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How Do I Taper Off Suboxone And Minimize Withdrawal?
Question: are there studies that indicate percentages of people that remain abstinent after coming off suboxone? I am trying to document the efficacy of adjunct counseling with credentialed co-occurring addiction / mental health specialists for those on Suboxone.
Brief Answer:
There are not a lot and certanly not long term data.
Detailed Answer:
First, there are several contexts in which this information would be gathered.
The worst is something called "detox success" this is having someone come off of a full strength narcotic--typically heroin--and then being stable at about 1 month not taking heroin. It is very successful if you DO NOT COUNT staying on the suboxone.
Personally I get more like 70/30
Like this study
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/0000
This study found about 50/50 for 6 months.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0000/#S8
The fatality rate is really low if people are in treatment.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/0000
In summary, for short term getting off of hazardous narcotics it's really really effective; running 70-80% for 1 month data. We have pretty good info that people stay off hard drugs in over 50% on suboxone. BUT the coming off of suboxone versus just cold turkey versus methadone... there's no data. Considering that the average duration of the recovery process is about a decade, we just aren't going to have good data.
There are not a lot and certanly not long term data.
Detailed Answer:
First, there are several contexts in which this information would be gathered.
The worst is something called "detox success" this is having someone come off of a full strength narcotic--typically heroin--and then being stable at about 1 month not taking heroin. It is very successful if you DO NOT COUNT staying on the suboxone.
Personally I get more like 70/30
Like this study
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/0000
This study found about 50/50 for 6 months.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0000/#S8
The fatality rate is really low if people are in treatment.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/0000
In summary, for short term getting off of hazardous narcotics it's really really effective; running 70-80% for 1 month data. We have pretty good info that people stay off hard drugs in over 50% on suboxone. BUT the coming off of suboxone versus just cold turkey versus methadone... there's no data. Considering that the average duration of the recovery process is about a decade, we just aren't going to have good data.
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Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
Answered by
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