I know you have to wait at least 12 hours with soboxen. a friend told me subutex can be taken as early as 2 hours after herion use.
When you take subutex with opiates in your system, will you be thrown into instant withdrawl?
Question posted by blossompug on 17 Dec 2010
Last updated on 18 September 2018
4 Answers
It depends, when I have done both, it takes a lot more, which is dangerous, and the high is almost nothing, if anything. That is atleast with me, but I have been on subs for more than i care to say-more than a couple years. Like four, but better than the alternative. But I did not go into withdrawals, it just did not work. And when i needed surgery, they had to have a meeting with my dr and the hospital "team" because they don't even know how high taking these meds makes your tolerance for pain meds so high, but your pain threshold lower, it is actually a curse. Eventually my dr explained that giving me anything less than the strongest med would be like putting a bandaid on a bullet wound.
I am sorry I kind of answered two different questions or comments in there, regarding surgery, another person asked about, and the taking of opiates with subs. hope this helps a little? cat7
Hey... It's a bit dated (posted on Dec. 17, 2010), and very long, so read this when you have the time. If you're off the subs & opiates you're my f-ing hero & I would understand if you don't want to talk about this or read it (you know, triggers & all). Aside from that, you seem to have some information that I need... prescriptions of opiates vs. subutex. Almost two years ago I was emergency medi vacced (by helicopter) to ucsf medical center. It would have been a five hour drive. I had woken up the morning before, went to get out of bed & I didn't make it two steps. I couldn't walk. Scariest moment of my life. The only thing I could tell the emergency room Dr. was that I had an intensely painful back ache (I assumed it was my sciatica). The day before I couldn't walk, this whole other type of electric shock pain began to shoot out of the right side of my chest & into my right arm.
They placed a dilaudid drip in my neck to keep me comfortable until they were able to get to ucsf. *Side note: I'm from San Francisco, so my family was there to meet me. And ucsf is one of the best medical facilities in the country. It was a blessing, in the midst of a crisis, that they sent me there. Ok... anyway they gave me an MRI instantly, then put the dilaudid drip back in. The MRI told them that I had an extremely bad staph/mersa infection all along my spine & it was starting to fill into my chest. Yes, I'm a heroin addict (which the team of doctors soon found out). In times like these complete honesty is so important. They need to know how to treat you. I knew it was going to show up in my blood, but I came clean first. The thing that freaked me out when they told me, besides the entire situation, was that I didn't even have one open sore on me. Nothing topical at all. Unfortunately I've had staph before. If I had an abscess or a topical sore I would have gone to see my Dr the same day & they would have given me heavy antibiotics and ointment to put on it. I was, scared, confused & so septic I was going delirious. My mom asked me how I got there & I told her she had driven me there & looked at her like she was the crazy one. The neurologist who performed the surgeries (2) came to talk to me. He told me I was having the first surgery in a few hours, I'd probably never walk again & if I had waited a couple of days before going to the ER, I wouldn't be there... I would've died because it was so close to my heart. I had 3 hours to do some serious soul searching, (I have a 12 year old son, how could I leave him like this)? I made deals with God, asked Buddha for blessings, made a whole new bucket list... I'm sure you get the point. After the surgery they drew my blood every morning until staph stopped growing on the cultures (it took two weeks of drawing blood, giving me dilaudid & ativan, etc). I say this with shame, because they had to try to find a vein to access during that time. Karma is real. When the staph stopped showing up in my blood they gave me a pic-line (a needle that goes deep into a blood vessel & is made to stay in place for as long as necessary). No more daily struggles with syringes. They could administer my medications & draw blood from it. Life was a little easier to handle. Then came another blessing. I had a back spasm one morning & my legs wiggled. I began healing much faster after that. I became so optimistic/happy about the feeling in my legs coming back & the staph infection being out of my system that the power of positive thinking took over. Believing I would make a full recovery, my brain passed on the information to my body. Then, after another MRI, my neurosurgeon came to see me. He told me that they were aggressive with the first surgery & they had to scrape out some of my spine. The infection was gone but my spine was beginning to deteriorate. Surgery #2 would have to be metal infused into my spine & not an option. Most painful experience of my life, waking up from that surgery. On top of upping the dilaudid & ativan dosage, they had me on ketamine, morphine (they tried oxycontin before morphine, but it didn't even touch the pain). The morphine dosage was 60mgs of instant release every four hours for breakthrough pain & 80mgs of time released twice a day. They had me on so many opiates at that point that they gave me an oxygen mask, sat the bed up more & told me that all I had to do was keep breathing. I sarcastically told the nurse, "that's comforting to hear." Wow! Before I was discharged I had to be off intravenous pain meds, which meant more drug switches. I was released with prescriptions of klonopin, morphine, norco, and methadone (30mgs three times a day. 90 mgs of methadone a day). I was totally shocked that they prescribed me that high of a dosage. I thought of all the times I hunted around for it & called other addicts to see if they could get me any (glad to pay $5-$7 per 10mgs) and my pain management team dumped 270 a month on my lap. Eventually, what I thought was a blessing turned into a curse. I spent 4 months at ucsf, 7 months at a physical therapy facility to try to learn to walk again & 6 months of getting every antibiotic they could think of put in my pic-line (so my body wouldn't get used to only one & become less effective). I went home 5 hours north, 11 months later. I saw my son & husband 5x the entire time. I missed most of his summer vacation, his 13th birthday, thanksgiving & more importantly, quality time. I went to see my regular Dr. (now in a wheelchair) & brought her my diagnosis (spinal cord injury requiring 2 surgeries & a necessary referral for physical therapy). She filled up all my prescriptions, no questions asked. I was surprised because she had previously cut me off a 7 year xanax script & a 1 year norco script... cold turkey, for failing a surprise drug test. She had to know you can have seizures & die from benzo withdrawals. Since she didn't taper me off I was detoxing hard, so I started making phone calls again. I ended up buying them for so much money I used them to taper off so I could stop w/o being sick. I was shooting heroin the entire time, as well.
