What Is Suboxone?
Is the right choice for treating ? What exactly is ?
To answer this question, I would like to start out by answering the opposite question first: “What isn’t ?” People have many misconceptions about this that have led to stigma, limited access, and even treatment failures.
Simply clearing up some of these misconceptions can save lives. By addressing some myths and misunderstandings first, we will have a better understanding of the importance of this treatment .
So, let’s start out by addressing some things that is not, and then we will get to what exactly is. Then, you can make an informed decision about vs other treatments for .
is not a form of legal .
There are people in the world of recovery that seem to enjoy making the false statement that , or more accurately, its main ingredient, buprenorphine, is a synthetic form of masquerading as a treatment for . You may be familiar with the cold stare from a member of your local 12-step group, a counselor, or misinformed family member, as they drop this heavy revelation in front of you.
However, is no more a form of legal than COVID-19 vaccines are filled with microchips or nanobots. , and other buprenorphine-based meds, works in an entirely different way than , or any other for that matter.
does not get patients high. It helps them to feel normal, without getting any or withdrawal sickness. Patients who are prescribed are able to function as if they were not addicted to opioids in the first place. is generally not an issue.
is not trading one addiction for another.
This misconception goes hand in hand with the previous one. is definitely not trading one addiction for another addiction. While does cause physical dependence, meaning that coming off of it requires a gradual tapering process, it does not cause addiction. is not a significant problem, if it occurs at all.
Patients who are prescribed tend to stop acting addictively. They do not obsess over their of choice and they do not regularly engage in self-harming behavior.
During the course of , when it is provided for an adequate period of time, the brain has a chance to heal and recover from changes caused by addiction. This does not mean that cannot come back after treatment. But it does mean that a person can go through and complete it without obsessing over opioids afterwards. Patients are definitely not left with a at the completion of treatment.
is not a popular of abuse.
If someone says that they know is abused on the streets because dealers sell , this is not telling the whole story. It is true that dealers occasionally sell . Yet, much of the Suboxone that changes hands on the street is taken by people trying to hold off withdrawal or quit another opioid, not to get high.
Of course, buying from a dealer is not the right way to get started in treatment for use disorder. dealers tend to deal more in , including deadly fentanyl analogs. But, the point is that few, if any, people are buying with the intention of getting high with it.
So, yes it is true that is sometimes sold on the streets. And, it is true that people smuggle into prisons to sell to prisoners. Yet, the important point to take away from this is not that is a of abuse, but that access to this effective treatment for is far too limited.
is not going to fuel a second wave of pill mills and another epidemic.
There is a fear in some of the US states affected most by overprescribing that clinics will become the next pill mills. They fear citizens walking around like zombies and increased rates of overdoses.
The fact is that patients who take are typically very alert and function well in their home and work lives. They do not get high from their and they typically do not show up early to the clinic asking for more .
In some underserved areas, there have been instances of very busy clinics. Citizens of these regions feared that a pill mill had moved into town.
Yet, the reason for a clinic to be very busy in a rural area is that they are the only help for miles around, so people who want to recover from have nowhere else to turn. In urban regions where there are more doctors, clinics tend not to be nearly so busy.
is not the only form of -assisted treatment for .
There is more to treating than simply providing a prescription. Navigating the induction period of going from street opioids to is not always easy.
Doctors help their patients through this period by talking them through each stage and assuring them that they will get through it and they will feel better once they are stabilized on treatment. There are also medications that doctors prescribe, sometimes referred to as comfort meds, that make the more tolerable.
With the combination of counseling, coaching, motivation, and additional medications to treat , getting through induction is not too difficult. It is possible to quit , street , fentanyl, and even , and transition onto .
In addition to and other similar sublingual buprenorphine meds, such as Bunavail, ZubSolv, and , there are other medications that doctors prescribe or dispense to treat . The two main alternatives for (MAT) are and .
What are the other MAT drugs, and ?
is a powerful that is dispensed from maintenance clinics. Patients line up at the clinic for their daily dose and then go about their day. is very effective for many patients with an and the induction process is easier than with .
Patients with a do well with methadone maintenance when they are using heroin tainted with illicit fentanyl analogs. Because of the added fentanyl, patients sometimes find the Suboxone induction process to be difficult, so they opt for methadone treatment instead. Methadone can be started immediately after quitting heroin or fentanyl.
comes in the form of daily tablets and the monthly injection, Vivitrol. has the advantage of not being an . It is purely an blocker, similar to . Patients and doctors do not have to worry about the prescribing regulations associated with controlled medications.
One of the main disadvantages of treatment is that the induction period is longer and more difficult than . Rather than waiting about 24 hours, the patient must wait as long as one to two weeks between quitting opioids and starting treatment. Because of this, is ideally started during a stay in residential rehab.
What exactly is ?
Now that we have discussed and dispelled some common myths and misconceptions, let’s talk about what is. As you are aware already, is a approved as a treatment for use disorder.
is a combination , consisting of two active ingredients. The two ingredients in are buprenorphine and .
