Bupe Subutex and Pneumonia

So, two months ago I was in hospital with pneumonia. I recovered, but lately, in the evening, I start to get flu-like symptoms... They vanish in the morning when I take my 2mg sub. My concern is... am I masking serious symptoms? If I do have pneumonia again, is it dangerous to walk around with it? Should I get to a doctor and have myself checked? Or is it alright to carry on with symptom-less (masked) pneumonia?

Anr

Maybe it is WD symptoms?

I think if you had pneumonia, you'd know. I highly doubt Subutex is strong enough to mask the symptoms of pneumonia. What exactly do you mean by flu-like symptoms? As Ohayou said, it is more likely that it is withdrawal symptoms. With pneumonia you'd be having difficulty breathing and coughing etc. What do you mean by would it be dangerous to walk around if you have pneumonia? Dangerous to whom? To others that you might give it to? If you meant to yourself, no, there is no rule that you shouldn't walk if you have pneumonia...

I had pneumonia while on methadone and it certainly didn't do anything to mask the symptoms. How long have you been on the Subutex, how long have you been at this dose, and how often do you take it - once a day? It could be that you need to take it twice a day, some people are "quick metabolizers" and such drugs don't last as long for them.

Well the op has a point. When I was on MMT I never got a cold, or at least it seems I never did, and on bupe, I havn't been sick at all in the last year except for getting an infection due to some iv coke mayhem, but in all reality it probably is withdrawal, but I can't help but notice how on maintenance therapy I've never gotten so much as a sore throaght.

Indeed. MMT and BMT patients can get palliative relief from their maintanence doses. This happened to me after breaking two limbs (Rx 105mg Methadone a day at the time)- 1-3 hours after taking my morning dose of Methadone, my pain was non-existant for several hours and would slowly creep back as the day wore on.

There's a reason opium was sort of the 'it' medicine of humanity up until recently (and was replaced by its semi and fully synthetic cousins and various Big Pharma novel drugs). Opioids, as a palliative, will seemingly 'fix' anything from a cold to serious pain. There were times I knew I was down with a cold or flu, but only peripherally due to the effects of the Methadone. Same with repeatitive motion injuries at work unloading trucks- my dose of Buprenorphine would remove most if not all of the right side lower back pain I'd get everyday (which made a comeback at my current job which involves similar repetitive motion on a regular basis which would be worse at night after work and in the morning, but disappear within 1-3 hours after dosing Methadone). Currently my 16mg of Buprenorphine a day and benzos could probably mask any affliction until serious symptoms develop that can't be ignored (such as a broken then infected tooth which hurt enough despite the Methadone I was on at the time to let me know it was a serious problem).

If I were you I'd go back to the doctor and get checked out- whether or not you tell them you are on Buprenorphine is irrelevant. Money is meaningless, your health and well being are all that matter. I really hope that you don't have pneumonia again.

The pain-lessening effects of opiates vary greatly depending on the person, the particular drug, the quantity, the person's tolerance, how long they have been using it etc etc. With Subutex it generally does not provide very strong pain-killing effects, especially for people on low doses of for long-term for maintenance for opiate dependence, and the symptoms of pneumonia are very noticeable and distinctive so I highly doubt it could mask them. It's still not clear what the OP's situation is or what exactly their symptoms are, but pneumonia usually causes a severe cough and difficulty breathing, and I would be shocked if the Subutex was able to completely mask that, (unless it was just lessening the very early symptoms of a mild infection or virus that could eventually turn into pneumonia).

I would just pay attention to whether the symptoms are getting worse and whether or not they match the actual symptoms of pneumonia. If the symptoms worsen or don't improve, I would suggest going to the doctor - assuming you are getting the Subutex legally through a prescription from your doctor - because even if it's withdrawal symptoms you don't have to needlessly suffer. You may need to raise your dose or take it more often. Unless you are deliberately trying to lower your Sub dose with the idea of getting off it soon, but even in that case it often helps to take it more often, because the worse your withdrawal symptoms are the harder it makes it to taper down. But it could also just be a cold, in which case there is nothing you can do.

By the way, pain, especially cold/flu symptoms etc are always worse in the morning, even for people who aren't on opiates.

I recently got over pnemonia though five months and I still hack shit up im on 94mg MMT and yea it hurt to even walk really nasty feeling...

I'm starting to think it's not pneumonia but a mild cold. The reason I feared pneumonia was the difficulty breathing sometimes. But that can be chalked up to the fifty cigs I smoke (opiates make every cig a delight). It could be mild WDs aswell...I'm not sure. I'm on 2mg daily for depression/addiction. I've been postponing, and posting here about, increasing my dose. But for some reason I'm reluctant to increase the dose. Probably guilt (my gf makes sure every minute to remind me of my addiction and or failure)

Anyway, thanks for the support and concern.

