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

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About to start my sub induction on Saturday...I have some Halcion to knock me out, hopefully long enough to make it to 24-36 hours after my last dose of heroin, as to hopefully avoid any precipitated WD's. That is always my biggest fear.
 
About to start my sub induction on Saturday...I have some Halcion to knock me out, hopefully long enough to make it to 24-36 hours after my last dose of heroin, as to hopefully avoid any precipitated WD's. That is always my biggest fear.

I know what you mean. That first initial wait until you can take Suboxone will get hellish but it'll be over as soon as you get on Suboxone. Best of luck! :)
 
^My concern this time around (seems like I've inducted on Sub more times than I can count, now) is that my habit has grown to higher than it's ever been before...around 2.5 grams/day, smoked. I have been using so consistently that I haven't even felt any withdrawal, not even minor, in over a month...so I'm not sure if 18-24 hours will be long enough...

That's why I got the Halcion, so I can just wake up, knock myself out, sleep for 3-4 hours, wake up, knock self out, etc. hopefully for a total of at LEAST 24 hours...I want to make it to 36, but I know that's going to be sooooooooooo difficult...I just do NOT want to go into precipitated WD...I've been able to induct after only 12 hours, before, but that was when my habit was much smaller, around 1 gram a day...
 
truthfully i think i might have to go the methadone route...i'm just the type of addict that will constantly go back and forth from sub to dope...methadone is the only thing that keeps my mind off dope....
 
^My concern this time around (seems like I've inducted on Sub more times than I can count, now) is that my habit has grown to higher than it's ever been before...around 2.5 grams/day, smoked. I have been using so consistently that I haven't even felt any withdrawal, not even minor, in over a month...so I'm not sure if 18-24 hours will be long enough...

That's why I got the Halcion, so I can just wake up, knock myself out, sleep for 3-4 hours, wake up, knock self out, etc. hopefully for a total of at LEAST 24 hours...I want to make it to 36, but I know that's going to be sooooooooooo difficult...I just do NOT want to go into precipitated WD...I've been able to induct after only 12 hours, before, but that was when my habit was much smaller, around 1 gram a day...


Yeah, having a big habit.. and the constant switching back and forth from dope do bupe, makes transitioning to suboxone much tougher. Thats why if you have a large habit and have had it for a while, you really need to ween down to a small a dose as you can, other wise getting on the bupe with take much longer.
 
I went to detox in Jan 2012. When I got out, I did outpatient and then started on suboxone maintenance group. (meet once a week, give a urine sample weekly) so they started me at 12mg and slowly raised me to 20mg over the course of a month or so. So from march until now I've been taking 20mg a day. I was doing really well at first, but being on that much suboxone basically took away all the good feelings it used to give me, and just left me feeling like a zombie.
So I started smoking pot again, which my suboxone group was VERY against. I understand their worries, as some people, once they get high on anything, they are not gonna stop until they are broke with a needle sticking out of their arm.

So, after the last month of marijauana use, my car shit the bed so I could no longer attend the group meetings, they gave me a choice to return to outpatient for a few weeks, then come back to the group, or to do a 2 week taper.

I chose the latter, and this is the taper plan my doctor made for me.

12mg- 4 days
8mg- 4 days
4mg- 4 days
2mg- 4 days

Does this sound possible without relapsing? I've read HORROR stories of people jumping off at 2mg here on bluelight, and I have a full time job so I'm trying to do this as painless as possible.





I do have like 12 - 8mg strips stockpiled that my dr doesnt know about because I started tapering myself a few weeks ago, the day my car shit the bed because I knew they were gonna taper me WAY faster than humaine. So I went from 20mg to 8mg a day in a couple weeks.

but if anyone has any tips they could give me regarding withdrawals, or really any advice from someone who has already been through this I would really appreciate it.

Thanks!!!
 
