Author: robx46

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2011 3:12 pm

I am having issues with suboxone. How many are related to it, I don’t know. At the very least, getting nausea every day after taking it was certainly a sign that I might have some side effects perhaps from naloxone. & being on suboxone for 8 years now, with the past 6 years things have really been going downhill, it was time for a change. To set my mind at ease, I at least wanted to try bupe without the naloxone. Since I have legit chronic pain issues, I went to a local pain doc today, explained all this to him.

He mentioned Butrans which I am familiar with from researching. On monday, I’m starting with a .5 mcg patch. When I got home, I researched just how much bupe I’d be getting.
What I learned… a shockingly low amount. Like not even 1mg a day. I’m on 8mg right now & was recently up to 24mg. I learned that this .5 mcg dose is for people without any sort of opiate tolerance.

That is definitely NOT me, considering that since I was a teenager I’ve either been on 80mg oxy’s then suboxone the past 8 years (almost 15 years of being on high dose of opiates, & the couple times I’ve tried to go without, life was unbearable, even after 6 months of nothing at one point, my body never adjusted, as if my body’s natural pain killers are gone for good. Sad but true, & hence why I’ve had to be on suboxone.

But at this point, all I care about is quality of life. I’ve had none, for years now. Things weren’t too bad on suboxone for the 1st 2 years, but the past 6 have been pretty miserable, with all these new health issues popping up as well. I tried getting on Subutex so that I could keep my same bupe dose & see how I feel, but unfortunately my sub doc not only refused, but he damn near threw me out of his office for even asking… despite me having a perfect track record on suboxone, a perfect patient.

So this left me no choice but to see if a pain doc would prescribe subutex (off label) for pain. He immediately brought up the butrans, which sounded fine to me, but again I was unaware just how lose a dose that would give me.
I don’t know how bad this is gonna be for me. Even if I got onto the 20mcg patch instead of 5mcg, that is still a low dose. I told him I was on 8mb of bupe, so why would he think 5mcg per hour of bupe is gonna work as I switch over? Am I missing something here?
I’m happy I get to try bupe without naloxone, which may very well help me feeling sick, but now I’m concerned about another type of sick (withdrawal).