This is where I'm at today... after a full year of taking 90mgs of methadone a day, as prescribed, plus morphine, norco & klonopin for a year as well, I made a huge, costly, painful mistake. I ate a 2mg xanax bar & I was randomly drug tested again. I was told since I had so many prescriptions, she wanted to check my levels to ensure I was taking them as prescribed. I knew I had screwed myself. The worst part is that I had so many scripts, I didn't even need it. But being an addict, I took it anyway w/o hesitation. I called in for my refills & I was cut off again, all the opiates & methadone... cold turkey. Sick is an understatement. I was throwing up every day, I couldn't sleep. A few times I told myself that if it wasn't for my son, if I wasn't a mother, I'd put a bullet in my skull. I never would've done it. I had already been through & survived so much & I would never do that to my family. And besides, suicides don't go to heaven. So my solution? I started doing heroin again, despite all I went through with the staph infection. It's insanity & a huge risk, but I guess I'm weak. So I started taking subutex instead. I thought it was a good idea until I read your comment. I have a Dr appt coming up & I'll be tested again. I suppose I can say I started taking it because I was violently ill from the cold turkey detox I was going through. I won't have heroin in my system. But what's the lesser of evils, you know what I mean? I obviously don't have a prescription for subutex, I don't really want one. I really just want to get off the heroin, not trade addictions. The only thing I know for sure is that I have legitimate chronic pain & something has to give.
Well it helped me a little but still not sure what to do.
After opiate use you must wait atleast 12 hours b4 taking subutex,,this is what docters recommend altho from my many personal experiences the longer you wait the better.You will be thrown into withdrawel if opiates are still in your system.My succesful attempt at subutex began with approx 24 hours without using,and these were 24 hours of helll but it was so worth the suffering.
Hello blossompug... My question or rather comments are in refrence to another link or what not... A few weeks ago, a member, ''fallenangel' posted sumthing in which u commented on... You thread though, made me read it over twice, and so i simply have those few, normal and curious questions. That is of course u do not mind i am asking, and I am in know way shape or from am offending you... But first off, how are you anyways??? You sumwhat explained u had an addiction for 14 years, along with some other family members and or loved ones... i just wonder as well if you have at all reached out for help in any way, or is this all just to hard for you to establish a sober life, meeting etc...
I am sorry if i asked to much, or am asking just in general sumthing i should just mind my own buiesness of anyways!!! I do not have any intentions of upsetting you, or getting in the way, and what have you..so when and if u can see what ive wrote, and are at all interested, please respond..i thank u very much, its greatly appreciated, im simply worried, and wish you the absolute best of luck... Take care, and hope u have a wonderful day also :}
To the best of my knowledge, u still need to wait at least until u hit a score of 26 on the Clinical Opiate Withdrawal Scale<COWS> test. I am going 2 give u 3 suggestions to try and help u find the correct answer. 1> contact Robert-325 on the forum part of this site and either post a thread 2 him or see if u can find a thread with a similar question, someone was supposed 2 ask him that a day or 2 ago and he may have answered that recently. 2> go 2 the suboxone.com homepage and look for the toll free telephone number and they should be able 2 give u a definitive answer. 3> go 2 wikipedia.org and read the entry for subutex-suboxone-bupenorphine, it won't have the exact answer but it will give you a pretty good bit of info that you need, and it is the reason i suggest people wait and let the opiate recede off their brain receptor sites. Best of Luck to you! pattishan61
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