How long does suboxone block opiates?

Question

ive been on suboxone for a year and im stopping usage and i know that suboxone has a half life of 72 hours...does that mean that after 72 hours it no longer blocks opiates?

Answer 1

Suboxone has an  has a half life of 37 hours and is excreted in your urine.  After 37 hours you have half the amount in your blood system, after 74 you have 1/4 the amount in your blood system, after 111 you have 1/8 the amount in your blood, after 148 hours you have 1/16 the amount in your blood system and after 185 hours you have 1/32 the amount in your blood system and so on.

After 1 week you will have a little more than 1/32 of the drug in your system and by then it should no longer be effective.  After 37 hours it will be only 50% as effective and only 25% as effective after 74 hours.  After 1 week it will be less than 4% effective.  Meaning that it will barely work.

After 74 hours suboxone still works but only 1 quarter as well.  You can start getting high then.  Of course I DON'T recommend that you stop taking the drug to get high.  Not only will you suffer 45 minutes of withdrawal once you stop taking the drug, but you will be on the road to self-destruction.

Suboxone is an orange color, lemon-lime flavored, one part naloxone for every four parts buprenorphine; hexagon shaped tablet.

According to Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suboxone

"Buprenorphine is an opioid drug with partial agonist and antagonist actions. Buprenorphine hydrochloride was first marketed in the 1980s by Reckitt & Colman (now Reckitt Benckiser) as an analgesic, available generally as Temgesic 0.2 mg sublingual tablets, and as Buprenex in a 0.3 mg/ml injectable formulation. In October 2002, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States of America additionally approved Suboxone and Subutex, buprenorphine's high-dose sublingual pill preparations for opioid addiction, and as such the drug is now also used for this purpose...

The naloxone would cause fifteen to forty-five minutes of extreme withdrawal (PWS, precipitated withdrawal syndrome) and even after that, the partial agonist nature of buprenorphine could cause continued withdrawal symptoms."