Posted by Tom303 on December 14, 2003, at 1:07:57
In reply to opiates -- Scott, posted by Elizabeth on April 5, 2001, at 21:23:17
As has been looked at briefly above, don't anyone underestimate the antidepressant/anxiolytic properties of buprenorphine. I got onto it about 6 weeks ago ostensibly to ease my withdrawal symptoms from high dose (~1g/day) codeine use. This it did - but I've stayed on it because I seem to have hit a dose (24mg) that is right for me and keeps me feeling 'human' right through the day. I'm yet to search for internet research posts regarding bupe/depression, but I'm expecting to find quite a lot. Given the main problem tackled in this thread, tolerance, that's where the other good news lies in my case (touch wood). I have not experienced even the slightest reduction in AD effect of buprenorphine even though I've been on the same daily dose for a month now. (As opposed to codeine, where I was increasing my dose at the rate of 1/2 to 2/3 per week to keep the effect where I wanted it to be.)
I hope to the powers that be that bupe continues to work the way it is - my prescribing doctor (not my psych - a guy who deals specifically with opiate abuse/maintenance) is quite happy for me to stay on it indefinitely if it keeps working, so I'll cross my fingers & toes and hope for the best!
I've been on virtually every antidepressant under the sun and most other psychiatric drugs with little success (that coming from benzos, which invariably stop working unless you up the dose), so bupe (so far) is almost a miracle. There is hope, guys!
[As an afterthought, from what I've seen of the studies of bupe on depression, they all seem to use ridiculously small doses (<0.2mg) several times a day. Bupe is strange as a pharmaceutical in that the more you take, the longer the effect lasts, so it's hardly surprising that they have to keep redosing people if they're using sub-milligram doses! I'd guess someone with no significant opiate tolerance would probably get by all day on one dose of 8-16mg. I take 24, but I did have a big tolerance when I started.. whatever, anyway - it gets me through each day (and waking up the next) feeling human for the first time in years. It is not _that_ strong - as far as analgesia goes, yeah, .6mg is meant to be the equivalent to 10mg of morphine, but as far as mental effect goes the ratio is nowhere near that high.]
Cheers,
Tom
poster:Tom303
thread:57821
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031213/msgs/289550.html