Opioids Two 8mg Suboxone Films....at one time???

[khardbored]

Scroll down to the bold text to get to the question, lol!

Hello everyone!
I've been a long time lurker and registered back in '09 but was never very active. But that was a long, dark and ugly road. Which brings me here and to my point but a quick backstory.

Started using opiates 12 years ago. It gradually got worse. I started off taking 2 Oxy 5s and would feel awesome. I would wait all day and only take them at night. Gradually it would go up to 15MG, but I would always wait until it was dark. Long story short, for the last 2 years I have never been clean longer than 4 days. I was averaging anywhere from 30MG of Oxy or Hydro (whatever I could score) to about 250-350MG a day. I've had a standing script for Hydros from my doc for about 8 years now. I have legitimate pain issues. But anyway, I would get 60 Hydro tens every month. I would have them swallowed in two days. So yeah...

Ok, so skip to now. I decided to come clean and kick for good. So this last friday I came clean with my doctor and told her that I am addict. I also told her that I was abusing them. I would take them to get high. So after a day of messing around with Medicaid she got pre-authorization from them and gave me a weeks supply of the Suboxone film. Now here comes the questions.
I don't fully recall how much she told me to take. The script was illegible. But the package says "Place two strips under the tongue everyday". The pharmacist even told my wife to "Have him place both strips under his tongue until they are completely disolved". So that would be 16/4? Is that like entirely too much? I only took one strip and to be quite honest, I feel rather high. A good high. My last dose was 27 hours ago and it was 45MG hydro. So my question is, would it be safe to take both strips at once tomorrow or do it once twice a day? I would ask my doctor but her office will be closed until the day of my next app, which is friday. So yeah, any thoughts?

I want to take these to help me get through my addiction but getting this high is also a bonus, sadly. So yeah, sorry about the wall-o-text and if some of this came out kinda incoherent, lol.

 

[orgone]

A lot of times more suboxone than is needed is commonly prescribed. I've seen people written for 2-3 strips a day. IMO with suboxone less is more. If one strip is holding you and getting you "high" then why take another one? No offense but if you're trying to get clean why are you trying to ramp up your tolerance by dosing 16mg of sub a day? You should really consider trying to take LESS than 8mg and find the smallest amount you need to be held and ward off the PAWS symptoms. That way when you decide to get off suboxone you won't have to decrease from such a high dose before hopping off.

 

[khardbored]

I don't want to ramp the dose up. I mean, the high is nice, sure, but as I said, the entire point of me being on this is to help get me through everything else. My doctor suggested I be on this long term and I brought up being on it for only 6 months. I'm not trying to up the dose, maybe I came off that way in my initial post but that is not the case. I was just curious if it was common for so much of it to be prescribed at once. The package and pharmacist both say to take the two strips at once, which I didn't. I'm already a bit high so if I wanted to, I could pop two tomorrow and be right back in the same boat.
If I can't beat this mindset about getting high than this entire process with the suboxone is pointless, which I don't want it to be. I managed to fight the urge to use methods to snort this as well as resisted the urge to take another strip. I am determined to stay clean. My family needs me around and sane. I don't want my son and daughter growing up to some junky father. (No offense meant there to other addicts out there, as I am a junky father)

 

[thesameoldfears]

I think it's up to you...my doctor scripts me three a day and told me to find what works best for me. I rarely take that much in a day (haven't in months) but I did when I first got on it because it gave me a few days to reconsider relapsing because my system was flooded with so much bupe. Just figure out what works best for you and congrats on deciding to get clean.

 

[orgone]

My mistake. I was under the impression you were asking if you could safely take both strips as prescribed. It's really good that you are being proactive in terms of your care and mentioning you don't want to be on subs long term. It is fairly common for higher than needed amounts of subto be written. I've known people that were written for 90 strips a month. That much a day is far too much. A good way to look at your suboxone in case you ever get really bad urges to use is that you won't get high if you do. Mentally that little trick helps me out a bunch knowing I'd be "wasting" whatever opiate I went to the trouble to acquire. You've got a good support structure in your wife and great reasons to be present for your kids. Hope I was helpful in answering your questions. Captain Heroin is a really knowledgeable Suboxone expert, PM him if you need to ask specific questions!

