Regardless of the reason one has for ending replacement therapy, making the choice presents a whole new set of challenges. Suboxone is a hard drug to kick. The medication’s long half-life combined with its tight adhesion to opiate receptors makes tapering particularly difficult. From anecdotal reports, the least disruptive way to achieve a Suboxone-free life is to cut down the amount used very slowly week by week until titration is complete.
This scenario is complicated by two facts:
- The lowest strength Suboxone comes in is 2 mg. (”Jumping” from a 2 mg dose can be a drawn out and debilitating process that takes months to recover from);
- RBP warns against cutting Suboxone strips into smaller amounts, and maintains that the medication is not equally distributed in the preparation.
Source: Dawn Roberts
recoveryreview.blog 
Very interesting. Is it true then that the manufacturer doesn’t provide a viable titration method to end suboxone maintenance?
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That’s what the author is suggesting–that RBP does not manufacture dosages that support patients who are trying to taper off the medication. 2mg is not low enough.
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Do you have generic buprenorphine in the US? In the UK it is available in 400mcg tablets. When someone gets down to 2mg Suboxone they can be switched to 1.6mg and come down by 400mcg per reduction. In general, I’d say it’s easier to come off buprenorphine than methadone.
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Not in the United States due to the dosage of the drug. They did not manufacture it in a small enough dose to taper from it.
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For people who’ve really struggled with withdrawal symptoms, we’ve used Temgesic – a brand of buprenorphine that comes in 200mcg doses.
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