If you are only dosing 2mg, once daily in the morning, it sounds to me like you are simply starting to feel withdrawal symptoms by nighttime. Since you start to feel better once you dose in the morning, i do not think it is pneumonia. Pneumonia is very serious and you would know if you had it.

Unless I am mistaken, your once daily dosing is causing you to start withdrawing at night. If you are on 2mg/day, why not split it into 1mg in the morning, and 1mg at night? I think you should try that and see where that gets you.

BrokedownPalace said:

If you are only dosing 2mg, once daily in the morning, it sounds to me like you are simply starting to feel withdrawal symptoms by nighttime. Since you start to feel better once you dose in the morning, i do not think it is pneumonia. Pneumonia is very serious and you would know if you had it.

Unless I am mistaken, your once daily dosing is causing you to start withdrawing at night. If you are on 2mg/day, why not split it into 1mg in the morning, and 1mg at night? I think you should try that and see where that gets you.

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I'm way ahead of ya. Almost from the start I split the dose. As another thread mentions, taking 2mg in the morning made me so darn exhausted and tired by five o'clock. Now I take 1mg when I get up, usually around six, and then 1mg around lunch.

(And, I'll ask ONE more time... IS there a difference between snorting and slipping under the tongue? I've been snorting, as I feel it kicks inn faster and gives a better high. But... should I just slip it under the tongue instead? Will it make a difference? I use sub cause I actually feel it gives a greater high than any dope I've tried. And it lasts soo much longer)

Yes, there certainly is a difference. I don't have the exact numbers on hand at the moment, but the bioavailability is greater when taken nasally, as opposed to sublingually. Nasally wears off faster, but it comes on stronger and less is needed. I always preferred to snort my suboxone/subutex.

One thing just came to mind, though. If you are snorting suboxone on the regular, THAT could be the cause of your cold-like symptoms. I have never been on suboxone for more than a few days at a time, except once. I went on vacation for a few weeks and was snorting suboxone the whole time, and I got a very badly irritated throat/upper respiratory area. I had a cough and a sore throat and everything. It was without a doubt cauased by the suboxone.

When chopping up the tablets, they seem VERY dry/brittle/sharp and it wouldn't surprise me if prolonged nasal administration could irritate your throat/lungs to the point of developing symptoms.

I guess you could try switching to sublingual for a bit and see if it clears up, though if you were to do that you would need to increase your dose.

Hmmm

The fact that you're snorting it could also explain withdrawals coming on sooner, if your symptoms are withdrawals. Snorting it makes it kick in faster but also stop working faster.

Snorting raises the absorption by about 20% . In suffocation absorbs 50% as up posed to sublingual which is 30%, so when your at a pretty low dose like that the 20% could really make a difference, but also as swimming dancer said above, some people find the duration is shorter, which could be why your feeling w/d. Splitting your dose was a good idea, but you might want to stick to sublingual as it will last a bit longer, and won't cause any nasal irritation, but i understand not being able to stand the taste of the things

AnrBjotk said:

I'm way ahead of ya. Almost from the start I split the dose. As another thread mentions, taking 2mg in the morning made me so darn exhausted and tired by five o'clock. Now I take 1mg when I get up, usually around six, and then 1mg around lunch.

(And, I'll ask ONE more time... IS there a difference between snorting and slipping under the tongue? I've been snorting, as I feel it kicks inn faster and gives a better high. But... should I just slip it under the tongue instead? Will it make a difference? I use sub cause I actually feel it gives a greater high than any dope I've tried. And it lasts soo much longer)

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I always get confused when people say that they get a better high from bupe than ANY other opiate. I agree that if you don't have a tolerance and you do a subutex it will get you high to where you are nodding but it still doesn't feel(in my opinion and anyone Ive ever met) even as good as a roxy and definitely cant touch the high from opana or heroin.

Do you like it because it is more mellow than other opiates and you don't get as messed up?

I take it to keep me from doing the really good stuff and any euphoric feelings that i do receive from bupe are just like an added bonus. But I dont think it even compares to other opiates like oxy, opana, morphine etc.

SUB SHOOTER 2010 said:

I always get confused when people say that they get a better high from bupe than ANY other opiate. I agree that if you don't have a tolerance and you do a subutex it will get you high to where you are nodding but it still doesn't feel(in my opinion and anyone Ive ever met) even as good as a roxy and definitely cant touch the high from opana or heroin.

Do you like it because it is more mellow than other opiates and you don't get as messed up?

I take it to keep me from doing the really good stuff and any euphoric feelings that i do receive from bupe are just like an added bonus. But I dont think it even compares to other opiates like oxy, opana, morphine etc.

