Pain control with suboxone

Answer 1

It is a time release formulation of buprenorphine, a mixed opiate agonist / antagonist with a long half-life (stays in the body for a long time). It is used to treat opiate (heroin) addiction in a manner similar to methadone - it prevents the addict from going through withdrawal by maintaining their physical dependence, while hopefully giving them time to recover mentally and financially.

Buprenorphine has several advantages over methadone as a maintenance medication. Most importantly, it can be prescribed a month at a time, so the patient doesn't need to go to the methadone clinic every day. Withdrawal is less severe, and it effectively blocks other opiates so the patient can no longer get high. Ultimately, however, it is another form of addiction, and the patient must either go through withdrawal at some point or take the medication the rest of their life. I am looking more for documentation of it's actual use in place of other meds i.e methadone. I have been put on it, and yet I still can['t seem to get the answers I am looking for from my Dr. who is all for it, being a Pain Management MD< and a meth. withdrawal clinic with suboxone or subutex used.

Answer 2

Buprenorphine (Subutex) and buprenorphine and naloxone (Suboxone) are used to treat opioid dependence (addiction to opioid drugs, including heroin and narcotic painkillers). Buprenorphine is in a class of medications called opioid partial agonist-antagonists, and naloxone is in a class of medications called opioid antagonists. Buprenorphine alone and the combination of buprenorphine and naloxone prevent withdrawal symptoms when someone stops taking opioid drugs by producing similar effects to these drugs.

Answer 3

Yes, Suboxone also works as a painkiller. However, my experience has been that it does not work very well.

I would like to add:

Suboxone was originally designed to assist in reducing drug withdrawal effects from addicts. Much like other drugs, it was discovered to have qualities to assist the brain in how it processes pain signals from the body.

My pain mgmt doctor had me on so much hydrocodone and Oxycontin that I could not function. The suboxone is a sublime drug (dissolved under the tongue for the most direct route through your blood to the brain) that travels quickly and has immediate pain relief results but in order for it to be effective, it MUST BE MONITORED BY A PSYCHIATRIST THAT IS LICENSED SPECIFICALLY TO DISPENSE THE DRUG. This is because it is a 'level' drug and the Dr must increase/decrease the medication based upon pain relief and the body's reaction. At first, it will make someone drowsy-it is not a recreational drug! One minute a patient can be awake and coherent then fall asleep within seconds of sitting down-combining it with any of it's catalysts can be deadly. There are over 750 drugs that have negative interactions with Suboxone.

I have a plate in my throat for a 5 disk fusion from breaking my neck, reconstructed leg, and phantom pain from ligament that were stripped from my leg. There is no way I would return to any other meds such as the hydros and oxys, or even vicadan. If I have a surgery I won't take them because a person has to be weened off of them (re-exposing yourself to pain) before rebuilding the suboxone.

If a person is not feeling any results it is more likely that they are not taking the meds correctly. It needs to be placed in a dry mouth under the tongue, for the best results schedule doses during a time that you can lay flat (gravity will keep it from ending up in the stomach) for about 10 minutes (I meditate). The outcome is to get it into the soft tissue not the esophagus. Again I emphasize, this is a drug to use only when the others no longer work-alcohol will make the drug deadly!!!!

Answer 4

Yes, Suboxone is also a pain killer, so you can take it for pain. However, my experience has been that it is not a very good pain killer. You'd really be better off with some Tylenol or Advil.

Answer 5

Go to an ER or Urgent Care facility. Have them do a full examination. If they determine you are sick or injured enough to need pain meds, they will prescribe you 30 to 60 Vicodin or Percocet (typically), and give you info to follow up with another doctor.

HOWEVER, they will NOT prescribe the pain meds if they know you're on Suboxone. No doctor will give you opiate pain meds if you are on Suboxone, regardless of how badly you are injured, or how much pain you are in. And there aren't really any non-opiate pain meds for short-term, severe pain. If you are genuinely in severe pain and you really need the pain meds, DO NOT tell them you take Suboxone. If you do, they'll send you home with nothing but Advil or naproxen, which is a joke. These are NSAID pain relievers, which are useless for severe pain.

