Liquified Suboxone Taper Method: So Far, So Good

I am wondering why you say there is no suboxone tablet less than the 2mg. They make subutex for pain that is a .4mg tablet. I also wonder why, knowing how potent buprenorphine is and that the normal dose for pain is .3 mg, they do not make lower dose tablets for tapering off. I suspect they would like it if no one ever got off the stuff and could care less if we have to go through withdrawal to be drug free.

"I crushed an 8mg pill and dissolved it in 10 ml of water, so every 1ml of water would contain .8 mg (800mcg) of Suboxone. This was a reduction of .2mgs (200mcg) of Suboxone from the dose I was taking at the time. I used an oral syringe that meaured in mls (available at pharmacies, used for measuring kid's cough syrup, etc.) to dose myself with a half a ml in the morning and half a ml at night."

How do you take the liquid dose? Under the tongue still? Don't you end up swallowing it? I need to know because I have 3 pills all crushed and I want to taper but am having a hard time figuring out dosage. This would be a huge help!

It will be true that The best thing is this growing sense of confidence.

Plant Medicines

This seems like a great method, to both be absolutely certain of the exact amount of bupe in your dose, and it's faster than taking the pills sublingually.

I think it's worth noting that the bioavailability of buprenorphine when taken sublingually is only somewhere around 30%, and much higher when taken intranasally, or obviously, intravenously. But you NEVER want to just swallow the pill...the bioavailability of oral administration is very low....basically, for those who don't know, bioavailability (BA) is the amount that enters your bloodstream...so if it's 30%, that means that when you take an 8mg pill, you're really only getting about 2.5 mg's. The rest is lost during the metabolization process and doesn't reach your opiate receptors.
This is why I never take suboxone sublingually. I don't care if snorting pills, or anything, is frowned upon in society, scientifically and logically it just makes more sense. I'm not comfortable with needles, so IV is out of the question. However I am intrigued by your method, of using the oral syringe...although honestly I'd just put the liquid up my nose Wink

This question was asked a few times in this thread, but I never saw an answer. i realize you can cut the strips down, but those little buggers are hard enough to deal with, I would think they would totally be sticky and falling into little pieces if you tried to cut them into like 16 different little pieces, so can you dissolve them in water? I was just planning on being on Subs for a long time until reading this thread, now I'm a little more nervous. Especially when I read the comment about how the length of time you use opiates correlates with how bad and how long PAWS last. So, worrying about how to lower the dose for me is a ways out there,but I'm a plan ahead kind of a girl.

mrssky -

Although people have made the claim, there is NO evidence that supports the idea that the longer one is on suboxone the harder it is to come off of or the longer PAWS will be. With PAWS it's more of a matter of how slow and long the taper is - that is what affects PAWS more than anything else, at least anecdotally it seems that way.

As for dissolving the strips in liquid, I don't have any experience with it, but if it dissolves in our mouth, it should dissolve in liquid, too, I would think (?). I honestly don't see why it wouldn't work. But I guess, eventually, someone is going to have to try it and post their experience here.
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Thanks, that is really helpful. Because I have pain issues, I just had planned on being on Suboxone until they figured out a better treatment for fibromyalgia, but all the talk about it being so hard to get off of and how hard the PAWS would be, I was starting to get pretty scared. I guess I need to just look at it like my other meds or like insulin to a diabetic. It is my medication and it treats my disease. It actually helps with a couple of diseases, the fibro and the addiction. With the huge epidemic of addiciton to pain killers sweaping this nation, I really wish doctors would look at Suboxone as an alternative to prescribing oxy, perc, or vicoden for long term pain issues. I certainly wish my doctor had. I had been on pain meds short term several times and never had an issue. It wasn't till I needed long term treatment that I got so screwed up.

(since i'm new, it won't let me link bc of spammers, but just google "suboxone alcoholic solutions" or I'll detail the method myself here and edit this when it will let me link)

Have you guys seen this? Its about making an alcoholic solution of buprenorphine and having a higher bioavailability and making solutions for titrating your dose to sub mg levels. Some studies say that the BA for an alcoholic solution is close to 70% higher than tablets alone.

Bioavailability 40-50% (sublingual, from ethanolic solution) 35-40% (sublingual, high-dose tablet) ~50% (transdermal) ~50-60% (intranasal)

The bioavailability from sublingual pills is very low, usually like 30-35%. The sublingual films is a little higher. But I can say for sure this method works...imagine getting 2x or more use from your suboxone!

This uses ABSOLUTELY MINUSCULE amounts of ethanolic solutions (high-proof rum or vodka). Please don't confuse this with combining suboxone with alcohol in any way. We are talking some .25ML which is a few drops, not actually drinking alcohol. It's a well known fact in medicine that alcoholic (specifically ethanol) solutions increases the permeability of the mucous membrane under the tongue.

In the 1st link and throughout the thread there are detailed methods of doing this both with the film and pills. And whats more, you can make a larger solution for tapering to sub mg doses. This makes titrating you dose easy, and with the increased bioavailability you can make your suboxone last way longer. It's also beneficial bc if you use alcohol in a solution for long term use it won't degrade or become infected with bacteria.

