I have written about this topic multiple times, but perhaps a summary is appropriate. More and more evidence and clinical experience suggest that buprenorphine is best considered a long-term ‘remission agent’ for opioid dependence. Such a conclusion would have been obvious years ago if not for the hesitancy to do Read more…
A reader wrote with a question that I don’t think I’ve addressed on the blog. Do you have a threshold for how much narcotic a patient must be using before you will put them on buprenorphine? I am concerned about narcotic addicts that are using 6-10 Vicodin (hydrocodone) a day Read more…
A question and answer session with someone who is considering stopping buprenorphine. His message first, with identifying information removed: Hi, I just sent a donation through PayPal. I used Norco 10/325 since 1999, about 20-40 per day for the past five years. A month ago I went on 2 mg Read more…
Every chronic pain patient and opiate addict looks forward to the day someone finds the Holy Grail for opiates: an agent that blocks or reduces tolerance and that eliminates withdrawal. The two phenomena are linked and so the same agent may help with both problems, or perhaps instead there will Read more…
A new feature on SuboxForum.com is the ‘Q and A,’ where I select a question to answer in detail. I will post my answer here as well. I won’t post the original question, but it is embedded in my response so I think everyone will figure it out! There are Read more…
Thanks, all of you who wrote comments to my last post. I remind everyone once again to consider taking your comments here and after writing them, also taking them to SuboxForum.com. I am going to put up a new category to discuss topics that were initiated here; it would be Read more…
I wish I had more time to devote to this topic right now, but I am on my way to a short vacation… so I will not be available by e-mail for at least a few days. Everyone is pacing around the house right now, waiting for me to finish Read more…
I received some feedback after writing about tapering Suboxone and I would like to share the information and suggest a new way to think about buprenorphine during the tapering process. Suboxone is a very potent drug, and stopping requires more information. First, it has already become clear to me that Read more…
Thank you to Heather Hajek for the following report. I found the report on several health pages with RSS feeds, but unfortunately there is no byline to the article that says where ‘Heather Hajek’ writes– I did a Google search for her name and came up with a few more Read more…
Yes, you heard it here fir…. fourth… it is hard to stop Suboxone. As anyone pausing at this website knows, it is hard to stop ANY opiate. There are many forces at work against you when you are tapering off opiates; physical withdrawal, mental withdrawal, cravings for opiates, and the Read more…
I answered a post today that is similar to many prior posts– a patient with significant pain is no longer getting good pain relief from the pain pills he has taken for the past three years, and he asked whether it was a good idea to change from one narcotic– Read more…
The questions:I am having surgery and my doc was unaware of some things and I thought that you could confirm them for him? Could you advise him to take me off the Suboxone 10-14 days prior to surgery? I have been researching this religously and I have come to the Read more…