Ok i just woke up. its been about 12hrs. it even more swollen (probably since swelling peaks at 24hrs) but there is no redness and no pain. my hand just feels tight cuz its swollen. And its not itchy anymore. good sign or bad sign. and i know 2mg is a high dose. i used to do 16mg a day IV but ive tapered myself down to 3-4mg IV a day. mostly a psychological addiction thats been keeping me at such high doses but im still working my way down! im scared to get down to ~2mg or less a day, but im doin it in just a couple days.
As for the botched injection, I think that Adder gave you a lot of good information. What I found curious about yr situation though was that you had experienced any itchiness in
general, considering you've been on an extremely high dosage of IV Bupe for what sounds like a decent amount of time(I bring this up because buprenorphine is not known for causing much-
if any-cutaneous
histamine release), so even though buprenorphine may cause histamine release, I would imagine that after several days of use, that's side effect would go away. I'm also just basing this on my own personal experience, as I've missed shots of (non micron-filtered) suboxone several times, and while it burned like hell, and stung like a bitch, it didn't cause itchiness. Definately put a hot compress on it.
Also in regards to tapering your suboxone, and your fear of going under 2mg IV/ day... Well, I have good news for you my friend, and that is that I guarantee that you will have practically no problem shooting a maximum of 2 milligrams over a 24 hour period.
I remember when I first started to use IV suboxone, I was shocked by people who were injecting microgram dosages, as I was using at least 2mg per infusion. However, once I learned of the comparative BioAvailibility of buprenorphine between intravenous use (100 % ) and sublingual use (~30 % ), it started to make sense and my fear about tapering down was put to ease.
As you know, buprenorphine (the active ingredient in suboxone) is a partial agonist, meaning that it will only 'agonize' opiate receptors to a certain point (buprenorphine's maximum agonistic effects are equivalent to 30mg of methadone). Basically, when you reach that 'ceiling dose' (the dose at which the opiate effects begin to plateau), taking additional buprenorphine will only aid in keeping the drug in your body for a longer period of time. For most people, the ceiling dose is around 4-8mg sublingual. When you equate these dosages into intravenous ones, the ceiling effect would occur at a maximum of 2.4mg, though realistically its probably even lower, like 1.2mg.. So basically, as long as you are staying above the ceiling dose, you should not experience any withdrawals, so jumping from 16mg IV to 2mg IV should be practically painless as they are basically the same dose for all intensive purposes. However, in order to experience the true benefits of Buprenorphine, you need to dose below the ceiling effect.
For me, the easiest way for me to taper down so that I could enjoy the effects of low dose IV Bupe was to actually switch back to sublingual administration, or insufflation, and take only 4mg/day for a week. I then switched to injecting .5mg two times a day, and over time, I began to minutely taper down (instead of doing .5mg, I'd do .45mg instead, a decrease that small does not produce noticeable effects). Anyway, just take your time and remember, even at 2mg/day IV, you should NOT experience any withdrawal symptoms.