2 that.

I used to snort my suboxone when I got it on the street given my limited supply. Honestly though, not that you're using it for maintenance, you might at least want to start off trying it as intended (sublginual). You're taking SO much suboxone that you will absolutely still get more than enough in your body, at least at 8-16mg. I mean, I fucking hate sucking on the pills for sublingual use (hence I've been using the strips), so I can see why you might want to snort those. Still, it's not the end of the world if you don't have any alternative.

By the way, please don't go snorting more than 2-4mg in a sitting. People who snort 16mg at once, well, they will regret it when they have to have their deviated septum operated on or they get pneumonia from that shit building up in their lungs. 2-4mg once in a while is almost certainly fine...

Honestly, what I do, when I wanna get something special out of my suboxone, I just take some tagamet and diphen, wash my mouth out with listerine and pop my dose (or even less than normal dose) in under my tongue. Thanks to the potentiators I get a little high, not much or for all that long, but a couple hours of bliss is fine with me. Other people also find plugging very effective (for some reason, thanks to GI issues, plugging anything but MDMA never did much for me), as its BA is high than any non-needle route and it's a little safer than snorting (and you can take more at once than instranasal).
 
Like TPD said, snorting gives a better absorption, but at a dose of 16mg a day, your far past the cieling effect (even if the cieling IS 32 mg-which I don't believe, 12 days of consistant 16mg dosing adds up to a total of 40mg of buprenorphine in your blood stream)-therefore, the only reason to sniff would be to save suboxone and money. However, since you're being supervised, I see little point at all to bother with the take homes.

The difference in BA is roughly 30% sublingual, and 50% insufflated, so there is a 20% difference (10mg SL= 3mg absorbed, 10mg Insufflated = 5mg absorbed). Really, at the dose you're at, if you just want to use the suboxone another way due to the taste of the tablets or a quicker onset, plug the things (rectal=54% BA), IMO it's a far more pleasant way to take bupe as it has a fast onset and a long duration.

You might want to talk to your doctor about lowering your dose down to at least 8mg. Some people do need really high dosages, but I've always found that after 8mg, suboxone can have some nasty side effects, and it loses it's mood lifting qualities.

Edit:
Forgot to add. If you want to get more out of your suboxone dosage sublingually, you can take it with alchohol. Buprenorphine is highly soluble in alchohol, and sublingual alcoholic solutions of suboxone push the BA up to somewhere between 50-70%. You can read more about that here.
 
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^+2 Good post Zn3g! More really is less. As I've said other where, as Zne3g can attest even, I find that 4mg 2x/day if more effective than 8mg 2x/day. Crazy :)
 
I agree with the others that are saying to just take in sublingually. It will last longer that way, and since you are on a high dose it won't matter if you are getting a lower amount of the drug due to the lower BA of sublingual compared to intranasal. I would only sniff it if I was getting 1mg, and even then I would only do that for the first couple of days until stabilizing.

I also agree that the dose you are taking may be too high, and personally I start feeling negative effects above 6mg sublingual. One thing that I do not agree with is when people say that a person only needs like 2mg. Sure, most people will not experience any withdrawal symptoms if they take a dose even as low as 1mg, but if you are on maintenance a dose of 8mg is probably better since it will block other opiates better, and reduce cravings more. 16mg is usually unnecessary though, so you should look into lowering your dose to 8mg, or even 6mg. Taking 6mg daily has always been enough to curb my cravings, and blocks other opiates very well especially when taken daily since the long half-life will cause the drug to build up in your system.
 
Tommyboy said:
I also agree that the dose you are taking may be too high, and personally I start feeling negative effects above 6mg sublingual. One thing that I do not agree with is when people say that a person only needs like 2mg. Sure, most people will not experience any withdrawal symptoms if they take a dose even as low as 1mg, but if you are on maintenance a dose of 8mg is probably better since it will block other opiates better, and reduce cravings more. 16mg is usually unnecessary though, so you should look into lowering your dose to 8mg, or even 6mg. Taking 6mg daily has always been enough to curb my cravings, and blocks other opiates very well especially when taken daily since the long half-life will cause the drug to build up in your system.
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I just wanted to comment on this Tommyboy because I agree with you on this point.

For me, less is more, but there have been times when taking 8mg really was what I needed in order to ensure that I would not bother trying to shoot through it. I personally feel that taking anything over 16mg is ineffective, but for some people, more is actually beneficial.

