mamatothree

I had five years of migraines, a hysterectomy to cure the migraines and ended up addicted to narcotics. I'm now on Suboxone strips. My beginning dose was 2 1/2 (8mg strips) a day. I'm now down to 1 1/2 a day. I am in counselling and doing great. I have my own apartment, am still on disability (arthritis, migraines but no where near as bad as the five year long bid I did, anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue/fibromyalgia) but am able to work a part time job. I have my kids and feel like things are finally on the right track.

Sub has never gotten me "high" and I don't understand how it can make someone high. Especially the strips. I understand it's a slight opiate (not as strong as say Morphine) and in pill form you can snort it or shoot it but how does it make you high? Why would someone seek this out and abuse it? If I take too much it doesn't do anything. I don't even get tired. Is it that my tolerance is so high? When I was having my migraines they had me on 50mcg patches of Fentanyl for 2 years. I know I have a high tolerance. Am I missing something obvious here?
Thanks for any help!

dragonfire613

Welcome to SR! Glad you found us.

I dunno, maybe everyone is different. It got me high as bat $hit if I took any significant dose above my maintenance dose... tolerance is probably some determining factor as well. When I was on 24-32mg/day, I would nod out all the time at my desk at work and especially driving was a struggle. Scary stuff to think back on now.

If you've never experienced these things, I'd consider it a bonus and maybe a sign you were started on the correct dose? Only you doc could say for sure. The point is not to get high on it, so that's a good thing if that's your experience methinks.

mamatothree

The first time I took it I had to wait two or three days after my last opiate. I was going into severe withdrawals. This made the withdrawals go away and I felt better than I had in ages. Clear headed, focused. My pain from my arthritis was gone. My anxiety disappeared. It was amazing to me. Since I've been on it I've been able to wean off of and get completely clean off of my clonazepam and clonidine. I no longer need my anxiety medications. I only have to take my antidepressant (Lexapro) and my sleeping aid (Ambien CR). I still have to take my arthritis medication but not as much and a lower dose. I'm afraid that when they wean me off of the Sub my anxiety will return. I've learned to deal with the anxiety I have now. I'm just scared the anxiety will come back in full force. I can't live like that again. I know I'll relapse because opiates were the only things that took away the constant worry and pain from being in a constant panic attack.

Edited to add: My doc says it's impossible to get high from Sub. He says shooting up with it won't work as it won't break down properly to get any benefit from it. But I know people who do shoot it and say it works. So he must be lying or is informed wrong. Would he lie about it so his patients won't try it?

dragonfire613

I think he's just repeating what he's been told/taught by his training materials and the drug reps... docs typically aren't users and don't know first-hand. The naloxone is in there supposedly to prevent people from getting high by shooting up, although I've heard others say they can still get off shooting it up as well. I wouldn't know, fear of needles.

My doc also told me the same things, many of which I learned were just untrue. If buprenorphine didn't have abuse potential, why is it a sched III drug? All the literature states it has a lower abuse potential and less euphoric effects compared to your garden variety opiates, but not that the potential isn't there. I would agree.

I had pretty bad anxiety the first 7-10 days after I came off the suboxone, but my anxiety has actually been better in recent weeks than it was when I was on the suboxone.

emptyshell

Yes he may lie about it so Pts don't try it. I have heard that people break down the strip somehow and then shoot it. They say it breaks down the naloxone and then its just bupinephrine (sp?) and since its a mild opiate they get high from it. I have also heard thats why the company how makes it is looking into that so they can possibily reformulate it, dont qoute me on that though this is just what Ive read on the web. My AH took 7 strips orally one day (claiming he forgot how many he took) and he looked /acted hi as hell.He denied, so I will never really know and I myself have never taken subs.
Mamato3-keep up the good work, it sounds like things are going well for you. Ask your Dr/Nurse/herapist for some coping techniques if you havent already, and be sure to practice them prior to an anxiety attack. Practice helps to make them more effective during an attack or period of anxiety. Make sure to decrease your stimuli during a period of anxiety and do those coping exercises. And if you are not comfortable coming off of the subs talk to your Dr about it, subs may be able to be used longer. Stay in counseling. You can get through the anxiety without antianxiety meds. Also you may want to talk to your Dr/Nurse about homeopathic treatments for anxiety (&even migraines), herbs and supplements from your local health store or pharmacy. You would be amazed at what these products can help with. Best of luck to you!