One month of Rx suboxone film (for me 60) can last me like nearly a year and half using this method. I'm down to less than 1mg/day. Please guys, if you'd like to know more, check out the link at the top, or just ask! It really works!

And good luck to all folks tapering. It can be done. I've been using opiates for over a decade and had a tolerance that only 100mg of methadone could touch...and now I'm skipping days and down to a tiny tiny dose.

There is hope

Suboxone Shooters! Now we're talkin.

I just thought I'd post a little update on my situation. It's been 2 years since my last dose of sub, but most importantly, it's been 3 years since I've been free of a nasty opiate addiction. I'd be a liar if I said that I haven't thought of using in the past 2 years, but those thoughts are not overpowering, are infrequent, and seem to come less and less and are of a shorter duration as time goes by.

I continue to focus my energy on positive things - I'm still very much into wildlife rescue and rehab (our local NBC news channel ran a feature story on me and one of my captures a few weeks back, which was kind of cool, though I do dread interviews. My guitar playing has improved quite a bit, and I'm also reading like crazy again, just like I did before things spiraled out of control.

Good luck to all those on this forum who are striving to improve their lot in life. Hope to be back in 3 years with more good news.

Take care,
Bill

What a great thread, my favorite. Hard to find stuff like this consolidated on the internet.

Had a nice intro thread started on the intro page and lost it to preview land.

Basically I quickie detoxed (including benzos at 1mg/day so not too bad) over the past two plus weeks, experienced somewhat with bupe (3x detoxed last 5 months), and went the rapid route this time due to side effects at higher doses etc.

Am now down (or was) to around 1mg/day or less, hard to tell with the strips (which is all I have), tend to yoyo and be inconsistent, just trying to maintain a manageable level of misery, knowing the less (in my case) the better, and the faster the regular receptors can recuperate, and also taking neu-recover (fancy amino/vitamin concoction ordered online cause I'm too lazy to shop around), to hopefully augment the process.

Anyways, been a wild couple of weeks getting down that quickly, but due to previous detoxes I knew this was the right way for me, and of course, it gets into the micromanaging the micro amounts and that's difficult, even razor blading strips it's kinda guesswork at small doses.

So today after reading all this great stuff I decided to sacrifice one of my remaining 12 strips on the altar of scientific experiment. I started with 10 ml of very warm/not hot water, and added it to a small empty script bottle. Toss in broken up strip of 8mg bupe, shake vigorously, let sit, shake some more, added another 10ml of water.

I then decided to just do .5 ml, at 1.0 ml I *should* be somewhere around .4, and was going to half morn half night the dose. That's a total of .4/day and see how things go 3 days from now and titrate down from there.

I can say the fluid appears to be consistent, no visible solids or chunks of strips floating around, so that's good. Holding up to light shows me that everything is dissolved.

So .5 ml or .2 bupe seemed trivial compared to my (around) 1mg dosing and I was not expecting much but wanted to start slow (can always add more but not less right?)

Dutifully swished the teensy amount of solution around in mouth for a good 10 minutes and waited the obligatory hour.

Holy CRAP that stuff hit me like a full 8mg strip! I was buzzing big time. It was very uncomfortable compared to the usual level of misery I had been accustomed to the past few weeks of slivering. I was worried that I had just sucked up an entire mound of solids off the bottom or something, hard to say. However, this could be anything, rapid absorption, and/or the fluidization of the strip PRIOR to swishing made the bioavailability skyrocket, which would also mean (if that is true of course), that I had already titrated DOWN a lot more than that in the past few weeks by using strips (and alot of times not using the slivers properly, swishing too little, swallowing too soon etc), but at least this way I have some way to dial in the consistency and even IF it's titrated me up a bit, I figure this is a good spot to start at zero and work down, knowing the liquid method will enable accurate titration from here on out. Just a guess, don't have any way to measure anything, but just now some 8 hours later, the w/d type symptoms are coming back (and they aren't bad at all, yet), so I will probably take the other .5 ml and see if the effect is the same.

Not trying to get a buzz or anything else, I want off ALL opiates not just oxy's, and have 12 strips to do it in. By way of this method, assuming the dosing stays consistent with the concentration in the liquid et al, this 20 ml should last me 20 days, but I wonder about evaporation also. Hopefully keeping it in the sealed pill bottle will avoid that, I know refrigerators will cause evaporation and that will affect alot of things. It would help if I had it in something that measured the level so I can monitor the level, ie so much down per day per 1ml usage or whatever.

It still seems to me the best way to maintain consistent dosing and allow for a smoother taper, and I appreciate all the helpful information on this site, you guys rock!

Will edit the post later after my nightly dosing and see how things go after an hour... thanks!

Sober or bust.

Hey bronzebeta, I missed your update, just now saw it and I wanted to make sure I told you congratulations!!

You sound like you're learning how to live without drugs and that is AWESOME news. I know I still wake up some mornings and kind of crack one eye open.....look around a bit and then realize I'm not on drugs anymore and it still surprises me a bit. Know what I mean??