Buprenorphine is the real workhorse of the two meds contained in , doing all the work in protecting a patient from the effects of . , an blocker, is included only as an abuse deterrent, to prevent people from injecting their .
Are there reasons to prescribe buprenorphine without ?
Occasionally, a patient may complain of headaches or other symptoms related to . Another reason is pregnancy. For a patient who becomes pregnant while taking Suboxone, I recommend buprenorphine without naloxone, as a planned switch and never an abrupt stop.
is far more useful in another setting. It is the main ingredient in Narcan, the life-saving, reversal nasal spray and injection.
There is some confusion over the inclusion of in when people discuss how works. Some people think of it as buprenorphine is the and is the blocker, and that somehow treatment is provided by the combination of the two.
In fact, does nothing at all when is taken properly. is an active when taken by nasal spray or injection. When it is swallowed, it does nothing.
What is buprenorphine?
Buprenorphine is the ingredient in that does all the work of keeping a person in treatment from having cravings or . While it is officially an opioid drug, it is a partial opioid agonist that blocks other opioids.
What this means is that buprenorphine binds the opioid receptor very tightly, so it knocks other opioids off the receptor and keeps them out. Yet, while blocking the receptors, buprenorphine also mildly activates them, as a partial agonist does.
This is in contrast to how all other opioids work. Opioids typically flood the system and bounce on and off of receptors at high speed, fully activating the receptor with each binding. This quickly leads to a downgrading of receptors and tolerance.
tolerance is the reason why users tend to use higher and higher doses of opioids to attempt to achieve the same high. Fortunately, the escalating tolerance seen with full opioids is not the pattern with buprenorphine.
In fact, patients are not prescribed higher and higher doses of bupe for another reason. It has a ceiling effect. Above a certain level, the effects wear off and any additional consumed passes through the patient’s system.
The ceiling effect lowers the risk of respiratory depression and overdose from buprenorphine taken alone. That protection does not hold when buprenorphine is combined with benzodiazepines, alcohol, or other sedatives, and the Suboxone label warns that this combination can cause serious harm or death. If someone taking Suboxone is very hard to wake or is breathing slowly, call 911. Buprenorphine also saturates the opioid receptors and holds them tightly, which blunts the effect of other opioids taken on top of it.
The unique nature of the makes it ideal for treating opioid dependence. While it is also an effective pain medication for some patients, it is primarly suited for the treatment of opiate addiction in an outpatient setting.
How is taken?
The administration of a dose is interesting. It is absorbed under the tongue. There are not a lot of sublingual manufactured pharmaceutical products.
The reason why it is taken sublingually is that buprenorphine is not an active when taken orally and swallowed. If a person swallows their , it will not work.
By allowing the mucous membrane under the tongue to absorb the , goes right to the bloodstream and works effectively. So, why is it not provided by injection if it must enter the bloodstream directly?
As you can probably guess, in treating addiction, it is not a good idea to provide injectable . Addiction experts and government officials probably would never have approved of the treatment if it involved handing the patient a vial of buprenorphine and a handful of syringes with needles.
Yet, buprenorphine was previously available as a treatment for as an injectable. It was, and possibly still is, sold as a under the brand name, Buprenex. Fortunately, it was discovered along the way that it could be administered as a sublingual strip or , so injection was no longer necessary.
What -like brands and dosage forms are available?
is available as a film and a tablet. The official name for the current brand is Film. is also available as a generic buprenorphine/ tablet and strip from various companies, including Dr. Reddy and Mylan.
The film strips tend to dissolve very quickly and easily when placed under the tongue. Unfortunately, they also have a reputation of a bad aftertaste. Some people recommend coffee or a mint afterwards.
Some generic tablets take much longer to dissolve than the strips or other tablets. While the Film takes about three minutes to fully dissolve, some tablets can take as long as 20-30 minutes. However, most sublingual tablets are not too bad and also dissolve in just a few minutes.
What is ZubSolv?
ZubSolv is an alternate brand of buprenorphine/ that has a few advantages over the Film brand. ZubSolv is a tablet that dissolves very quickly. The company clocked the average dissolving time at about 2.9 minutes.
Another advantage of ZubSolv is taste and aftertaste. Instead of the sickly aftertaste that some patients get with strips, ZubSolv tablets have a minty taste. Some patients prefer the fast-dissolving, minty taste of ZubSolv vs .
What is Bunavail?
Bunavail is another brand similar to . The main difference with Bunavail is that it is intended to stick to the inner cheek inside the mouth rather than under the tongue. Otherwise, it works similarly. Bunavail has never caught on in popularity compared to other brands.
Bunavail was discontinued in the US in 2020, so it is no longer an option.
Are there other ways to get buprenorphine for use disorder treatment other than sublingual tablets or strips?
There are other forms of buprenorphine used for . Some of the brand names are Sublocade, Brixadi, and the now-discontinued Probuphine.
