Author: laddertipper
Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 10:03 am
I don’t think it’s unfair in any way to point out inconsistencies in this whole thing. When I got onto Sub, I was told clearly that when you stop at 2 mg, you have no withdrawal. Not lesser w/d than heroin. No withdrawal. Of course, that was back in ’05. That was my first doctor’s story. Now I’m on my third doc and have grilled him on getting off Suboxone. He said "To be honest, we are not taught about discontinuing Suboxone. Mainly, what we are taught now is maintenance." I’ve gathered from all the first and secondhand information I’ve gathered over these years on Sub that this is pretty much what happened. First, docs were taught to stop people at 2 mg. That didn’t work very well for many people. Then, the story changed to maintenance only.
I’ve called the Here to Help people. I’m supposed to ask my doctor how to taper off Sub, but he’s supposed to get his information from R&B, although they aren’t teaching him anything but maintenance. Now, I’m not getting angry at other people for my own decision, but do I have no right to point out that I was quite mislead when starting this medication? I know that I’m not the only one, though I wish I was. If this is a medication that is prescribed with no exit strategy, then people seriously have the right to know that when they start taking it. On this forum, we’ve learned an exit strategy, but this is not a result of anything the the Sub makers have taught Sub doctors. What about all the poor folks who don’t find this site and are trying to figure out how to stop Sub with only their doctors’ help (or lack of help)?
When Sub was fairly new and I was in my earlier Sub days, I saw countless people at meetings who were being ‘detoxed’ off opiates using Sub, mainly tapered down to 2 mg (maybe 1 if they were lucky) and then discharged from the hospital with the belief that w/d was over. In fact, w/d had not even started, and once they left, they were totally blown away but S.O.L.
It is 100% fair to be frustrated when you made a decision that was, in part, based on false information. I don’t blame Buprenorphine itself, but there is a break here that is obvious and it’s perfectly reasonable to acknowledge it and ask for it to be clarified and fixed. It is a human failure, not a failure of the medication itself. I also think the future of Sub treatment, including whether it’s available and how people view it in general, may be put in harm’s way if people feel like they were duped into believing in something that ended up becoming something else entirely. You can reasonably argue that it’s better off that people in the middle of raging opiate addiction got into Sub, even if they cannot stop taking it. However, they still deserve to know the reality behind stopping Suboxone. They should be told up front if their doctor has no clue how to taper people off.
You cannot usher someone into a cave to get out of a storm and then wall it up and yell "Sorry, but you wanted to go in! Dig yourself out somehow." People will naturally resent that. I guess Lillyval said it best when she said, "I think Sub is a great tool, but how could there be such a gross oversight?" That’s such a perfect way to word it. Not including a clear way to get off Suboxone AND not informing people starting Sub of this fact is a serious omission and needs to be addressed, like, many yesterdays ago. And I am NOT blaming Sub and my doctor and the world in general for my problems. I’m pointing out that there is a responsibility to patients that has been compromised by seemingly ignoring the reality of tapering off this very powerful med. I don’t know why anyone would think this is okay and it’s not fair to charge people with blaming Sub when they point this out. Suboxone itself is only a tool and, like any other tool, its potential to help lies in the responsibility and skill of the person using it.
laddertipper
