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my understanding is that the w/ds from suboxone are worse than from methadone (and i know from personal experience how bad methadone is...).  my advice is to taper off slowly and very consistently.  

I also wanted to say that the doses a doctor would normally prescribe you is usually more than you need. I use suboxone as a short term tapering tool (less than two weeks) Even from taking over 150mg of oxycodone per day I can take 4mg twice a day and then taper down from there eventually taking quarters and then even little slivers of the suboxone tablet. It is my opinion that anything over 8mg a day is doing more damage than good because the withdrawals when you decide to finally come off of it are worse than you would have originally. My suggestion would be to take as little mg as possible for as little time as possible just to prevent withdrawals and then taper yourself off.

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A mixture of roxicodone, oxycontin, percacets......when you are a real bad addict you take whatever you can get. I was also taking other opiates and some benzodiazepines with them.  I used to take anywhere upwards from 120-200mg per day all depending on how much money i had. And yes 150mg of roxicodone would feel a lot more potent than 150mg of extended release oxycontin.

I am happy to say that i am not that bad anymore. I am not gonna say i'm clean...but no more than 30mg oxycodone or equivalent once a week or so and no benzodiazepines except for when i am having an anxiety attack.

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certifiedcna1.....How long were you on the Suboxone? If you don't mind me asking.

Thanks.

Don't quote me on this but I always understood the half-life as to how long it takes for half of the dose you took to leave your system. Let's say half life of Suboxone is 36 hours. you take 8mg..36 hours you have 4mg in your system...72 hours 2mg..etc.

PaWl WaLl

As always Dr. Lois is right on the money, exactly right.  All the experinces I have read about and seen average 12 to 16mg/day for the subutex/suboxone therapy.  For hydrocodone perhaps less, but the bottom line is that hydrocodone still metabolizes into the same drug as oxycodone so there may be some relative cross-tolerance with the bupe there, but yeah bupe does not stimulate the receptors affinity for getting "high" or if it does it is very weak as it is only a partial agonist, think of it as a key that only opens the door halfway, where Oxy is a key that opens it all the way since it is a full mu agonist semi-synthetic opiate drug. Thats how  I have always related it and people seemed to understand it that way.

I've found it very hard to  stop taking any opiods while on suboxone.  I'm still tempted, craving, and capable of getting all types of opiods.  It did stop some of the w/d's during the first 24hours of stopping opiods. I have a high tollerance for opiods since I can remember.  Fentanyl is the only thing that puts me on my "behind" in a coma.  I'm not a typical junkie that gets all tired and lazy on opiods.  I'll build a house then go backcountry skiing all day on  oxycodone. I was taking 5/80 mg. oxy's with a couple percs a day also, just to stop the craving, not even getting high off 100mg doses.  That's 400-500mg's a day. The suboxone was very powerfull when I first tried it. 2mg lasted me all day and I actually felt it working for me. Now 4mg. only lasts me a couple hours, leading me to taking too many and building a tollerance to it.  This is why I've gone back and forth from sub's back to percs.  At least I've lowered my perc intake alot, and completely stopped all oxy and roxy intake.  Hopefully this gradual tapering of everything will result in me feeling normal again, because this back and forth stuff is misserable!

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Well first of all i just wanted to say is that not every opiate addicts are nodding out all over the place. there are tons of functioning addicts....I know from experience. Also going on suboxone is not detox.....it is still an opiate although a legal one. You are supposed to wait 12 hours from your last dose and then take it and you will feel better immediately. You wont go into withdrawals if anything you will feel like a small cold and then the suboxone will maintain you. So you should feel normal again without all the highs and lows of oxy abuse. Also suboxone is sometimes prescribed as a pain medicine because it is a partial opiate agonist so it will help with your arthritus pain to a degree. If you really want to get off the oxycodone then go to a doc and get on the suboxone. For one or two doc visits a month you will feel normal but you still need to want to stop. Getting on suboxone will keep you out of withdrawals but not stop you craving the feeling of euphoria from abusing the pills. I know this from experience. So if you want to stop the pills then either taper yourself off or go on the suboxone and taper yourself slowly enough that you feel comfortable without going into bad withdrawals or relapsing. Also the anxiety is common when trying to come off opiates...i;ve been there myself. There are medications that can help that a doc can offer so when you go to talk about suboxone mention the anxiety as well. I have stopped using oxy at your doses (150-200mg)using a very short taper of suboxone just to stop withdrawals yet have relapsed many times....i just use it to help with withdrawals pretty much but i would assume staying on it for a while would help and then when you are ready then start tapering down. I also would suggest not going over 16mg per day becausewhat some people dont realize....it is an opiate and will give you withdrawals if you suddenly stop taking it. So less is more in the long run. 