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It's a mixed bag. Buprenorphine is the drug of choice in many parts of the world; particularly poorer nations (and especially those that have a longstanding tradition of opium/poppy straw/pod/poppy seed abuse and/or act as a transit country for Heroin destined for the West). There is a lot of media reports and government documents showing the use of organized crime in Europe loading cars with Subutex tablets (paid for originally by the various State governments and sold or traded for heroin to organized crime) and then those carloads of thousands upon thousands of Subutex driven to Eastern Europe where it is crushed and sold in baggies and foil wrappers like Heroin and injected (the last story I read on the subject described French smugglers/organized crime groups taking their Bupe to Tblisi, Georgia, and either selling it outright for a huge profit or getting good Afghani #3 in return or both for the return trip to Western Europe). The process describes local dealers crushing each 8mg tablet into 8 piles (approx 1mg per bag) which is then sold at a price that is cheaper than Heroin- creating a subset of poorer addicts who cannot afford Heroin or can no longer afford Heroin. In India and Bangladesh, Buprenorphine is commonly prescribed as Suboxone and Subutex and has a subset of addicts who are for the most part Buprenorphine IV addicts only. Then you get cultural aspects of it in Western Europe in places like Scotland and France where Temgesic is injected with Temazepam or another benzo or downer (or was; this goes back to the days before the Subs).

Before becoming an IV heroin addict, at that point I was regularly snorting Oxycodone and Heroin; but after snorting Buprenorphine (4mg) I was blown away; it felt stimulatory and euphoric like Oxycodone, only lasted much, much longer. But IV'ing heroin is far superior to the euphoria of insufflated Buprenorphine to me. Now as a new BMT patient, insufflated Buprenorphine doesn't do anything for me. I can't tell a difference in my body chemistry, my emotions, etc whether I snort or take it sublingually. So I just take it sublingually as snorting pills is very unpleasant (doing so for years before becoming a needle drug user has permanently damaged my nasal cavaties).

But yes, Buprenorphine is addictive, it is euphoric, it can be injected or snorted, and there are populations (particularly opioid naive and those who are addicts but to either lesser potent narcotics like Tramadol or Hydrocodone, those who became Heroin addicts but quickly could not afford the cost of heroin vs black market Subutex, etc etc etc) who find it to be just as good as any other of the big good dope family. If I had never injected heroin, Bupe would've been tied with heroin for the best opioid imho via insufflation.

Similar debates occur with Methadone. There are people who are simply addicted to Methadone off the street, not a clinic. Find it euphoric, long lasting and pleasurable (I felt that way taking small doses of it as a teenager; it felt like I had snorted 30mg Morphine and the high would last 16 hours rather than 6). Same with Methadone injectors- some swear by it as euphoric and ahead of other potent recreational ('high abuse potential') opioids.

Ive been on and off bupe for 5 years now and I have definitely seen my share of "sub heads"(people addicted to subs). But all of them like the high from heroin better they just cant afford it financially and don't like the withdraws. A bupe habit is way easier to afford and maintain than heroin or other pills unless you cant find it. And the bad thing about bupe though is that you will get faded if you have no tolerance and do it, but by the 4th or 5th day you do it, you don't even get half the euphoric effects from it that you did at first. So it pretty much turns into a maintenance thing.

And when you do other full agonist opiates(heroin, opana, oxy) you will still build a tolerance but you can actually get really high everyday too because they don't have that ceiling effect that bupe has also. In the end i think its a good thing though because bupe would pretty much be like methadone in the end if it didn't have that ceiling effect. And you would hear about people taking like 7 subutex a day and shit. Which is completely pointless though so the most the doctor will even prescribe you here is 24mg a day. Where on methadon your mgs a day is pretty much what you want it to be.

SUB SHOOTER 2010 said:

I always get confused when people say that they get a better high from bupe than ANY other opiate. I agree that if you don't have a tolerance and you do a subutex it will get you high to where you are nodding but it still doesn't feel(in my opinion and anyone Ive ever met) even as good as a roxy and definitely cant touch the high from opana or heroin.

Do you like it because it is more mellow than other opiates and you don't get as messed up?

I take it to keep me from doing the really good stuff and any euphoric feelings that i do receive from bupe are just like an added bonus. But I dont think it even compares to other opiates like oxy, opana, morphine etc.

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In short:
I love subutex cause the high is more energetic. On H I get mellow and relaxed. On subutex... I feel like I'm the king of the world. I can do anything. It's like coke and H together. First time I took bupe I started running. Just running like mad around the neighbourhood.
So, yeah, for me bupe is better cause it relaxes me, yet makes me invincible at the same time... like Charlie Sheen...Winning... hehe

And unlike what has been mentioned, I've been using it daily for five months and still get pretty high. Sure, the high doesn't last as long, but those four hours in the morning, high in front of my computer is the highlight of the day...