Author: stewart1
Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 3:18 am
IMO, for me i had the same exact thing. I’ve had migraines/headaches my whole life but suboxone made them horrible. I lowered my dose, tried Topamax (a migraine prevention medication) and a few other things. Lowering helped a little and seems like it does for a LOT of people. But, for me I needed to switch to subutex. That is just plain buprenorphine without the naloxone. That was what was causing me problems. It took me switching to a new doctor because the other one wouldn’t believe the fact that that could be the cause. (I do feel a lot of suboxone doctors are not well enough educated about the medicine b/c this is a very common side effect I hear).
Anyways, if your doctor may be open to that, I would say go for it. It took me 6 months of really painful lingering headaches and the frequent splitting migraine that made me completely unable to do anything but lay in my bed in the dark and suffer. I also took all sorts of OTC meds, usually excedrin but I really didn’t like the idea of taking that much APAP several times a day for 6 months.
Another option I would suggest trying if you can’t get the subutex(there are generics for that as well which makes it much cheaper for me), would be the "spit-trick". Naloxone is not absorbed sublingually, if at all in it VERY miniscule(sp?). So what you do is keep your suboxone in your mouth for however long you do ( I usually did for 30-35 minutes but I am pretty sure that is not necessary, I was just always worried I wouldn’t get my full dose especially since I was lower than in the past) and then spit out the remaining saliva mix. By swallowing it, the naloxone gets absorbed more to your body and could be causing the headaches. This actually did help me quite a bit.
Ultimately, what I needed was just plain buprenorphine and after 6 months of headaches, BAM! Just completely gone. I felt great and loved it. I was so annoyed that they couldn’t switch me before, but I got the relief I needed. But, doctors try to avoid subutex just because it can be easily abused, so I guess you really got to gain their trust. If you were an IV user like I became, I think that makes it harder to get it because doctors think subutex can be IV’d and suboxone can’t, which isn’t even true technically.
Hope this helps, I know exactly what your dealing with.
FYI, the subutex is exactly the same for maintenance/taper/effects it just doesn’t have that god awful naloxone. Also, suboxone has an aritificial sweetener which may have been what was causing my headaches since the spit-trick didn’t really help me. But, it does for quite a few people I hear.
Either way, I would try the spit trick and/or possibly lowering the dose if you can yet. You are still pretty early in your treatment so you may not want to lower, but definitely try the spit trick. If still no luck, I’d ask your doc to try subutex.
Good Luck