DOSE:

sublingual

Pharms - Buprenorphine

(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

115 lb

I am a recovering heroin addict; I used heroin on and off for about two years. I kicked several times myself, without the benefit of rehab or counseling, simply by buying methadone on the street and self-administering doses as needed until I was weaned off the stuff enough to quit taking it. I always had good luck kicking with methadone; even if I eventually went back to using, it wasn't out of discomfort as much as it was just being weak and wanting to get high.

However, I was taking a two-week trip out of town to a place where I could not obtain any dope and I therefore needed to score methadone beforehand so that I could stay well during my visit (to my family's). I was shit out of luck that time, though, because no methadone was to be found. I did, however, find someone with buprenorphine for sale. I was told that it, like methadone, eases the pain of withdrawal. A friend of mine who used it himself instructed me to wait until I had been feeling sick for a couple of hours, and to then take my first tablet. He claimed that I should feel relief from the buprenorphine pretty quickly.

What happened when I took the pill was *not* an easing of my pain. In fact, the buprenorphine accelerated and intensified my withdrawal. However, it was much shorter in duration than a normal withdrawal. 'Normal' withdrawal can last 3-10 days; in my case, when I took buprenorphine, I was through with the bulk of my sickness after 24 hours. In fact, I went out with friends the night after my buprenorphine experience. (granted, I felt like shit. But the point is, I was functioning, not nauseated and bed-ridden as I would have been if I'd gone cold turkey.)

However, for the remainder of my two-week trip, I felt mildly dopesick every day. Although I could function, I had no appetite--I dropped 7 pounds during that vacation--plus I had constant sweats, chills, body aches, twitching and sleeplessness. In general, I felt that while the buprenorphine worked to speed up the worst of my withdrawal, it was still the worst pain I had ever felt , and the weeks that followed were marked by general feelings of dopesickness and cravings. Of course, I used the day I returned home, since I was dying to relieve the general discomfort I had felt after my first kick with buprenorphine.

The only good thing that I can find with buprenorphine is that it blocks opiates from affecting you for up to 3 days after you take it. I could see how in the long term it would be good for an addict who fears she will succumb to temptation; once I've taken just one buprenorphine, trying to get high would be a waste of time and money--I wouldn't feel it anyway.

I don't know if my experience with buprenorphine is unusual, as it has only just recently been FDA-approved and I only know of one or two other people who have used it to kick heroin... And their experiences were *so* different from mine--they claimed it gave them relief similar to methadone--that I felt obligated to at least put this experience of mine out there for others to see. Maybe I'm not alone, maybe I am, but be forewarned: from what I can tell, at least, it's a pretty unpredictable little drug.

Exp Year: 2004	ExpID: 39484
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: May 31, 2019	Views: 1,929
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Pharms - Buprenorphine (265) : General (1), First Times (2), Addiction & Habituation (10), Not Applicable (38)