If you haven't been on suboxone long.. than I've heard of people getting off at 2mg's and being okay.. but.. for most people and defintley me.. 2mg's is way to high a dose to hop off of. I had trouble coming off of .25mg's after being on bupe for years. Weening down to 2mg's is the easy part, even if you were on a very high dose, the transition down to 2mg's isn't very bad.. it's the final 2-4mg's that's so hard to get off with regards to bupe.

I'd take that last 2mg's and make it last as long as you can, weening down to as small a dose as possible.
 
yeah, im gonna follow his orders and then use the 10 or so 8mg strips i have stockpiled to cut down way lower than 2mg.

I'm also looking for OTC helpers, I've taken tons of lopermide before and it never helped with my withdrawals unfortunately, I tried a few times before of all the praise it got here for wd symptoms, but I guess im one of the people who it doesnt cross the BBB for.

I have naproxen, clonadine, and I'm gonna stock up on some DXM and perhaps some 5htp (tho I'm on celexa right now, so when I do use the 5-htp, I wont take my celexa that day so I dont get seratonin syndrome.)

anyone know of anything else otc wise?

I really need my life back. I'm done taking pills everyday to feel "normal"
 
OTC meds are only going to provide you with so much help hah. Loperamide is good for the diarrhea/stomach issues, naproxen or ibprofen helps a bit with the soreness.. clonidine is not OTC as I'm sure you know, it's a blood pressure med that when used for detox can help take away some of the sweats and what not. But you have to be careful with it because it lowers your blood pressure and taking too much can cause a severe drop.
 
OTC meds are only going to provide you with so much help hah. Loperamide is good for the diarrhea/stomach issues, naproxen or ibprofen helps a bit with the soreness.. clonidine is not OTC as I'm sure you know, it's a blood pressure med that when used for detox can help take away some of the sweats and what not. But you have to be careful with it because it lowers your blood pressure and taking too much can cause a severe drop.

yeah my dr wrote me the clonidine, I should have specified. but he didnt tell me that (doh) Thanks! I'll keep it in mind. I guess time and some good weed are gonna be my two best friends for the next few months.
 
a few months ago i had very little bupe as i was tapering off so wasn't expecting to feel anything as it was such a little amount.

right now i've taken 12mg bupe (no h for 24hrs) and feel literally nothing. i'm not sick, i wasn't hoping for a heroin high but i was expecting at least a tiny bit of opiate warmth but i don't feel anything. if anything i feel more awake. is this normal with a tolerance?

i also shot 1mg (just to see, not making a habit of shooting pills) and got nada.
 
a few months ago i had very little bupe as i was tapering off so wasn't expecting to feel anything as it was such a little amount.

right now i've taken 12mg bupe (no h for 24hrs) and feel literally nothing. i'm not sick, i wasn't hoping for a heroin high but i was expecting at least a tiny bit of opiate warmth but i don't feel anything. if anything i feel more awake. is this normal with a tolerance?

i also shot 1mg (just to see, not making a habit of shooting pills) and got nada.

Yeah if you've been using heroin, that's to be expected. Give it a few days, you'll start to feel the bupe more as you have more time away from heroin.
 
^My concern this time around (seems like I've inducted on Sub more times than I can count, now) is that my habit has grown to higher than it's ever been before...around 2.5 grams/day, smoked. I have been using so consistently that I haven't even felt any withdrawal, not even minor, in over a month...so I'm not sure if 18-24 hours will be long enough...

That's why I got the Halcion, so I can just wake up, knock myself out, sleep for 3-4 hours, wake up, knock self out, etc. hopefully for a total of at LEAST 24 hours...I want to make it to 36, but I know that's going to be sooooooooooo difficult...I just do NOT want to go into precipitated WD...I've been able to induct after only 12 hours, before, but that was when my habit was much smaller, around 1 gram a day...

You really should taper down on the heroin before starting the suboxone. The ceiling dose of the suboxone is going to make it hard for it to keep you comfortable during the first few days of switching, so getting back down to a 1 gram a day is a good idea if you are able to put off getting on subs for another few weeks.

