Methadone to Suboxone, what dosage?

[funcaddict]

I have been using methadone (30 mg per day) for the past 4 years. I'm not on it for pain. I get it off the street.
I have an appt. with suboxone doctor at the end of this month. Can you tell me what milligram dosage suboxone he will prescribe for a 30 mg per day methadone user. Suboxone is very expensive & if I need more than 8mg per day I can't afford it in addition to the cost of the dr. visits.

[silversurfer54]

A related discussion, compare methadone strength to suboxone was started.

[Julia M Aharonov, DO]

t seems like you are on the right track with the decisions you are making in your life.  I will caution you though that even though Suboxone is an FDA approved treatment for addiction, it is still a partial opioid receptor agonist making it technically a narcotic itself.  Suboxone 8mg should be enough to cover you even though you may have some symptoms for a few days, but they  should not be intolerable. The correct way of using Suboxone is stopping Methadone because it has a very long half life, then starting an appropriate dose of Suboxone to minimize the withdrawals and then together with your physician aggressively tapering down the dose until you are drug free.  It is important to keep in mind that there are a rather larger subset of addicts that become addicted to Suboxone and are unable to get off of it.  
I practice a different type of narcotic detox and a talk about it in my blog about the rapid drug detox, as well as other blogs.  Take a look at them as well as my website www.mdsdrugdetox.com.  I strongly believe in simply getting clean and staying clean once and for all.  Especially look an the Naltrexone implant that can keep you from both physical and psychological craving.  We also can use Vivitrol injection instead.  You can have your life back and fast. Also look at my blog about Economics of healthcare. It is amazing how we can find money for drugs but not for getting clean. Good luck to you and all the best.