what are the long term effects from using Suboxone?

 

if you do it to where you are off with in a month and cut back a little bit at a time over the month you will be ok. when you are through with your medicine you will go through about 10-14 days feel very mild side effects( nothing like oc or even lortab withdrawls), but stick with it and in two months you will physical start to feel your old self. just find u a support group like AA not NA. aa will help with the mental aspect of things. it works just got to find the strength inside of you. even religion helps go to church it helped me more than rehab

ive been taken subies for 5yrs 8mg down to 4mg but at the back of my knee's there killing me they've been like that for 4yrs now my nerve endings are damage so they got me on 600mg of pregablin

Guest wrote:

I recently went off suboxone after taking it 3 years . I couldn't take it anymore and went off on my own. Its 2 weeks now and I still dont feel good, my legs feel horrible I have the JIMMIES if you know what I mean, I am so tired only moments of energy. I read you comment about stopping before we have to pay. Please respond as to what you think. Do you think there is permanent damage. Are you someone who has taken suboxone and now suffer from the long term effects.? ***this post is edited by moderator *** *** private
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of Use >>> please respond thank you so much. You know what Im going through .. Marida

I have been on Suboxone off and on for 3 1/2 almost every day for 2 years, with maybe going without 3-5 days about every 4-6 months. They started me off with 16mg a day. In 3 1/2 years i only got down to 8mg. It's my fault. The LPN who gave out the script every month would try and try to  tapper me down every month but I started dating her about 6 months in. She just kept me on 8mg the last year. She just moved down to flordia and the dr. office is no longer prescribing suboxone. I lost my job due to bugget cuts and can no longer afford it. I never had the chance to tapper. I suddenly stopped after 8mg, it's day 4. But yesterday i got about 30mg of methadone off a buddy. It helped and i slept good last night. I know sub doetox like a pro, 3 years ago i stopped anfter 6 months of use 4mg every other day. It is very deceptive, you dont think its so bad till around the 5th day and BAM..... you stay at that level of WD's for 14-21-days before your over the hill and can finally see a tad bit of light(feeling better) but that time i only lasted 25 days clean before i went heavly on murphine sulfate. And now after maajor long term use im in trouble, i know i have hell to pay. I have major support, my mom and step dad are letting me stay and ride out the storm at there place. They took my keys to my car, they watch my every move, it was my wish before stopping that they due this. I know prob if im lucky i will get maybe around 20mg of methadone evey 6-8 days by my buddy. which i know will prolong my withdraw but, it will make it less servere, and i will have a better chance staying off suboxone. 

Hey Guys, Was shooting dope for twenty plus years, methadone for half of that, ttotally clean a while back for nalmost 7 years then went on Suboxone after short relapse. I am patient 001 at the program at the Vets hospital near me. I have been on 12 mgs for alnmost 7 years now, my teeth are perfect, need to brush them, did the detox try a couple of years back down to 1mg then had to stop. Have decieded to just stay on perm. I am 56 life at this point is all a bonus, see dr once a month get it fillled and thats it. No side effects, never had a problem with it. If you are young you may want to consider sucking it up suffer the extended detox and get on with your life. The 6 years totally clean were in AA, if long tern IV Marcotic user like me. Just consider it an insurance program.

Thank you for your post, my husband has been on suboxome for 6 yrs and has no desire to stop. He also abused vicodin, im not sure he even took as much as you did at the time. I believe he has tapered from 16 mg, he now takes 8mg/day. I fear that he will suffer many long term effects from the drug. He gets angry when I suggest tapering down which I only bring up every year or so. I understand his fear but its hard on me. The suboxome use has effected our marriage more than the vicodin addiction ever did.  Please do not stop speaking out like this. It may help others.

As a recovering addict I can tell you, and I say this without having met too many respectable physicians that prescribe suboxone or methadone (there are some I'm sure but I haven't met them!) Make sure you read the entire data on Suboxone. It is a maintenance drug, a lot of doctors are prescribing it as strictly maintenance. There is not much financial drive for a doctor to get you off of that medication as quickly as possible or even ever.  And by prescribing something like this they can both justify sleeping at night and justify the continual billing that they do for services.  