The reason I like low dose suboxone is because I'm honestly not committed to being completely clean at this point in time. At lower dosages, the buprenorphine provides me with enough of a "buzz" that it keeps me motivated and kills my depression to a degree. I also like to know that I have the ability to get high on full agonists, yet I refrained from doing so for four months while being on a super low dose. It boosted my self confidence at the time, but looking back on it now, my cravings were still pretty insane (though they're just as bad on 8mg, I just don't bother trying to get high in heroin though)
 
Znegative said:
Thanks man. I mean, yeah, I try and look at it as a few little slip ups, not the begining of the end ;)
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If you accept that you occasionally slip up, and embrace your mistakes as a learning experience, you will be able to put it in the past whenever you are ready to.

Shaming people in rehab = when can I IV some more heroin, please?

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Half Life VS Duration of Effects

A drug will have an effect on your body longer than you feel the effects/euphoria from it.

ROA only alters duration, not the half life.
 
With a heavy full agonist opiate tolerance, you have to be in full withdrawal before taking it. No matter how much you take, it'll be less "euphoric" than a small dose to someone opiate naive.

For the opiate naive, 0.1mg buprenorphine IM is like a very very weak IV shot of heroin.

A strong shot of heroin is uncomparable in terms of buprenorphine.
 
A Weird Glow said:
Is there a ratio to compare opoid dosage to sub dosage?
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a stat out there is 1 mg of bupe is equivilant to 40mg of morphine, so one 8mg sub is aprox 320mg of morphine....however with Bio availabilty and ROA, thats variable...

and im back to bupe in 8 hours or so, fun fun.
 
^correct, I wish the duration could be the half life haha, but that's obviously not the case.

I mean, think about that first time you did heroin.. I mean, I know I was stoned for at least 24 hours, and heroin (well technically morphine-heroin itself has a half life of ten minutes..)has a half life of approximately 3 hours.

Anyway, about Buprenorphine and it's relative ROA's and durations..

Sublingual: slow onset, long duration, shitty absorption
Insufflation: slightly quicker onset, effects start to kick in after 20 minutes, good absorption. Duration is roughly as long as SL.
Rectal: Very quick onset, IME rectal buprenorphine hits me within 5 minutes and peaks around 20, the absorption is great (higher than nasal), and the duration is pretty long when considerig the onset and peak is so fast.
Intravenous: Almost immediate onset. Shooting buprenorphine is strange, because what I experience is just reliefe from minor w/d after a shot, then I'll go sit down, and about three minutes post injection, I'll start to get that "dope taste" in my mouth, and I get a very mild, though noticable rush. The duration for I.V buprenorphine, or rather for someone that's on maintenance or takes bupe every day, is much shorter than sniffing, plugging or taking it sublingually-I'd say it lasts about six hours, and then I begin to feel withdrawals creeping up. The previous ROA's can be done once/day and stave off withdrawal, but most people who I.V., do at least 2 shots, though usually its more like 4.

My "theory" (lol) that Tricomb reffered to, is that perhaps buprenorphine dissasociates from the opiate receptors quicker when administered intravenously, but still stays in the blood, fat, etc.. which would explain why it feels like I.V bupe MUST have a shorter half life (though strangely enough, I saw some online information from one of those pharmacy helper sites, and on two of them, it was stated that buprenex-the injectable vials of bupe, had a half life of 3-6 hours..)
 
SkagKush said:
a stat out there is 1 mg of bupe is equivilant to 40mg of morphine, so one 8mg sub is aprox 320mg of morphine....however with Bio availabilty and ROA, thats variable...

and im back to bupe in 8 hours or so, fun fun.
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This is incorrect.

Buprenorphine is very hard to compare to full agonists due to its ceiling effect, as well as it's long half life. However, the standard numbers for Buprenorphine (at an injected dose of .3mg) is equipotent to 10mg of IV morphine.

You have to take into account if you're not using bupe I.V, that sublingual has a 30% absorption rate, so taking one mg sublinugally, would give an equipotent effect as 10 mg of morphine injected, though it will last much longer. You cant really say that 8 mg is equal to say 80 mg of I.V. Morphine though, because buprenorphine, being a partial agonist has a cieling effect, and the dosage at which agonist effects plateau, vary from person to person. The best way to look at it is comparing buprenorphine to methadone. According to my suboxone doctor, 16mg of buprenorphine has the agonist activity of around 30-40 mg of methadone.
 
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