Sublocade is manufactured by Indivior, the same company that makes Film. Sublocade is a monthly injectable form of buprenorphine. It is a subcutaneous buprenorphine injection that releases gradually throughout the month.
Brixadi is an alternate subcutaneous buprenorphine injection that has some advantages over Sublocade. Brixadi comes in more dosages, it does not have to be kept in at cold temperatures, and it can be used weekly or monthly.
The FDA approved Brixadi in May 2023, and it is available in the US.
Probuphine was a six-month buprenorphine implant, similar to Norplant, a long-term birth control implant. Probuphine consisted of four rods that the doctor would surgically implant in the patient’s arm. The FDA had approved it for up to two years of use by implanting a new set of rods every six months and alternating arms.
Due to lack of use, the company withdrew Probuphine from the market. There were risks that deterred doctors and patients from choosing Probuphine, including a risk of infection, nerve damage, scarring, and migration of the implanted rods, making it difficult to find and remove them.
What strengths is available in?
is manufactured in the following strengths: 2 mg, 4 mg, 8 mg, and 12 mg. In most cases, pharmacies only carry the 2 mg and 8 mg films. The 8 mg strength is the most commonly used.
When a company only makes limited dosages, the intention is for doctors to prescribe combinations of the available dosages to add up to what is needed. For example, if a doctor wants to reduce a patient from 8 mg to 6 mg, they might prescribe a 4 mg and 2 mg, or three of the 2 mg.
Unfortunately, this kind of prescribing can lead to dosing errors, since patients must keep track of taking the prescribed combination. And, there are sometimes issues with insurance coverage and cost.
For example, three 2 mg strips is more expensive than a single 8 mg strip. This is not conducive to a patient reducing their because the cost goes up as they cut back on their .
Another issue is the fact that 2 mg is the lowest available Suboxone dosage. When a patient is being tapered to a lower dosage by their doctor with the intent of completing treatment, 2 mg is often far too high a dose to quit the because of .
How does a patient reduce below 2 mg? Should they cut the films or tablets in half or quarters? The manufacturer states in the literature that should not be split.
In Australia, there is a 400 mcg dosage. In the US, ZubSolv makes a 0.7 mg tablet, and because ZubSolv is absorbed better than Suboxone, its 1.4 mg tablet counts as the equivalent of a 2 mg Suboxone, which makes the 0.7 mg ZubSolv tablet the one manufactured step below that, roughly half of a 2 mg Suboxone dose.
Below the smallest manufactured strengths, the ideal is to keep the steps shrinking as the dose falls and to stop from a very low dose, well below 0.5 mg, with about 1/8 of a milligram as an example of a goal. Your prescriber can arrange doses small enough to reach that point.
How long should last?
Early on, when was relatively new, there were two schools of thought. Some doctors and addiction experts believed in fast tapering, where was used over a period of one to two weeks to detox a patient off of opioids.
The other method of treatment was long-term maintenance, where was prescribed for a period of at least several months and up to multiple years. It turns out that long-term maintenance is the ideal way to treat , with the ideal time period being at least one year.
Short-term use, as in fast-tapering, still used by detox centers, is not only less effective, it can be harmful to the patient. Patients who are quickly detoxed off of opioids and are left with their , still strong and intact.
After being detoxed, many patients go out and eventually relapse because they still have . Long-term treatment gives the patient time to recover from and to get their life back together.
Everyone is different, so different people will benefit from different lengths of therapy. Some people will benefit from multiple years of treatment. There is no judgement associated with how long a person requires treatment. There is no competition to see who can finish their treatment plan more quickly.
What is the next step in getting started with ?
There are different types of programs to meet the needs of different patients. There are maintenance-like treatment programs with daily visits and there are family doctors who treat patients monthly.
Additionally, there are telemedicine programs that provide online support. One option among the office-based and telemedicine programs is concierge Suboxone treatment, where the patient has direct access to the doctor.
With concierge, the patient has direct access to the doctor 24/7, with around the clock support. When evaluating a -assisted program that provides , ask if they provide this service.
Are you able to contact your doctor directly if you have questions, problems, or just need motivation to get through a difficult period? Some programs do not offer direct support from the doctor. In fact, some programs do not even provide doctors at all. A nurse gives out prescriptions, and even less trained staff provide whatever support is needed.
Fortunately, there are many options and treatment is becoming more accessible and available in more regions all the time. Most important are the government-funded programs that are initiated in hospital ERs.
These funded pilot programs start patients on treatment from the time of or other adverse event that takes a person to the ER. Then, local clinics continue treatment.
In many cases, these programs are available at little or no cost to patients who cannot afford treatment. This is critical, that patients who cannot afford to see a doctor do not fall through the cracks.
How do I find a doctor around me?
To find a doctor in your area, you can use FindTreatment.gov, the federal treatment locator. These resources make it easy to locate local providers of in your area that match up with your individual needs.
If you are looking for concierge Suboxone telemedicine services, and if you are in the state of Florida, contact the office today through the contact form on this website.