I was clean for 5 years and three months on suboxone. I decided I was ready to come off. I tapered to 1mg, and my last mg was dec.12th. I felt like sh*t for 2 months. Then my cravings went through the roof. I relapsed in March..........I hate myself, my life is turning to sh*t, already. I think NOONE SHOULD USE THIS MEDICATION AS THEIR Recovery program. I finally called my dr. This morning to go back on the medication while I develpo a real program of recovery. Suboxone did keep this drug addict clean for 5 years, but without it..............I fell :( good luck to all who struggle. I lost my little brother a little over 5 years ago to an overdose 11 days after his birthday...........this disease kills, seek help.

 

 

 

 

it has also messed with my vision at times i been using subs for twomonths

I have been on suboxone for two year's, and like almost everyone else on this site.. I want off. I have had multiple health problems while being on this drug (not to say all is related I'm just stating what happened to me while taking subs)) from trouble urinating to severe constipation, problems with my teeth, as well as vision. I agree that suboxone may be helpful to others IF used short term and with the help of a 12 step program. For a long time I thought "I'm fine I can stay on this forever, at least it's not heroin". That is justification and justification only. I am now at a point in my life where I realize in order to be grow and mature I need to be sober, and being on soboxone is far from sober. I am very scared of the upcoming withdrawl, but know its vital to not just my recovery, but my health. I no longer want to be a prisoner behind this drug. If I could go back I would have defiantly been better off to detox from the heroin before I ever even started the suboxone. The withdrawals I have experienced from subs before ((rather I ran out early, or my meds came up short)) are exactly as described. Horrible. I am 22 years old and never dreamed of facing this problem, if I have any advice it is to NOT start taking suboxone unless for a VERY short amount of time. I promise, it will only cause you prolonged suffering.

I was on suboxone and subutex (subutex w/o nalaxone) for four years. I cold turkeyed the subutex and here I am feeling pretty damn good physically and about myself for what I went through. The withdrawals were unmitigated hell for three weeks. Big part is no sleep. I think talking to your Dr. is the correct thing to do. Tapering off may be painful, but not as bad as cold. I have a friend that got off the opiates after 10 yr. use, and got off everthing in a month and a half. It is not going to be easy. I think I forgot to tell you that I was an opiate abuser for 5 years prior to suboxone; percocet, hydrocodone ocycodone. good luck, hang in there because if I can do it, anyone can.

 

I was on opiates for 3 years! I loved the feeling they gave me and the energy as well. I decided to stop taking them because I started to get tired on them and I just wanted to feel normal. I have been on suboxone for a year and let me tell you that my teeth are horrible! I have 14 cavities and need 4 root canals! I just had to pull my tooth today because my insurance does not cover root canals and I can not afford it. I stopped taking suboxone yesterday 8 am was my lost dose I only take about 1/4 of a 2mg pill twice a day. So being I am in soooo much pain and already feeling the tiredness of suboxone withdrawal i took 1/4 of an oxycodone=( I can't deal with suboxone withdrawals especially when I have to take care of my daughter. I can't sleep all day I do take vitamins and everything so what other alternatives are there? I feel hopeless and on top of everything I will be 25 and toothles:-|