I went to detox in Jan 2012. When I got out, I did outpatient and then started on suboxone maintenance group. (meet once a week, give a urine sample weekly) so they started me at 12mg and slowly raised me to 20mg over the course of a month or so. So from march until now I've been taking 20mg a day. I was doing really well at first, but being on that much suboxone basically took away all the good feelings it used to give me, and just left me feeling like a zombie.
So I started smoking pot again, which my suboxone group was VERY against. I understand their worries, as some people, once they get high on anything, they are not gonna stop until they are broke with a needle sticking out of their arm.

So, after the last month of marijauana use, my car shit the bed so I could no longer attend the group meetings, they gave me a choice to return to outpatient for a few weeks, then come back to the group, or to do a 2 week taper.

I chose the latter, and this is the taper plan my doctor made for me.

12mg- 4 days
8mg- 4 days
4mg- 4 days
2mg- 4 days

Does this sound possible without relapsing? I've read HORROR stories of people jumping off at 2mg here on bluelight, and I have a full time job so I'm trying to do this as painless as possible.





I do have like 12 - 8mg strips stockpiled that my dr doesnt know about because I started tapering myself a few weeks ago, the day my car shit the bed because I knew they were gonna taper me WAY faster than humaine. So I went from 20mg to 8mg a day in a couple weeks.

but if anyone has any tips they could give me regarding withdrawals, or really any advice from someone who has already been through this I would really appreciate it.

Thanks!!!

Are your doses supervised? If not, then I suggest 2 days at 12mg, giving you a few more pills to tack on to the end of the taper. It's easy to taper down to 8mg quickly, and pretty easy to get down to 2mg at a moderate speed. It's the end of the taper that gets difficult, so it's good to have some very low doses to take to make the transition to no opioids a little easier. When I was taking 24mg regularly I could drop down to 8mg very easily. If you wait a few days until you are withdrawing then the 8mg will be enough to make you feel alright, so that's something to consider.

a few months ago i had very little bupe as i was tapering off so wasn't expecting to feel anything as it was such a little amount.

right now i've taken 12mg bupe (no h for 24hrs) and feel literally nothing. i'm not sick, i wasn't hoping for a heroin high but i was expecting at least a tiny bit of opiate warmth but i don't feel anything. if anything i feel more awake. is this normal with a tolerance?

i also shot 1mg (just to see, not making a habit of shooting pills) and got nada.

Yea, unless you are really withdrawing badly when you take the suboxone, it will just make you not get sick instead of giving you a nice mood lift with it. Don't expect anything like the heroin high though. There is some warmth to the suboxone high considering you have a low tolerance when you dose it, but it's certainly lacking the euphoria that comes with heroin.
 
a few months ago i had very little bupe as i was tapering off so wasn't expecting to feel anything as it was such a little amount.

right now i've taken 12mg bupe (no h for 24hrs) and feel literally nothing. i'm not sick, i wasn't hoping for a heroin high but i was expecting at least a tiny bit of opiate warmth but i don't feel anything. if anything i feel more awake. is this normal with a tolerance?

i also shot 1mg (just to see, not making a habit of shooting pills) and got nada.

Yeah, it's weird with suboxone/buprenorphine. There have only been 3 times (during induction) when suboxone has given me a true full agonist type euphoria. The first time it had only been about 14 hours since I had used heroin, but at the time I was sniffing dope, didn't have a habit, and hadn't used dope in about 2 weeks. I was attending this outpatient program that used suboxone as a punishment if you relapsed, and gave me 8mg the first day (spaced out in 2mg dosages-you will get the best effect if you stagger up rather than just go for a high dose), and eventually wrote me a script for 24mg. The other 2 times I got a buzz out of it, I hadn't used anything in over 60 hours.
 
