I have been on suboxone for about 3 months now. My current dosage is 8mgs per day. It definitely helps with opiate cravings (I really don't have any at all) & once I wake up & get moving & take the suboxone, I do actually feel good enough to carry on with my day. BUT, I am experiencing severe pain, tingling & numbness in my arms & hands. It mainly occurs at night when I'm sleeping, or trying to sleep. The pain is worse than any pain I have ever experienced. The only way that I can describe it is that it feels like my hands & arms have been lit on fire & while aflame, someone shot them!!! Seriously, it's affecting my entire life. It takes hours for it to go away after I wake up & I wake up crying & moaning in excrutiating pain. I'm wondering if anyone else that is taking suboxone is experiencing the same thing. I have actually just had carpel tunnel surgury on my left hand & am scheduled to have the right hand done next Tuesday. Of course that is what the doctor says is going on with me. I eagerly had the surgury only to wake up with the same pain. I don't know what to do. I don't even know which doctor to talk to about it, my primary care doc, the surgeon or the doc that prescribes the suboxone... Help! If anyone is going through this please respond to my post. I am desperate...
I am an RSD patient. Was diagnosed in 1987. I am a horse trainer and cattle rancher. We are in the middle of calving season, and mares are foaling, so I am a very physical person. And have worked through my extra pain, above the normal.
I moved and after 5 years my Dr. here decided he was going to take every patient he had off of narcotics. He left us high and dry, just to cover his butt. He told me that he never agreed with my medications that were prescribed for me by my prior Dr. to him, but he prescribed them for 5 years with no problem. So he took away our meds. with no replacement medications.
I was lucky enough to have an appt. with a Pain Dr., which I found out later was a drug abuse Dr. He is very nice, he told me when I first saw him that he would have me pain free very quickly. He guaranteed I would have no more pain. So he started me Suboxone, very low dosage. That wasn't working well enough. I am now on 8/2 mg twice daily, so 16 mgs daily. Taken in the morning, and at noon. It is not helping my pain which escalates during the day, and by nightfall I am in agony.
He now tells me that I am at the highest dosage allowed. My pain is now increasing daily from my activities. I cannot sit on the couch and do nothing... first off I would have my entire body frozen, not just both my shouldlers...
So I have the same Problem that the poster, sent in. What is the highest dosage anyone is on with Suboxone... Is 16 mgs a day a high dosage????? I need help but don't know where to turn for it now.
Thanking you all, in advance, for your discussion on this matter.
Were the opiates that you were taking helping at all Leciajw? Also, is the RSD pain in the same place where you had surgery or is it from another location? I still take the opiates but it only takes some of the edge off of the pain. The gabapentin I take helps with some of the burning pain and the pins and needles pain. Have they given you any Lidoderm patches? When I first put mine on, it actually burns worse but if I can make it through that first twenty minutes, then it starts to soothe the burning.
suboxone side effects 
