switching to suboxone to methadone

[pgcc]

I'm having a hard time. I'm on 45mgs of Meth, everyone says you need to be on 30mgs or less to switch to suboxone. However I've seen someone on 80mgs switch and was ok. What do all you think? Anyone with experience switching from meth to subs? I was going to do it next weekend but I'm scared after reading some things. I was told I would be fine if I was sick enough when I take the subs a 26 on the cows scale? Thanks.

 

[Wsolstice95]

I would ask myself why I want to hurry up and switch from meth to subs. If it takes an extra month or two to get your dose down to 30mg I would wonder why that isn't ok. I am on 130mg, so I know when I make that switch it'll take as long as it needs to take to safely and comfortably get my dose low enough. But myself and others.....we are all different. The important thing is to ween down and make the switch without making yourself sick. Your health and level of comfortably in my opinion must come before any self-imposed time schedule. Best of luck.

 

[laCster]

my advice, switch of suboxone to exercising and getting completely clean off opiates. screw the methadone

 

[Swimmingdancer]

There are a bunch of threads on similar topics already. Personally I have never known anyone to switch from methadone to Suboxone who was on less than 30mgs of methadone a day. The reason they want people to be down to 25 or 30mg is because Suboxone has a ceiling effect, so for many people who are on a higher dose of methadone Suboxone will not be enough to keep them out of withdrawals. Of course it depends on one's individual metabolism though. If you are on 45mg of methadone, getting down to 30mg shouldn't be that difficult, IME after you get below 30mg of methadone a day is when tapering methadone gets really hard and you have to go really slowly. My best advice would be to talk to a doctor who is experienced with Suboxone about this. Out of curiosity, why do you want to switch to Suboxone? Maybe that could better help us to address your question and your unique situation.

The important thing is to ween down and make the switch without making yourself sick.

I think it's impossible to switch from methadone to Suboxone without getting sick. We just have to learn to bear the sickness without compulsively running out and using. Most people are going to have a least a little bit of discomfort with the taper and a lot of suffering when they stop their methadone and wait until they are sick enough to start the Suboxone.

 

[Escapedysphoria]

Methadone is much worse than Subs IMO. Full agonist always have the effect on me to pursue stronger full agonist opi's. I can get myself down to 2mg of Suboxone (which I have) instead of the 16mg I'm prescribed. It's some mind power shit lol. Methadone wd's > Bupe wd's... had experience with both

 

[effie]

I have to say I agree with SD; I can't see how you can switch without getting sick, as you need to be entering WDs before you start the buprenorphine otherwise you will land yourself in precipitated WDs.. it's fairly common to switch to buprenorphine for the last bit of your taper however, so it definitely is possible. Are you on a programme, and if so have you talked to them about it? I think the problem with higher doses of methadone is the conversion is difficult; the dose:response curve for buprenorphine is not linear and as it is only a partial agonist it's difficult to translate high methadone doses to the appropriate buprenorphine dose.

I'm going to scoot this over to Other Drugs as they are the methadone/Suboxone experts..

BDD > OD

 

[RLSUB]

40 mg is the minimum methadone baseline dose to change over to subutex
google a questionnaire called COWS
it basically shows you the symptoms you need to be experiencing(withdrawals ) before taking the first dose of subutex
it will be rough but life will be normal again in short time relative to methadone