Tapering Off Buprenorphine or Suboxone pt. 1

Many patients taking buprenorphine live in fear of a dark world around the corner where they will have to taper off the medication.  They see horror stories on YouTube posted by people who, for some reason, abruptly stopped the medication and kept a video log of their experiences.   My own patients sometimes ask, nervously, if I plan to retire some day.  Some have asked what they should do if I ever, say, drop dead. It needn’t be all that bad.  Yes, sudden discontinuation of a typical dose of buprenorphine will result in withdrawal symptoms.  But if you taper correctly, your body will slowly reset your tolerance without putting you through the wringer.   In this post I’ll describe my typical approach to helping a person through that process.  But first we should correct some of the misconceptions about buprenorphine and opioid dependence. It does NOT get harder and harder to stop buprenorphine the longer you take the medication.  I have heard that idea over and over in one form or another, and I presume it comes from the experience people have with active addiction where use tends to grow with time, and other facets of life gradually fade away.   But the opposite occurs in patients treated with maintenance agents like buprenorphine or methadone, where use of the medication does not trigger a reward or relieve the ‘punishment’ of withdrawal.   The conditioning that occurred during active addiction is slowly extinguished, and most people gr...
Source: Suboxone Talk Zone - Category: Addiction Authors: Tags: Buprenorphine receptor actions Suboxone Withdrawal buprenorphine treatment opioid taper stopping suboxone Suboxone withdrawal Source Type: blogs