Fighting opioid addiction is one of the hardest things that a family or person can go through. The addiction is so so strong that one has to wait to hit rock bottom before help can be provided. There is one prescription drug that is used to help opioid addictions. It is called suboxone. This is generic and has been around for a long time.
What Is Suboxone?
Suboxone is a combination drug of buprenorphine and Naloxone. This is an interesting combination since buprenorphine is an opioid or a narcotic. Naloxone is a drug that reverses the effects of opioid. As you can see, you need to create that high feeling to get cured from addiction. There used to be a medication called subutex which was used to try and treat addiction but it made addiction worse.
Like all medications, there are suboxone side effects that have to be dealt with such as weak or shallow breathing, blurred vision or speech, nausea, increased sweating and insomnia. A person can suffer from suboxone withdrawal the same way the a heroin addict suffers from withdrawal. There might be a tendency for abuse when using this prescription drug.
How The Suboxone Treatment Works
This is the dilemma for this prescription drug and it comes in two forms. Firstly, this is not like a dual component pill but rather a strip that gets placed under the tongue and dissolves. The second less common form is a tablet. The suboxone strips initially get you what they call the suboxone high from buprenorphine. This euphoria is a mellow kind of high and it is needed for the Naloxone component to perform its job and help you come off the high. So you will be getting high but also you will be coming off that high to attempt to treat the addiction.
Both drug components work side by side and there is the potential for abuse when using this prescription drug. This medication will give you a limited high feeling. That means that as your body increases its tolerance for the drug (it will) you can’t take more strips to get high. Once you reach 32 mg, this will be what is called the high ceiling.
Suboxone Withdrawal
Once you are able to be treated for addiction, you will experience flu like symptoms usually within 48 hours after stopping suboxone. When your body crashes from the withdrawal, it will not be as bad as heroin or cocaine at least so they say. I have never have gone through it so I can’t speak from experience. Based on the information I have seen, the addiction recovery rates are better with the with the use of suboxone and therapy. That is something to discuss with your doctor.
Have you been successfully treated with suboxone?
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