 

[khardbored]

A good way to look at your suboxone in case you ever get really bad urges to use is that you won't get high if you do. Mentally that little trick helps me out a bunch knowing I'd be "wasting" whatever opiate I went to the trouble to acquire.

This. I had to do that not 10 minutes ago, hence why I am back here. It's nice to read other peoples recovery stories.
I have another question, I'll shoot it to Captain H as well, but why did I get high off that strip? I expected to feel something but I was not expecting that. It wasn't placebo effect either. I will not lie, I did enjoy it. I was tempted to pop another strip but that mindset is what nearly ruined my life. Is it common to experience euphoria from the strips when taken as directed? I am assuming it will only last for a short time, probably the duration of this current script (fourteen strips, a new script a week).

 

[orgone]

Once you adjust to the suboxone you won't get any euphoria out of it. It's only a partial agonist so the receptor binding affinity isn't nearly as strong or euphoric as full agonist opioids that are commonly abused (Heroin, Oxycodone, etc)

Bupe is still very strong but after a few days of prescribed dosing you won't be getting euphoria like your first few strips will give you. Hang in there man.

 

[khardbored]

Actually glad to hear that the euphoria will go. Maybe a little bummed as it was just enough "up" get me motivated again. Hopefully it will just level me out and keep me "normal" where I actually have motivation to do things.

 

[Serotonin101]

At that dose you will get some minor full agonist action from the norbupe along with partial agonist action from bupe. Bupe alone is strong for people with lower tolerances. I'd say wait til you feel withdrawal coming on and dose 2mg at a time to be honest. 2mg then wait some time, then 2mg more. Don't wanna overdo it as bupe withdrawals are horrible in my experience due to its half life. If 2mg or 4mg holds you why use more really.

 

[Mass08]

Just a little fyi...I was shooting at least a .5 gram of heroin usually more everyday for about a year and when I detoxed 2mg's a day was more than enough to keep me feeling very good...

 

[Rob27shred]

Once you adjust to the suboxone you won't get any euphoria out of it. It's only a partial agonist so the receptor binding affinity isn't nearly as strong or euphoric as full agonist opioids that are commonly abused (Heroin, Oxycodone, etc)

Bupe is still very strong but after a few days of prescribed dosing you won't be getting euphoria like your first few strips will give you. Hang in there man.

Don't get it wrong my friend, bupe has one of the strongest binding affinitys for the receptors it works on compared to short acting opies. That's what causes PWD, the bupe kicks the full agonist opies right off the receptors cause it has such a higher binding affinity than them. The nalnoxone in sub is basically a scare tactic & has a lower binding affinity than bupe anyways so it is almost completely inactive in suboxone.

 

[Rob27shred]

For the OP, you will definitely not need 16mg of sub a day. Reading your post it sounds to me like your addiction to opies is not a super bad one. Taking 16mg of subs a day for any lengthy period of time will put you in a much worse opie addiction than you are now. Bupenorphine is a very strong opiate, much stronger than most realize since it is primarily used for addiction treatment. Your best bet if you really want to quit the opies is to start off with a 2mg dose. If that don't get you out of WD take another 2mg an hour after the initial dose. Just repeat that process till you find the dose that get's rid of your WD symptoms. More than likely 2 to 4mg a day should be good. Also once you find your stabilizing dose you'll want to taper off the subs ASAP. Fast tapers IMO are the only way to use subs to come off opiates. They put me on suboxone maintenance when I started & here I am 5 yrs later still on 3mg a day. If you don't fast taper your just trading one opiate for another. You should know too that when I started suboxone I had a habit of IVing 4 to 5 bags of good H a day (EC powder dope) just to not be sick. So I had a pretty nasty addiction & one 8mg sub a day was more than enough to keep my WDs at bay. Hope this info help some & good luck on getting off the opies.

 

[Mass08]

Don't get it wrong my friend, bupe has one of the strongest binding affinitys for the receptors it works on compared to short acting opies. That's what causes PWD, the bupe kicks the full agonist opies right off the receptors cause it has such a higher binding affinity than them. The nalnoxone in sub is basically a scare tactic & has a lower binding affinity than bupe anyways so it is almost completely inactive in suboxone.