i put myself into rehab 2 get off oxycontin 10 mo's ago. the dr there asked what i intended to use for pain since i have severe deg disk disease, a neck injury that caused a temp total paralysis (neck down), lupus and other autoimmune diseases, etc. i told him i was hoping he'd tell me that & he threw his arms up. he put me on suboxone & like others, i was hesitant to trade 1 drug for another, but my 2nd day off everything, after having been given 8 mg sub to kick me into full withdrawals the day after i got there full of oxy, after the sub kicked everything out of my system i was back to shuffling along barely able to walk or bend at the waist. the restless leg junk which runs in my family and my son & i had long b4 ever using pain pills at all, after the sub kicked all out of my system the RLS was so severe i could not sit long enough to pee. i kid you not. i had to keep moving and after 24 hrs of that i took the rehab dr's advice and started on sub, which he said i'd probably need to be on for life. with my last few sub's i finally found the only dr in my area who accepted my insurance, got all my records faxed to them & was accepted as their patient having been verified as needing the suboxone for chronic pain control - not only for opiate dependency. this drug has changed my life. between the suboxone and lyrica i am probably more active than i've been in years, and my mother says i am 'more normal', also, lol. but she and many ppl who cared about me had gotten used to seeing a crazy person on so many percocets, norco, lortabs, oxycontin, even morphine, that i was barely able to take care of myself at times. now i'm reading about all the side effects from long-term use of the suboxone, and yes, i'm seeing severe dry mouth, but i already had due to having 'Sjogren's', an autoimmune disease that also causes bad dry mouth. now i know what's causing the vision problems as well. my glasses aren't that old but i'm taking them off, putting them back on, and half the time can't figure out which way is better. and the weight gain!!! i've gained 25 lbs and i'm barely 5 ft tall so that's several jean sizes! i have 2 closets full of clothes i desperately need to go thru and donate or throw away more than half. the only other thing i'm curious about - is anyone else experiencing severe SUGAR CRAVING? i canNOT get enough sugar! b4 the sub i rarely could eat a whole candy bar, and now it's a battle to keep myself out of the donut places and i've put away 3-4 chocolate long johns at a time! dr says that's from the lyrica and we tried changing that to Vimpat but i've had to beg off that and go back to the lyrica while promising to watch my weight! for the dry mouth i use the Biotene products and there's a new Act total care mouthwash that's for dry mouth. i've heard about another mouthwash/gargle called Oasis but have not been able to find it anywhere. oh one last thing.... has anyone had any trouble urinating? i've had to go on Flomax and i don't know if my dr knows what's causing this and isn't telling me or what. i'm nearly falling asleep in the bathroom sometimes middle of the night having to bear down way too hard to get the stream going. all these things.... i am TERRIFIED of the alternative if i have to go off the sub! back to a wheelchair? the RLS so bad i've honestly gone 48+ hrs without sleeping before when off everything and even before starting TAKING pain pills! i did asked my dr once if there'll come a time when i should expect to be able to go off the suboxone. he looked at me like he was either baffled at my stupidity or he didn't know how to say it but got the point across: if there comes a time when i expect to miraculously have no pain i should let him know. otherwise..... (sorry so long - if anyone would like to correspond & share info let me know). NAMASTE, everybody!

are you on any antidepressants? even if ur not really clinically depressed otherwise i think - and i am not a medical professional but i have worked in the field in the past - i think most dr's would want you to be on something like prozac or cymbalta maybe for energy & just to help with the overall icky feelings you get with withdrawal. if you have a choice with antidepressants def opt for prozac over cymbalta if you can. cymbalta can have some tough w/d's as well if you don't wean off it if you've been on it long. i honestly feel your pain with the teeth issue. i'm 52 and inherited awful teeth long b4 going on suboxone. if i hadn't already had root canals in most of my back teeth i'd be in god-awful pain because i've lost crown after crown and even a permanent bridge because nothing would stay on. so whatever was under those are just crumbling down to the gumline, but thankfully no serious pain other than sharp edges sometimes cutting into my cheek til they wear themselves down. i've even come to resent anyone with big beautiful smiles because when i let myself smile i make sure to keep my mouth closed anymore. and ur too young to go thru all that! i don't know where ur from but plz check with area churches, ur dept of human services state agencies, even dental programs at any colleges in ur area, and see if you can find anyone who will either donate their services working thru charitable organizations or who might charge on a sliding scale according to income. good luck!!

I have been on Suboxone since it was licensed around 8 years now. It dont effect your teeth, brush them, I do get some dry mouth but am on antidepressant now 17 years and that is probably causing it. I got me Masters degree in Computer Science at Harvard all while on Suboxone so those who think it effects their minds, look elswhere. It is just one hour a month for the appointment after 24 years of shooting heroin and methadone maintenance, which was like taking thorazine every day. I said it was a miracle drug the first day I took it and still think so. I have no other symptoms so I am very suspicious of all the stuff people think is happening to them from Suboxone. Think really hard and look elswhere. I dont recomend it for young people who dont have pain issues or long term for people abusing narcotics for short periods of time. Withdrawing from Suboxone can be long and very uncomfortable and lead to relapse for long term addicts. I had 7 years clean in 12 step and still go occasionally for supprot but after a pain issue 8 years ago I started Suboxone as an insurance policy. I came from 24 years of hell and many dead friends. For me it is a miracle drug. This is not for everyone.

David