Suboxone Doesn't Last Long With Huge Tolerance

So I'm 30 years old. I have been taking various pain medications in very large doses for 15 years. I once ate 42 10/set hydro in one day. I was not worried about overdose on hydro, just acetaminophen. So I have a brain full of opiate receptors. From what I have read the longer and larger your tolerance well what happens is your brain builds more opiate receptors. So this is how high my tolerance is. I can take 36mg of Suboxone and the next morning at about noon take a couple hundred mg of morphine and feel full effects. So even though buprenorphine is so many times different in potency to morphine, the fact that it does not activate receptors but partially must play a major role in how Suboxone works with super highly tolerant patients. I believe my receptors saturation level may be well above 32 mg. Although my doctor says no one needs more than 16mg......yeah right. So I need to talk with him about raising my dose to 32mg. With the half life I should build it up but yet this past week it should have built up and blocked my need to take opiates, but the next day a couple hundred mg of oral morphine and about 400mg of codeine worked but had me so itchy I needed 5 benadryl. So this proves that people who have extremely high opiate tolerance cannot be held for over 12 to 18 hours or so on 32mg of buprenorphine. I may have so may opiate receptors actually I can take my sub dose and 80mg of hydro and still feel that.........so IDK about Suboxone. My doctor is going to have to up me for sure because cravings never stop.......and half the reason I relaxed was because of pain and it does not do so much for that. I was on a methadone program 80 mg a day and that blocked all opiates except fentanyl. But it stopped my cravings because it was a full opiate agonist, and it helped pain so much better. Now I hate the loops and going to the clinic for 6 months before you can get a week of freedom, but I may have to go back to it. Unless my doctor will prescribe it for my pain and I can use it as needed. Around 80mg a day to 100 tops. But I believe he will just see that as a way to feel high. But yet again it actually provides no high after 3 days and totally blocked all pills you could get except hydromorphone, oxymorphone, fentanyl etc... But in my opinion that is a major issue for highly tolerant people as myself.........so I have not read anyone post on this topic. There must be others who are just like me and won't get the blocking effect from bupe and have had better all around pain control........so IDK exactly how many receptors have been built in my brain to accommodate opioids.......any advice? Should my intake be more than 32 mg of bupe?......my doctor says no one needs more than 16mg but that is just to keep withdrawals at bay. No pain and definitely no craving blocking and what not.

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I too am going through the same thing you are I can take probably 10 Percocets in 2 hours every 2 hours and they are Percocet tens I have waited about 12 hours and have been without any percocet or vicodin and took a tiny piece of a suboxone only to find out that it has helped none at all I'm also one of those women that it takes a lot for me I have been doing this now for going on a year and I can take a t 250 milligrams of hydrocodone or oxycodone a day but I only have three Suboxone tablets I took a tiny piece of one of those and I still feel no relief. So this is to JJC I too am in the same boat and I'm looking for answers

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That's a typo a should have said I can take 80 to 150 mgs of hydro or oxy a day instead if 250 !!!

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@Jjc,

I'm not sure how true this may be, but I've heard rumor that the difference in efficacy from 16mgs of Suboxone to 32mgs is negligible in comparison to going from say 2mg or 4mg to 8mg or 16mg - As if to say that Suboxone has a ceiling effect when you reach those higher doses... Perhaps this is why the doctor says no one needs more than 16mgs? However, my view is that even if the effects are 'minute' from 16 to 32mgs, that doesn't necessarily mean that it wont make a difference... So maybe if you do talk with your doctor about going up to 32mgs, you can mention how even a subtle change is better than no change at all... I also see mixed reviews here on how well suboxone works for pain management. Some people say it doesn't help in the least bit, while others swear by it. I guess you can only be your own best judge of efficacy...I just question how these doctors think they know what's best for you when they often spend only 5 minutes of their time in the same room.

Best wishes to you in getting the right level of treatment!

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Re: David (# 3)

I agree with you David on the ceiling for the Suboxone, now for personal experience and as a disabled veteran of war with multiple injuries and being on every opiate possible I can tell you that for chronic pain the Suboxone wont do much. For minor pain and even for nerve pain it has helped. There are different types of pain and thats how suboxone have helped for me. Just my humble opinion.

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