Question about buprenorphine

[Elisse3]

Question should you take buprenorphine if you have been an addict ? Asking for fb RLS member

[LotteM]

I find that very difficult to answer. I take buprenorphine in a very low dose (5mcg/h 7d patch or 0.2mg sublingual tablet) which is very effective for my RLS and I never had to increase the dose. I also never experienced anything that made me want to take more of the buprenorphine; only to get rid of (breakthrough) rls symptoms, e.g. after a very active day. And I have never been an addict myself, although I do have a sweet tooth and irregularly eat more sweat stuff than I should.

So, because I never experienced a high it should be save for a (former) addict? I don’t know. This person may react differently. Although buprenorphine is used -like methadon- to help people to get off their overuse of other opioids/opiates, buprenorphine is still an opioid itself. This is mainly due to the opioid receptor blocking effect of buprenorphine (so no ‘room’ left for other opioids to exert their action) AND because it seems to have a ‘ceiling effect’, beyond a certain dose it does not have a stronger effect.

This person may in my view best seek the experience and opinion of a doctor specialised in addiction to answer this question.

[Elisse3 in reply to LotteM]

Thank you for your comment i will relay it back to the poster on fb about it.

[D4nc1ngqu33m in reply to Elisse3]

As far as I am aware Burpernorphine was actually brought out in the US in the 70s to help drug addiction it helps by blocking the addiction and with RLS the dosage does not have to be increased like all the other Dopamine meds just to be careful chat with your GP

[Joolsg]

I agree with Lotte. Buprenorphine is used to get heroin addicts off the drug.I've never had a high with any opioid, but someone with previous opioid addiction would need to be closely monitored.

An addiction specialist should be involved.

It may work well for the person to be on methadone or Buprenorphine instead of the gabapentinoids, because they are now being used on the 'street' to get high.

[amrob123]

Outside of a pharmacotherapy substitution program, I don't believe buprenorphine is recommended for people who have misused opiods.