Suboxone builds up in your system. It a a long half life and takes time to be leave the body after your last dose.
Here is a sample:
If you’ve ceased usage of this drug and are struggling with Suboxone withdrawal symptoms, you’re probably wondering whether any of the drug is still in your system. To determine how long the drug is likely to stay in your system after your last dose, it is necessary to consider Suboxone’s half-life, or more specifically, the half-lives of its active ingredients buprenorphine and naloxone. The half-life of buprenorphine is an estimated 37 hours, which is considered extremely long.
It takes your body nearly 2 full days to excrete just 50% of the buprenorphine within a Suboxone dose. Considering the 37 hour half-life of buprenorphine, it could be estimated to be fully cleared from your system in under 9 days (8.48). The half-life of naloxone is reportedly between 30 minutes and 1 hour 21 minutes.
I'm still wondering though after you bring yourself down to 10mg OC or .5/.25 sub what's so hard about not taking anything? My personal thought process on this! I was taking 40mg OC for a few months and had stopped for several months without any WD but was still wanting the ",high" I asking, what's the difference? If I take SOB for a month starting at 4 and decrease weekly by half or more , which I'm 2 weeks into without any considerable discomfort. Whats the outcome at week 4????
Pain Killer Equivalent Doses (Oral)
1.2mg.............Buprenorphine (Bupe)
200mg............Codeine (Tylenol 2, 3, 4, etc)
30-60mg.........Diacetylmorphine (Heroin) (orally it = morphine, IV/IM/insuffilated it's 2x as strong)
100mg............Dihydrocodeine
30mg..............Hydrocodone (Vicodin, Lorcet, etc)
7.5mg.............Hydromorphone (Dilaudid)
4mg................Levorphanol (Dromoran)
300mg............Meperidine (Demerol)
10-20mg.........Methadone
30-60mg.........Morphine
20mg..............Oxycodone (Oxycontin, Percocet)
10mg..............Oxymorphone (Numorphan)
200-300mg.....Propoxyphene (Darvocet)
150mg............Tramadol (Ultram, Ultracet)