24hrsatatime

mammato3, I too have never experienced the high from suboxne and don't understand it either. I can tell you that in theory getting high from it should be impossible, as it is formulated only to block the receptors, not fully activate them, and it also has a ceiling effect that prevents it from creating more receptors. That's a scientific, medical discussion so I won't go any farther with it. I've heard several people say that as dragon put it sub made them higher than bat sh!t, but I don't understand it. I don't doubt they feel that way, it could be that I define high differently, I don't know.

What I do know, is that for me suboxone stopped my physical withdrawals and not much else. I've spent a lot of time working on the other part of my addiction...the mental stuff. I'm tapering off of sub now and while I've had people tell me that I will feel differently when I'm off I doubt it. I'm not saying that dragon or anyone here did this, but from what I've seen most people who claim sub made them high were abusing it in some way like combining it with meds like benzo's that cause drowsiness or drinking with it or something like that. I've seen people shoot it, but what I saw looked like physical withdrawals, and like I said they may have felt they were "high", but that certainly didn't fit into my idea of "high".

I wish that people would stop abusing sub and that it was only available to people who are trying to change their lives, but I also wish for world peace...probably not gonna happen. Until it does, all I can do is work at my recovery and not worry about the people who are misusing or abusing suboxone. I also can't let the stigma that these people give the treatment make me feel like my recovery is somehow less than someone who has chosen to abstain from all drugs. Recovery, like addiction, is a very individual thing and the best you can do is try your best to stay away from people who are abusing it and who are against it. Try to surround yourself with people who share your experience and who want to help you in your recovery and the rest will work itself our. Or that's my experience anyway. Best of luck to you and I will keep you in my prayers

dragonfire613

Without getting too much into the pharmacology, buprenorphine is a partial opiod agonist, meaning it partially activates the receptors in the brain (not just blocking them without any activation)...

From SAMHSA.GOV, (link ->)Buprenorphine

"Buprenorphine is an opioid partial agonist. This means that, although buprenorphine is an opioid, and thus can produce typical opioid agonist effects and side effects such as euphoria and respiratory depression, its maximal effects are less than those of full agonists like heroin and methadone..."

I don't really know why I keep trying to point it out... I'm seriously not encouraging anyone to try and abuse suboxone/subutex... I guess I feel like Reckitt Benckiser puts the info out there of "it's impossible to get high" to help their own cause, whereas its not true, imho. The literature clearly states you can get high off it, but the "maximal effects" are not that of other traditional opiates.

I clearly remember my induction and being told by the staff that I wouldn't feel high, and 30 minutes after taking the first tab telling them "I'm pretty sure what I'm feeling is high"... but I digress.

The high for me was not the same as full opiate agonists (like the ones I would typically use in active addiction), and generally not a pleasant high... what I'm calling "high" is a few hours of euphoria and high energy (of your typical variety), followed by a day of struggling not to nod off, constipation, occasional vomiting, itchiness, and generally feeling like a zombie. Like I said not exactly pleasant, and certainly not the same high as other opiates from taking just one dose. The half-life is ridiculous.

For my experience, I spent the first 6-9 months or so of sub treatment TRYING to chase that dragon (old habits die very hard)... I was on a 32mg/day rx, so I would do things like take 8mg/day for a week (which was really fine for a maintenance dose at the time) and then take 40mg on a weekend to try to get off... sick behavior I know. Luckily I gave up on that kind of thing when my firstborn arrived, and just started taking as little as I could to be ok... the fear of being sober is what took me so long to finally get off it and get on with my life, but the rest is history.

(Edit after): I just saw this on the same page linked above... "Because of its opioid agonist effects, buprenorphine is abusable, particularly by individuals who are not physically addicted to opioids." It makes me wonder... cuz when I first went to sub treatment, all 3 of my usual dealers had gone to jail in a local round-up, leaving me to survive on what scraps I could find in the local scene. I think I hadn't used in like a week when I first went on subs, and even previous use for several weeks had been what little bit I could find here & there... I wonder if my tolerance was so low by that point that is why I got the euphoric effects, especially in the beginning, whereas someone who hadn't "dried out" like I had may not have gotten the same effects. Just a guess, but interesting info.

emptyshell

DF613- if you dont mind me asking, when you say the fear of being sober, do you mean fear of withdraw or just fear of being without the crutch? what helped you to get over the fear of being sober?