TiredOJunk, good luck with your taper. Stay focused and above all else, believe you can do it!! Believe in yourself!!
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Hi! This is Rachel L. and I am a microbiologist and was a professor for 16 years so scientifically the water taper sounds like an excellent idea. It makes sense; I do not have that good a repoirte with my doctor and he prescribes the film. I wish I could explain that I wanted to try the water taper but he is very scared of diversion and prescribes the film. I wonder if the film breaks down with water to a homogenous mixture? Has anyone tried it? Rachel Liss

What an awesome idea you all have come up with! I just sacrificed a 8mg into 8mL of water and shook them up in a prescription bottle. Make sure your bottle does not leak or you will end up wasting sub. Anyway, I now have a homogenous (equally distributed suboxone in water) solution and can use a syringe to measure the medication when I get to below 1 mg. It is inspiring to hear from people who have been successful at weaning off suboxone. Thank you all for your ideas. I realized that the best time to take my sub would be after I brush my teeth and gargle with Listerine as the alcohol in it will increase my blood vessel permeability. Thank you everyone! Rachel

Is it OK to store the mixture (used with the strips) outside of a refrigerator? I want to store it in my desk drawer (I don't want my family to know, as much as I would like their support, because they may take the subs away from me and I will have a bad withdrawal, or take me to a fancy expensive doctor)

Think this would still work with an 8mg strip in 32mls of water to make 0.25mg per 1ml? Anyone made something really dilute like this or even an 8mg in 16mls and actually is using it for taking a small dose like .25 or .5 ?

^^^Yeah, it will work. Or you could cut the strip in half and put 4mgs in 16ml of water to get the dose you want without making up so much solution all at once. People here have tapered down to lower doses than 0.25.
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I have read through the thread somewhat now and I didn't catch anywhere if someone said they had diluted a strip this much and if they did, how did they keep it under their tongue? My main concern is it being thin liquid and just kind of washing away.

I tried to use 1/16th of a strip and it just flushed right away. It seems like 1/8th of a strip is smallest you can use and get it to stay in your mouth well. Which is WAY more than I need. Can someone please tell me how you drop the strips that have been liquefied under your tongue and hold it there for 10-30 minutes?

*edit* If you are a former IV user this might not be a good method for you, as I think some IV users use q-tips for filters? *edit*

A tip for anyone who is trying to use very small pieces of the strip for sublingual use.

Take the amount of strip you want to use, put a few(1-3 DROPS) drops of water in some sort of very small container, add the strip, wait a minute then stir.

Take a q-tip, pinch the end and twist, it should detach the entire little cotton blob off of it. If you can't accomplish this just tear it off.

Drop the little cotton piece in the container with the dissolved strip and let the cotton soak it up.

Allow it to dry.

Then put it under your tongue just like you would the strip normally.

If you are trying to get a tiny dose, something smaller than you can cut then you can add enough drops of water for, lets say 2, pieces of cotton ( i.e. both ends of the swab) to the smallest piece of strip you can cut. Make sure the pieces of cotton are touching each other as much as possible in the container and make sure there is enough water to thoroughly wet them all, this should devide the dose pretty evenly as they dry.

Hello all, I just registered so please take it easy on me as I will have to learn the rules and policies of posting. At any rate, I have read thousands of posts online regarding sub, and have found this site to be the best suited and most reputable. No judging by others and just a good, positive feel to it. In a nutshell, I have been on sub for around 2 years, starting at 16mg/day when first prescribed (which as we all know is typicall WAYY too much of a dose). Over the last 6 months, I have tapered down to a mere 1mg each day and I take the full dose in the a.m. on my way into work. I've read about tapering all the way down to 0.25mgs and even lower, and to do so by allowing the 8mg pill to dissolve in water. Just a few questions. My doctor would be more than willing to prescribe the 2mg tablets, which I would think would be alot easier and more convenient than having to measure and dissolve an 8mg dose into water and using a dropper?? Also, I feel I will be able to once again reduce my dosage in another week or two. Should I go from 1mg/day to 0.5mg/day and see how I react? I've tried skipping days, and honestly I can do it every once in a while, but mostly I am not quite able to do so on a regular basis.

Thanks in advance to all! I really do appreciate the support. Honestly, this is the first time I have opened up to seek counsel, except for my doctor of course. I've been doing this alone, and quite frankly, feel as if I've done a pretty good job at getting myself all the way down to 1mg/day. Again, thank you all in advance for the feedback and support!

Hi all,
FWIW, some time ago I asked my MD about putting the bup into solution so that microdosing could be done. He told me he wouldn't recommend it because he thought the bup would oxidize fairly quickly (basically, lose its potency). He has a degree in chemistry and seemed to know what he was talking about.
Can't say he's wrong or right, just passing along the info he gave me. If he is correct, then one very interesting thought relates to the incredible power of the human mind -- if you believe you're taking a dose that won't create problematic w/d symptoms, then that's the result you get. Cool

SI

^^^ I don’t think I could have made it any more clear that I was simply passing along info from my doctor and wasn’t qualified to judge the veracity of his statement.

But I will say this: to equate a home-made, non-sterile, aerobic solution of bupe with a completely sterile, anaerobic solution in an IV bag or other medical storage container reflects considerable ignorance.