I have been through these types of situations several times, as I've been on Suboxone for 8 years and have had a few bad accidents and painful surgeries since then. Eventually I learned to 1) NEVER tell a doctor you're on Suboxone if you need pain meds, and 2) how to successfully transition from Suboxone to pain meds and back again.

If this is an injury or illness that you've received prior treatment for, and they ask something along the lines of, "The previous doctor didn't give you any pain meds?" just shrug and say they told you to just take Advil. You have no idea why. Also, if they ask if you've ever been prescribed Vicodin or Percocet (or whatever they're planning on giving you) before, the answer is, "yes."

Also, don't complain TOO much about the pain, as they will suspect you're a drug seeker. If your pain is genuine and severe enough, they will be able to tell without you constantly complaining about it. Just let them do their jobs, but for heaven's sake, don't tell them you take Suboxone, or you'll be sent home with Advil and spend the next few weeks wishing you were dead.

Once you are prescribed the Vicodin or Percocet or whatever, you will have to replace the Suboxone with it. The Suboxone will block the effects of the pain reliever, so you can't take both. It may take 3 days to fully feel the effects of the pain meds, as that is how long Suboxone stays in your system.

You probably won't feel any pain relief at all until about 36 hours after your last Suboxone dose (when the withdrawal starts to kick in), so wait until you are feeling withdrawal from the Suboxone before you start taking the pain meds. It doesn't have to be full-blown, severe withdrawal, just the beginning stages.

This will be tough, but you have no choice. You have to suffer through those 36 hours. Taking the pain meds less than 36 hours after your last Suboxone dose will have virtually no effect, so it's just a waste of medicine. And you will need that medicine later on.

Here's why: since you already have an opiate tolerance, the pain meds will not be as effective for you as they would be for a non-opiate addict. You may have to take twice the prescribed dose to get the same effect a normal person would, which means you could easily go through a 30-day script in 10 to 14 days.

So be very stingy with yourself; take as few pills as you possibly can. No doctor on earth will refill your 30-day opiate script after just 2 weeks (or even 3 weeks). Don't even bother trying. The doctor will just think you're abusing the meds, and unfortunately, you cannot tell him/her the real reason you're going through the pills so fast.

However, even though Suboxone blocks the pain reliever's effects, you may still need to give yourself a tiny dose of Suboxone every day or every other day. Why? Because the effects of Suboxone last so much longer than other opiates (such as morphine, heroin, Percocet, Vicodin, etc.). You don't start feeling withdrawal from Suboxone for about 36 hours. With other opiates, you start feeling withdrawal in 4 to 6 hours.

So, to prevent withdrawal, you'd have to take a dose of your pain meds every 4 to 6 hours, whether you're in pain or not. You'll go through the meds SO fast this way. But if you take just a LITTLE bit of Suboxone, you won't have to take the pain meds as often, as the little bit of Suboxone will be just enough to keep you out of withdrawal.

Take just a teeny, tiny bit, just a fraction of your regular prescribed dose. For example, if you normally take 8mgs of Suboxone every 24 hours, cut it to 2mgs every 36 to 48 hours.

Once you are done with the pain meds, wait a good 16 hours before starting your full dose of Suboxone again.

I just want to add that it is generally not a good idea to lie to your doctors. However, in this specific instance, you have no choice. There is simply no other recourse for a Suboxone patient who gets injured or needs a serious operation. They will not prescribe you opiate pain meds, and no comparable non-opiate pain reliever exists. They just leave you to suffer.

They don't care if you're in pain. The typical attitude is, "Well, if you didn't want to suffer agonizing pain, you should've thought of that 10 years ago when you became a filthy junkie." Even the more progressive doctors, who have more enlightened views on addiction, care far more about their liability than about your pain. If they send a Suboxone patient home with an opiate script, and the patient abuses or ODs or sells the meds, the doctor is liable. That's why you have to lie to them.