Harm Reduction Subs and Oxy, a PSA...

[obscure]

I've been on Subuxone for almost 2 months now and am down to .5-1mg/day SL. That's from coming off a gram a day of heroin or about 100mg of oxy on the day.

Anyway, I still fill my Oxy scrip every month and have access to it unless I give them away to avoid the temptation of using again. How my insurance pays for both subs and oxy I don't quite understand, but I'm not complaining.

So my pain was getting to me after a long day at work and I decided to take some oxy, since my sub dose is low enough to not totally blockade a full agonist like oxy. That was a mistake. I figured that I'd take some and feel a little better. Well, that turned into a week long binge of oxy with subs filling in the gaps and almost sent me back in to my old ways and I was calling to cop some tar. Luckily I didn't go through with it.

The point I'm trying to make here is; it's possible, on low doses of subs, to still get high on full agonist opiates, but not worth it. I starting waking up feeling the beginnings of WD and a lot of discomfort and it was hard to maintain the right balance of the two substances in order to keep myself in a narrow channel of feeling somewhere near okay. It wasn't worth the pain relief, which I could have just as well gotten from a few naproxen and maybe a drink or 2 to keep my mind off of it.

So, through this long winded and self serving post, I just wanted to relay to people in a similar situation that staying on subs, if you're serious about getting off the hard stuff, is worth taking seriously. Don't break, don't think you can manage both and somehow come through just fine. Really though, I just needed to write this out for myself to realize I was being stupid and need to knock it off.

 

[helium-4]

This is pretty well known. Doses 2-4mg and below don't have much if any blockade effect. 1mg or below (2mg for some people) can even have a synergistic effect with other opioids. Of course when someone is on a maintenance program, attempting to get high on other opioids, even if they believe the only want to get high occasionally or once/twice, should avoid trying to. They are on a maintenance program for a reason, which is because they can't get off opioids with out the help of a program, so using is obviously counter productive. One of the reasons why higher doses of methadone (80mg +) or 8mg+ of buprenorphine shows higher success rates/less relapses than lower doses of either one of them, is because of the blockade effect. People will of course try and get high, but realize they struggle to do so/waste a lot of money when they are taking that high of a dose of either one.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Per the package insert, suboxone/bupe is most effective at "blocking" other opioids when dosed at 16mg, although I do agree with cloudy that 8mg does almost as well.

 

[DooMMooD]

I take 3mg every day since jan and it causes a good block effect for me. Last time i tried getting high i barely felt it. I finally felt it after doing near the entire bundle, but it was such a weak worthless high it wasn't even worth it. Different for everyone.

This also furthers my point that the more you swap back/fourth between subs and agonists, the less effective both become and specifically the sub will help your w/d less and less.

But to say "oh well anything less than 8mg doesn't block" is horse shite. If youre on a dose long enough, regardless of amount, it will definitely block. And for others even having "open receptors" is still not enough. I could take 1mg of sub tomorrow and still barely get high unless I shot a WHOLE BUNDLE (which is definitely a block effect).

Everyones different. Hence why it is very important to be honest with your doctor during the induction phase. If youre not honest they wont give you an effective dose. Also why its important to NOT KEEP SWAPPING BACK & FOURTH BETWEEN SUBS AND AGONISTS! Your highs will diminish rapidly, and permanently, you'll be wasting TONS of $, and in the end you'll be in a much worse spot than had you kept abusing agonists alone.