100% Correct. Binding affinity has no correlation to receptor activation.

 

[Znegative]

I agree with the majority here in that 16mg and probably even 8mg, is far too high of a dose. I would try 4mg (1/2 a strip). What many doctors don't seem to understand is that just because bupe is a 'partial agonist' does not mean it's a weak opiate-it just caps off it's effects at a certain dose. However to give you an idea of buprenorphine's potency, .3mg injections of buprenorphine are equal (though longer lasting) than 10mg injections of morphine (in other terms, it's 30x the strength of morphine but unlike moe phone it's a partial agonist, so taking 5mg of bupe IV will not be equivalent to 160mg of morphine)

 

[Mr.Scagnattie]

16mg's to me is a pretty outrageous dose, but a lot of doctors like to start you off really high like that for many reasons.

Either way, having been on bupe many times and for long stretches of time, I've come to be of the school of thought that less is more. Many people even report a lot of negative side effects from such high doses, so they find when they come down to a more reasonable dose like 8mgs or below, they get all the positive benefits of bupe without the downsides.

 

[down508]

I believe the point of giving you such a high dose is that your tolerance will get up faster and you will stop feeling "really high" like you said you do. taking 16mg will be fine, you won't feel it any more than if you took 8mg.

I agree with the majority here in that 16mg and probably even 8mg, is far too high of a dose. I would try 4mg (1/2 a strip). What many doctors don't seem to understand is that just because bupe is a 'partial agonist' does not mean it's a weak opiate-it just caps off it's effects at a certain dose. However to give you an idea of buprenorphine's potency, .3mg injections of buprenorphine are equal (though longer lasting) than 10mg injections of morphine (in other terms, it's 30x the strength of morphine but unlike moe phone it's a partial agonist, so taking 5mg of bupe IV will not be equivalent to 160mg of morphine)

I actually think that this is a conservative estimate. in my experience doing buprenex without an opiate tolerance made me feel higher than if I took 30mg morphine.

 

[orgone]

Don't get it wrong my friend, bupe has one of the strongest binding affinitys for the receptors it works on compared to short acting opies. That's what causes PWD, the bupe kicks the full agonist opies right off the receptors cause it has such a higher binding affinity than them. The nalnoxone in sub is basically a scare tactic & has a lower binding affinity than bupe anyways so it is almost completely inactive in suboxone.

I stand corrected, thanks

 

[khardbored]

Wow! Loads of useful information here, thank you everyone. And all the info seems to point to me cutting my dose down. I have a follow up with my doc tomorrow and I'll ask about it. (I know you guys are right, not insinuating you're not, lol). I already cut my 8MG strip down and took roughly 2MG about 45 minutes ago. I may need to go to 4, but right now I am doing fine. I'm not interested in being high so cutting the dose is fine by me. This med has also helped with my anxiety far, far more than my k-pins ever did. Hell, I was on K-pins, zanny bars, Serax (oxepam?) and countless SSRIS due to anxiety problem I've had since I was a boy. But these little strips seem to be wonder drugs....could be that it's just PAWS that it is helping with, can't be too sure. But I had the anxiety long before I started my addiction. It's a double edged sword for me. I would love to stay on this if this 2MG works for my anxiety, pain and withdrawals, for a long period of time but not sure if that is something people even do...long term sub? I see some people being on it for years but why?

 

[joeburden]

you might wanna keep your dose at 16, and only take what will help you get by so you can stockpile some of them because when it comes time to get off of them, most doctors will think you can jump off at 2mgs and be relatively comfortable but thats really not the case and you might wanna taper yourself down closer to .5 or .25 before jumping off. so having some extras around is never a bad thing

 

[Serotonin101]

^^ I agree with this if I understand it correctly. Keep your prescribed dose at 16mg but only take as much as needed to get by. Usually docs will bump you off at 2mg so its nice to have extras to do a more gradual taper if needed. I would go the route of rapid taper but you could always stay on low dose bupe for your anxiety.