Suboxone - Did my doctor give me too high of a dose?

Fledgling, OMG!!! Did I read that correctly? 64mg. Per day of Suboxone ? He prescribed 4tabs of 8mg tabs Suboxone upon wake-up and then 4more tabs of 8mg. Suboxone two hours later? Of course you feel high, I'm surprised your not puking your guts up by now!! That is way too much to be taking!!! Most doctors do not prescribe more than 16mg a day. I was taking too many narcotics to even count for over ten years. They were originally prescribed for migraine headaches. But mine is the typical story of someone being prescribed narcotics for pain relief, originally taking them as prescribed then reaching a tolerance and needing more and more until one day after taking enough to literally drop a horseHa!Ha! They quit working for me. To be honest, I really did start out taking them like I was supposed to. But it didn't take me long to realize "hey, these pills make me feel really great!!".

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So eventually, like so many others, I was abusing them to first feel good and then later to just feel normal. You said you were abusing at a rate of approx. 60 mg. vicoden a day? Even though that is way too much, that is still no reason to give you such a high dose of Suboxone. I hit my rock bottom after ten years of abusing and hurting everyone I loved. I work as a nurse, I should have seen this coming but I didn't. Because I didn't want to admit I had a serious problem. I never stole meds from my med cart or bought them off of the street. I had a legal prescriber-(my own personal dealer), I filled my prescriptions legally and because of that I never got into any trouble for testing positive on a work related drug test. They were aware of the fact that I had migraines and knew about each and every drug being prescribed to me. Funny thing about that was that I didnt test positive when I was taking the narcotic pain relievers but I have tested positive for drugs like methadone and darvocet at my Suboxone clinic drug test, which are drugs I've never taken in my life!! Go figure?? Anyhow, back to you, everybody reacts to drugs differently. But as a medication nurse, I can tell you that you will get the results you need by taking only 16 mg. a day. It is my personal opinion and my opinion as a nurse that you need to request your doctor lower your dose. I put myself through a ten day cold turkey detox prior to taking the Suboxone. It is not something I would wish on anyone. However, I continue to take 16mg. A day for the past two years because it actually does help to relieve my migraine pain. I was having up to two migraines per week which lasted a couple of days each. But when a person gets to the point that 40mg a day of lortab10mg, vicoden 5mg. X4 a day, and then Dilaudid IV doesn't work to relieve the pain there is a huge problem. What do I do now, when even the strongest of meds are not relieving the pain?? Well I stupidly went cold turkey!! But guess what? After all of the opiates were cleaned from my system , after starting the Suboxone the migraines practically disappeared. I only get 3-4 a year now!! I was having rebound headaches caused by all the narcotics I was taking!! So anyhow, the whole point of Suboxone is to prevent the excruciating withdrawals caused by stopping the pain meds. There is no cure for our addiction, but it can be controlled sort of like being in remission by taking the Suboxone. For me, I take the Suboxone to keep the withdrawals at bay and also because it removes any desire for narcotics. Most people are only on Suboxone for a short period of time, usually for around three days. I'm not most people, I am terrified of having to ever stop taking them. Doctors used to believe that methadone was the answer for addicts. But they were wrong! Methadone will give a person a high more than most other narcotics. A person is just substituting one opiate for another. Suboxone has a medication in it that prevents a person from getting that high if they take a narcotic. They will not feel the high at all if they were taking Suboxone and then took a narcotic. That is the whole point. The Buphrenorphine that is in the Suboxone is a narcotic but combined with the other drug which I can't remember it's name right off hand but it works like Narcan in preventing abuse of the drug . A person can get violently I'll if they tried to crush the Suboxone and shoot it up. If for some reason you ever are in need of any kind of surgery, you would have to take what is called a Suboxone vacation for three days prior to your surgery. That way the drugs they use to put you out and for pain relief will work as usual for you. Then depending on how long your recovery is for, your doctor would prescribe meds to take home for the duration. When you are no longer feeling the need for the pain relievers all you would need to do is stay off of them for 1-3 days and then go back on the Suboxone. I can honestly say this because I went through this about a year ago and I was fine. The reason a person is told to stop their Suboxone prior to surgery is because if they don't and they receive narcotics too soon after just taking the Suboxone it will cause a person to go into severe withdrawals. Aim not trying to scare you or anything but you did say you just started taking the Suboxone so I thought there was a teachable moment there. The nurse in me enjoys teaching, especially when it pertains to this subject. There are just too many doctors out there not giving their patients a clear picture of what they are getting into. I've been told from others on this site that it is harder to get off of Suboxone than any of the narcotics they had ever taken. This really scares me because from past experience with doctors there are all kinds of reasons why a drug can just be taken away from you without warning leaving the patient to suffer. I live in s.c. And I have very good insurance, but without the insurance it would cost me $250.00 a month for the doctors appoint. That takes me 6 hours back and forth to get to every month. And then another $597.00 a month for a months supply of Suboxone. I literally only spend 5 minutes in his office after I've driven three hours to get there and three hours to get home. When I first found out about this medication the doctors in my area had never heard of it. They also didn't realize that they can't prescribe for it without a special license . I personally feel that it is just another scam to make boo coos of money for them. But because I need this medication to live my life I'm stuck with yet another doctor and new med that I find myself trapped into needing. Just for future reference though go to YouTube and watch the video of the Suboxone doctor who is also an addict and has his own Suboxone clinic now. I believe everybody needs to be their own health advocate. And what I mean by that is this: doctors are just making an educated guess with their patients. There are a lot of really good and caring doctors out there but there is also a lot of money makers only. They are limited to 100 patients only for this clinic, but I figured out that even being limited to 100 patients they are making 1.3 million a month from their Suboxone patients alone. Can you even imagine making that kind of money? Between the doctors, pharmacies, and insurance people the American public is being ripped off at a astronomical rate!! If you wish to PQ( personal question) me, tap on your PQ under friends. It is my goal in life, well, one of them anyhow, to help educate people about addiction and their options. I believe this drug literally saved my life. I know that it saved my marriage and family. My employer doesn't know I'm taking it. Ironically they would allow me to have opiates that are legally prescribed in my system, but not Suboxone. I never turned in my license to state boards because in s.c. If they find Suboxone in your blood they will request you to give up your license until you stop taking it. What's wrong with this picture? It's o.k. To take narcotics, but it isn't o.k. To take a med to get you off of narcotics. Oh well, it is what it is. Addiction is a real problem in the medical field here in s.c. Doctors, nurses, pharmacist who have given up their license during their recovery get their names and licensed printed out on the wall of shame for everybody to read from the nurses quarterly newspaper. Everybody who receives this paper would know. Why would anybody do that? They have what is called the professional recovery system where a person gives up their license and goes through a rehab for six weeks and then gradually is brought back into their job with someone watching their every move. Volunteering for this program is the only thing that will save their license if they were caught red handed stealing narcotics or trafficking them. Anyhow, hope I haven't bored you to death and hope I was able to help in some way!! Nik