 Also to the person who said you are switching from sub to percs but saying at least it isnt oxycontin or roxicodone is just plain stupid. percocet is oxycodone which is the same as oxycontin or roxicodone. Just because you arnt taking that much doesnt mean you arnt taking it. You are completely defeating the purpose of being on the suboxone if you are going back and forth. You are going to build up a tolerance but not enough that you should be withdrawing so you are just hurting yourself in the long run going back and forth. also 2 and 4mg is a relatively low dose anyway. It will help just to keep you out of withdrawals barely. Just stick with the suboxone and dont keep going back and forth or you might as well just keep abusing. 

Suboxone definitely doesn't work for everyone and may not work at all by itself to control addiction.  If you don't mind sharing, what was the highest dosage of suboxone were you on that you still had narcotic craving?  The party line is if people report craving, increase the dosage of Suboxone, at least up to 32mg a day.  After that there is not much advice about what to do.  Also, what dosage were you on when you found that you could still get high?  As with methadone, higher dosages may be needed to get the blocking effect.

Hi This is just my opinion, short and to the point. Have you thought of going inpatient for detox and then to a 28 day (or however long it may take)program.Once you are detoxed, a program will help you with meetings, therapy and what ever issues you may have.And you will also be with people who are in similar situations as you that you can talk with.Just a suggestion. I know quite a few people that this really saved their lives as they tried everything else.All The Best To You, Nancie

I disagree with you Mixer. "Stay on suboxone its easier to come off of than oxys" (obviously I dont know how to use the quote thing lol) but anyway I found that comming off the suboxones was way harder than coming off the oxys and the W/D was worse and lasted way longer. I believe that it is stupid to give a drug addict more drugs. sorry for the rant but i know all of this from personal experience plus this is just my opinion. I would have rather went cold turkey than going on suboxone! one of the worst mistakes ive ever made in my life, well besides using oxys in the first place!

so if even if he does come up negative, the dr will still give him the script for subs?

I am not too sure on this subject but I do know most doctors wont prescribe you suboxone unless you are already going through withdrawal. Usually they give you your first dose in the office once they can see you in withdrawal and adjust your dose there before giving you your script. I would assume no doctor would just prescribe the suboxone unless you had a positive drug test for opiates or are obviously in withdrawal. It is possible that your fiance just wants to be on the suboxone maintenance thinking that he cant take other opiates while on it (which is false at that low dose cause he can still take any opiate and get the effects). Also believe it or not suboxone does have some abuse potential....I know that from experience so perhaps he is trying to get the prescription so he can take them occaisionally and get high still while everyone thinks he is on a maintenance program. 

I was w/d from the Fentanyl Patches and my doc told me that I had to be in w/d and off the patches for a full 24 hours before she would issue the Suboxone script. She gave me half a pill in the office told me to wait in the waiting room for 30 minutes then gave me another half and waited another 30 minutes. I left with a script of a whopping 4 pills and told to come back in 4 days to see how I was doing. Well, it turned out that 1 pill a day for me wasn't working so she increased it to 2 a day and she then gave me the script for 60 pills. She did do a drug test on me and she did say that it had to be a positive reading before she could issue me any Suboxone. But, I don't know if that is just her policy or if all Dr's who can Rx Suboxone have to do the drug test. She could tell I was in w/d's though. I was sooooo SICK!!

Hope this helps answer your question some..................KK

he was using them as mainetenence.   He did go through the same things you mentioned KK when he first started them - then he went through detox and came out using nothing... now a month later he feels like he needs the subs again.  i'm thinking he is getting cravings and wants the subs to prevent a relapse... or maybe i'm fooling myself into thinking that.