Tommy: my doses are supervised, sort of. I knew they were gonna cut me off a few weeks before they actually did, So I tapered myself down from 20mg a day to between 4-6 mgs a day on my own, when they still thought I was taking 20mg.
My doctor wants me to start my taper at 12mg, but im reality I'm already at 4-6 mg per day, depending on how I feel. I'm just gonna continue dropping down 2 mgs every 4 days, until I get to 2mg a day. Then I'm gonna start taking the 2mg strips he prescribed me and cutting them up because they'll be much easier to eye out than the 8mg ones.

Thanks everyone for the insight, its really appreciated.

I have enough to taper down to at least .50 or .25 mg for a few weeks before hopping off for good.

I'm sure I'll post here again once I get to that point

I just still think its INSANE that most doctors expect their patients to hop off at 2mg and succeed in recovery.

Thanks to bluelight, I've known that wasnt true so I've been looking out for myself in that regard.

Thanks again everyone, Bluelight rocks :)
 
^Sometimes I feel as though Methadone held me better than Suboxone did, of course my stupid doc here before had me on 190mg of Methadone, which is ridiculous for somebody coming off 300-400mg Oxycodone habit per day at the time. I have never gone any higher than 16mg of Suboxone, because there is no point. Lower is better when it comes to Suboxone. I just find that I still get bad chills, (gooseflesh), and stomach problems from over 9 years of opiate abuse. (My hydromorphone habit is what really fucked me up last)..

^ BTW this could also be to adjusting to the drop down in Diazepam and Pregabalin. Fuck, I don't know why they want me completely off Pregabalin when it helps for a lot of shit, often times it works better than benzo's, depends on the usage.
 
I've been taking Suboxone since last Friday, spent 4 days in the hospital, and was released for the maintenance programme. A very low dose was sufficient for me, i.e. 4 mg and I asked my doctor to cut it down to 2 mg. Well, this is strange as I used to need at least 16mg of buprenorphine to stop physical withdrawal and get some other beneficial effects from the drug. Anyway, 2 mg still seems to be quite stoning for me, so I have a few questions.

Should my pupils constrict much? I get almost pinpoint pupils ~2 hours after dosing.
Is constipation really that bad in case of buprenorphine? I thought it would be less constipating than morphine/heroin, well, it still is [better] but I need something like castor oil anyway.
Is it normal to get noddy on maintenance doses? My mum noticed that I sometimes wake up, sit up, and then fall asleep sitting on the bed. This is clearly nodding for me, besides I talked to people being in some kind of an amok, i.e. I saw everything around me but still dreamed, was half-awake, and could talk to people about things I was dreaming about at the very same moment. This is nodding again...

I myself feel much better, less depression, more motivation, not stoned or sleepy at all during the day, the goal of this maintenance definitely achieved. I want to keep this 2mg dose because it's surprisingly low nonetheless. I weigh 52 kg right now so the situation may change when I gain weight. But for now could cut the dose on weekdays as rules on the Suboxone programmes aren't so strict and I collect my Suboxone for one week after taking a dose at the point.

EDIT: I should probably write a bit more about my situation. I'm addicted to clonazepam too. After I was put on Suboxone, my then 4mg clonazepam dose was cut down to 2mg. Buprenorphine seems to be helping a lot, although I get shaky hands, I don't feel anxious etc. so it does its job perfectly. My clonazepam dose will be further tapered down after another months passes (reduction by 0.25mg or 0.125mg). I want to get off this, it's nothing I'm forced to do. This is another reason I want to keep 2mg Suboxone at the point and reduce it to 1mg perhaps but I don't want to report this so if I feel worse, I can get back on 2mg.

The reason for placing me on Suboxone was helping my refractory depression and giving me a substitute that would clear my mind from thoughts of curing myself with light opioids like codeine (sedation, much less help for depression and anxiety than from buprenorphine, so I agreed). Buprenorphine seems a much better solution, I haven't felt more "myself" during the past years, so all in all it was a good decision and proved my doctor to know how to handle unusual situations (i.e. not only placing heroin addicts on methadone).
 
