Author: robx46
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2011 3:32 pm
It kinda sucks. Not only am I used to 8mg of bupe per day, but I’ve actually spent the bulk of the past 8 years on 24mg, so even 8mg is a low dose for me.
Now onto the patch, 5mcg per hour… my doc just doesn’t understand. Just my suboxone is 8,000 mcg per day. Now this patch only giving 5mcg per hour? Yikes!
When I recently tried cutting down & going without subuxone, I really started having issues when I got to 2mg or less despite taking a year to ween down to that. Yet even the strongest butrans patch doesn’t give that much in 24 hours.
I don’t think this is gonna work, as I sit here with tissues stuffed in my nose to keep it from running, I’m probably gonna have to go back to the sub tomorrow or sooner. I don’t know why this doc thought that this patch could be a good alternative. I wasn’t too familiar with butrans, nor was I familiar with how the microgram math worked out, so I just shut up & said I’d try it. Yet he warned me, he said on the 1st day on this patch that he wanted me to go to his office, get my BP checked… as if I’m an opiate naive patient. I don’t think he understands just how high my tolerance is. Again, I’ve spent most my adult life either on 240mg of oxycontin per day, or 24mg of suboxone. 15 years?
I think I’m screwed for life as far as tolerance. There was a point even when I was just about 5 years into taking narcotics, where I went 6 months taking absolutely nothing. When I finally did take something, I thought a vicodan or two would work. LOL! I think it took about a dozen to work even a little bit.
Now I’m 15 years into having the tolerance of a heroin addict. These patches won’t work for anybody like me. I need to straight up ask him if he’ll prescribe subutex, 8mg, off label for pain since my sub doc won’t do it (I wish he would).
I will say…
If I or anybody can cut down to about 2mg or less of sub, then wanted a real efficient way to continue to ween… these patches would be PERFECT. You can go from 20mcg patch, to 10mcg patch, then once down to 5mcg patch, you should have a MUCH easier time of going off the bupe because 5mcg, again, is an opiate naive dose.
I’m VERY surprised I haven’t heard about these patches being used to ween people off of sub, given how hard a time some people have doing it.
That is where the conversation needs to be with these patches. Not for somebody like me with the tolerance of 2 horses & looking for pain relief while keeping my opiate receptors filled.
If I had done OK on 2mg of sub, I’d considering going down to that again, & staying with maybe the strongest patch, but I think I’m a lost cause.
Honestly I’m kinda pissed at my docs for putting me on such high doses of narcotics when I was still a teenager, & told that 24mg+ of sub was also a good idea to stay on for the rest of my life. Really limits my options these days.
