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Categories: Addiction
3 Comments
daffodil · July 21, 2010 at 5:42 pm
From personal experience, I can tell you that buspirone does not help with withdrawal (neither does gabapentin). Back when I had to deal with withdrawal several times over several years, I was already taking both drugs, and my withdrawal was easily as bad as anyone’s. However, maybe for people who were not already taking the meds, they might have been more effective. I was taking the gabapentin for chronic pain due to fibromyalgia, and while I did not find it particularly helpful, I also found that the pain worsened somewhat when I stopped taking it the first time. Once I was on Suboxone, I was able to stop the gabapentin without significant increase in pain. I don’t know if that was psychological or not, but I was glad to be able to stop the gabapentin, as I was not really seeing a benefit on a relatively high dose. I would like to be able to taper off the Suboxone, but the fibromyalgia pain seems to worsen if I decrease the amount or even forget to take it for a day, which is odd because I am well beyond the amount it takes to antagonize any analgesic effect (I take 24mg).
SuboxDoc · July 21, 2010 at 8:19 pm
Clearly some people benefit from buspirone (see the study linked in my post– I included the entire article). But withdrawal symptoms are ‘multifactorial’– i.e. some symptoms arise from organ systems like the GI system or musculoskeletal system, some arise from excitation or depression of nervous system regions, and some come from higher order centers, including memory and the influence of expectation. So it is not surprising that some people respond to medications that are not effective in other people.
There has been increased interest in the role of opioids and opioid receptors in INCREASING pain, so-called ‘opioid-induced hyperalgesia,’ a very complex and poorly understood phenomenon.
Thanks for sharing–
hatmaker510 · July 22, 2010 at 6:38 am
I also have fibromyalgia and take between 16-24 mg per day. I’ve tried lower doses of my sub too, but it does not treat my pain as well.
With regard to the hyperalgesia, I’m convinced that I suffered from that towards the end of my pain med addiction.
Thanks for all you do, Dr. J.