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Benzos Taking benzos whilst on Sub....?

funknation 77

Greenlighter
Joined
Aug 5, 2014
Messages
7
Location
south wales
Hi guys..recently started on Subutex after a 15 year painkiller addiction,was just wondering whats the score with benzos e.g Etiz or Diclaz?:?
Will it rip the Sub off the receptors or is that just codeine?
Only on a low dose of Sub..4mg/day...any advice helpful.

P.S I know Etiz isn't strictly a benzo its a thienodiazepine.
 
Hi guys..recently started on Subutex after a 15 year painkiller addiction,was just wondering whats the score with benzos e.g Etiz or Diclaz?:?
Will it rip the Sub off the receptors or is that just codeine?
Only on a low dose of Sub..4mg/day...any advice helpful.

P.S I know Etiz isn't strictly a benzo its a thienodiazepine.


If you're on a regular dose of sub, especially an incredibly low dose like yours, benzos will pretty much do what they always do. And I'm speaking from experience.

Not too sure what you mean RE: codeine ripping sub off the receptors .. ?? Sub has super high affinity, nothing 'rips it off the receptors' - the codeine just doesn't work. Not sure if that's what you meant, but just worded it kind of strange, or what.

Anyway - yeah, benzos will pretty much do what they always do. Obviously - if you don't actually have an opiate tolerance and you take suboxone and benzos it can be dangerous, but it doesn't sound like that is your situation.
 
I took alprazolam for 4 months while on Subs for 13 months. It was aight. I was on 4 mg/day bupe when I took the 2mg/day alprazolam. I get high heart rate and speedy effects from Suboxone so I don't know, it didn't seem all that dangerous. Doesn't mean it won't kill your ass for no good reason though. Respiratory depression is not to be fucked with. Tread very carefully and make sure you confirm any actions with your doctor.

And benzos have nothing to do with the blocking effects of an opioid like Suboxone. Codeine is not a benzo.
 
I think think the OP meant to convey that their dose is 4-mg/day Suboxone. I think the first person to reply read and assumed that to be 0.4-mg/day. 4-mg a day is a decent, strong dose of bupe - definitely with respect to adding in a benzo.

4-mg of bupe (sublingual) and a benzo at a decent dose taken orally can and has resulted in serious complications and death (with death sometimes looking like the better outcome, brain damage afflicts many who "survive")

I observed a slowly evolving OD several years ago that required hospitalization to ensure survival - the substances consumed prior to the OD:

~1-mg Subutex insulfated and 4-mg alprazolam along with an unknown qty of alcohol. BAC on hospital admission was less than 0.1%.

The OD slowly built over the course of six to eight hours, with the most disordered breathing occurring about eight hours after he "passed out"

Naloxone (Narcan) did nothing for this person. People need to know that buprenorphine ODs often do not respond to naloxone, I watched as the EMTs administered 3 doses of high concentration naloxone IV to this person, and it had zero effect, hence the rush to a hospital and the admission of the person in order to secure and maintain the airway while the bupe, benzo and alcohol were slowly metabolized and he was released about 18 hours later. This was a good friend of mine and a very scary event for his wife and me to witness.

Obviously the alcohol must be considered a contributing factor in the case I observed. Other documented cases of bupe/benzo ODs exist where no other intoxicants were noted. Almost certainly some of these were indeed solely bupe and benzo combinations.

My shorter reply - with harm reduction as the guiding principle - would be that no amount of benzo is absolutely safe to co-administer with bupe. The benzo will increase the potential for respiratory depression in some proportion to it's dosage - the proportion may not be linear!

Tolerance to either compound may mitigate this effect on respiration. In the case of the person above there was some tolerance to both compounds and yet the relative dosages (~1-mg bupe insulfated and 4-mg alprazolam) are small but the effect nearly fatal when significant alcohol was included.

The truth: There is no generally safe way to co-administer opioids and benzos, there is always a potential for disaster.

Please don't underestimate your own potential!

Edit: I should add that I presently take my prescribed 8-mg/day bupe sublingual and 3-mg/day clonazepam. I had a significant tolerance to opioids when I transitioned to bupe (tapered from 200-mg/day methadone to make the switch to bupe) and had been taking a benzo as prescribed in increasing dosages for four years while in the methadone program to final dosages of 200-mg & 4-mg/day (bupe/clonazepam or bupe/alprazolam). The highest bupe/benzo doses combined that I've taken: 16-mg/day of bupe and 4-mg/day clonazepam every day and I functioned very well as an aircraft mechanic working 40 - 55 hours/week. So, many people with experiences like mine may say, "I take it, it's totally safe!" I felt a sense of security when my friend OD b/c of my tolerance, but holy shit... when you don't have the tolerance it's killer what these compounds can do.
 
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I think think the OP meant to convey that their dose is 4-mg/day Suboxone. I think the first person to reply read and assumed that to be 0.4-mg/day. 4-mg a day is a decent, strong dose of bupe - definitely with respect to adding in a benzo.


Oops, indeed - I did read that as 0.4mg of bupe.

I agree with the post above. I should make it very clear in fact, that when I say I've never known it to cause a problem, I'm going on the assumption of long-term, daily suboxone use - to the point where you don't in any way feel affected by the dose.. If the suboxone is still having any kind of narcotic affect on your well-being, then perhaps it is not so safe.
 
Many of us do both without any ill effects but no one knows how you'll respond. Take it slow and start as low as possible and go from there if u wanna be as safe as possible if your gonna do it...
 
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