24hrsatatime

I'm not saying that it is impossible for someone to feel "high" on suboxone, just that I never have and I've never witnessed anyone on suboxone being what I would call "high". Like I said maybe we define it differently. I do understand that it activates and blocks the opiate receptors, but for me the activation effect had to be minimal if any. It may have something to do with the fact that I had abused opiates for 20 years so my receptors have to be activated for me to feel normal. In my opinion anyone who isn't addicted to opiates shouldn't be taking suboxone anyway. Everything has abuse potential if you try hard enough to abuse it and everyone defines "high" in a different way. What I can say is that I've never experienced what I did with my doc on suboxone, that constant more, more, more just to get the desired effect. In fact, for me it has been the opposite, as I have worked on myself and matured in my recovery I've actually needed and even wanted the suboxone less and less, hence the taper.

We could argue till doomsday about high or not high. It's really irrelavant. You mentioned chasing the dragon early on in treatment. That's addictive behavior that is irrelevant to the actual result of the chase. That was a big part of my addiction...the chase and the game were just as important in the end as the actual use. But as you said once you got your mind right and stopped trying to chase the euphoric high suboxone helped you and I've said all along that simply taking suboxone will not, I repeat not, lead you to recovery. It's a tool to be used as part of a comprehensive recovery program, not a magic cure. The fact that it can be abused by people who aren't addicted to opiates has absolutely nothing to do with using it to treat addiction.

SLD

When I first started Subs, I never got the high which make opiates so enjoyable, but I definitely remember feeling quite up. Energetic and motivated. It was hard to sleep.

In normal addict behavior, I tried to abuse them, and found the cieling effect to be very real for me. Anything above 16 mg just made me a little ill. But I still tried 4 or 5 pills in the chase. Didn't work. Then, even the "up" wenbt away, although they prevent me from falling into a horrendous pit of depression. I started abusing opiates in my 30's because (I am convinced) my own brain chemistry was off. I was severely depressed, and only opiates worked to relieve it. Self-medication led to abuse.

Since I was paying cash for subs, I decided that high dosage was just nuts, so I dropped the dosage. For the first few months I was doing 8mg per day. I am now on a maintenance dosage of 4 to 6. Of course, constipation was terrible, and I read that constipation was like the only thing that you don't become habituated to. In other words, in opposite to tolerance, where a die-hard addict can do enough opiates to stun an elephant and get nothing from it, the constipation would always be there. Which (as we can all agree) sucks mightily. But very strangely, it want away... but that took a LONG time.

The reason people can abuse subs by injection is that the bupe is even more powerful than the naloxone when it comes to receptor latching. In theory, one could inject naloxone, wait an hour, then inject bupe, and have the bupe kick the naloxone off your brain receptors. So the naloxone does nothing to prevent abuse, which is really sad, because abuse of suboxone is drawing DEA attention and making it even harder for people to use it correctly. Those orange pills sell well in the streets. And the strips - HUGELY popular for smuggling into jail, because you can hide them soooo easily, in a book binding, behind stamps, even as a solution which is soaked into paper. The inmate chews the paper like chewing tobacco and gets all the bupe.

It makes me crazy. It's hard enough for people to get into a suboxone program without the illegal diversion.

dragonfire613

Sorry I just today saw your question. The answer is both fear of withdrawal and fear of having no safety-net if things got bad. I had been on rx, street, & homemade opiates for over a decade, then 4 years on suboxone. My subconscious was seriously convinced I had to have an opiate to be ok and function.

What got me over the fear of being sober? It was talking to enough old-timer recovering addicts telling me that I would be ok without opiates, eventually, if I would but abstain and start working on being healthy again, mind and body. After I got the same story from a dozen or more old-timers, I started to suspect they might not be lying to me in some grand conspiracy.

It was enough to get me to try, even though I was still terrified of it... I tried to have faith in what those who had gone before me were telling me. Lo and behold, they were right. Go figure. 35 Days completely off everything.

dragonfire613

I'll just second everything you said there.