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I've been taking Suboxone since last Friday, spent 4 days in the hospital, and was released for the maintenance programme. A very low dose was sufficient for me, i.e. 4 mg and I asked my doctor to cut it down to 2 mg. Well, this is strange as I used to need at least 16mg of buprenorphine to stop physical withdrawal and get some other beneficial effects from the drug. Anyway, 2 mg still seems to be quite stoning for me, so I have a few questions.

Should my pupils constrict much? I get almost pinpoint pupils ~2 hours after dosing.
Is constipation really that bad in case of buprenorphine? I thought it would be less constipating than morphine/heroin, well, it still is [better] but I need something like castor oil anyway.
Is it normal to get noddy on maintenance doses? My mum noticed that I sometimes wake up, sit up, and then fall asleep sitting on the bed. This is clearly nodding for me, besides I talked to people being in some kind of an amok, i.e. I saw everything around me but still dreamed, was half-awake, and could talk to people about things I was dreaming about at the very same moment. This is nodding again...

I myself feel much better, less depression, more motivation, not stoned or sleepy at all during the day, the goal of this maintenance definitely achieved. I want to keep this 2mg dose because it's surprisingly low nonetheless. I weigh 52 kg right now so the situation may change when I gain weight. But for now could cut the dose on weekdays as rules on the Suboxone programmes aren't so strict and I collect my Suboxone for one week after taking a dose at the point.

EDIT: I should probably write a bit more about my situation. I'm addicted to clonazepam too. After I was put on Suboxone, my then 4mg clonazepam dose was cut down to 2mg. Buprenorphine seems to be helping a lot, although I get shaky hands, I don't feel anxious etc. so it does its job perfectly. My clonazepam dose will be further tapered down after another months passes (reduction by 0.25mg or 0.125mg). I want to get off this, it's nothing I'm forced to do. This is another reason I want to keep 2mg Suboxone at the point and reduce it to 1mg perhaps but I don't want to report this so if I feel worse, I can get back on 2mg.

The reason for placing me on Suboxone was helping my refractory depression and giving me a substitute that would clear my mind from thoughts of curing myself with light opioids like codeine (sedation, much less help for depression and anxiety than from buprenorphine, so I agreed). Buprenorphine seems a much better solution, I haven't felt more "myself" during the past years, so all in all it was a good decision and proved my doctor to know how to handle unusual situations (i.e. not only placing heroin addicts on methadone).


Sounds like the bupe is hitting you pretty hard. It's actually more euphoric on low doses.. that could explain why you weren't feeling those effects when you were on 16mg's.
 
@adder
I used to nod hard on suboxone if I took it early in the morning and with a tiny bit of xanax. I had been prescribed the xanax for a while before that so it wasn't like I was new to it or taking it to get high, so maybe that's what's happening with you since you are also taking a benzo with it.

Back when I was on maintenance I was prescribed a lot, and my friends would take high doses of 8-16mg since that was normal back then. Years later the same friends just take 2mg and feel just as good off of that, without having to deal with some of the side effects. This is with somewhat lowered tolerances though, and some just take suboxone and no other opioids, but they take it maybe 3x a week.

Constipation is still very bad with suboxone if you are taking 8mg or more IME, but taking 2mg daily will just have you making solid bowel movements, but without the constipation factor. You have to consider that the long half-life means that the walls of the intestines which slow down in movement while opioids are in the system will be slower for a lot longer, so that contributes to the constipation, whereas other drugs are out of your system quicker and allow for the intestinal walls to resume normal function for part of the day.

Interestingly enough, I have noticed that when I take between 1-2mg of suboxone, I usually end up having to make a bowel movement within an hour of taking it. I don't take it regularly, and the max amount of consecutive days I will take it for is 4, but each of those days I will usually take 2 and then make a 2.
 
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