Anyone tried low dose Suboxone for treatment resistant depression?

[Satsong13]

I just started 2 mg. off label for this use.  I also relapsed on hydrocodone recently so I'm hoping it will both satiate the desire for opioids as well as help with depression.  I seem to fluctuate between feelings of mild euphoria and relief to sedation and irritability.  I have not had a bowel movement since I started it which is concerning.  I'm also on a zoloft/wellbutrin cocktail.

[Metairie358]

This is just my opinion, I don't judge. I took Suboxone to get off hydrocodone. I believe both of these meds dont help depression. After getting off sub, I went back to pain meds, very ignorant of me because I felt better without these drugs. I have insomnia really bad and I take Xanax, not good for depression either. I take Percocet, for pain from shingles, 2 years I've had it. I want to wish you the best. You can beat this, I'm gonna beat it.

[Satsong13]

Thank you.  It's nice to get encouragement even if it's  from anonymous silhouette's of humans in bubbles :)  I'm with you on just about all of what you said.  To go from Hydrocodone to Suboxone in retrospect seems absurd to me. Suboxone is many times more potent and the fact that one is reduced to 1 or 2 bowel movements a week another tragedy..Well I'm heading off it.

[Paxiled]

To the person with shingles, I have no idea if this will help or not but St. John's Wort, which these days everyone only knows as an herbal antidepressant, is also an antiviral agent used in formulas (meaning with other herbs) to help prevent outbreaks of chronic viral infections, such as herpes.  Whether it will work for you either as an antidepressant or help prevent your shingles outbreaks from happen as often I can't say, but it has been used for that purpose.

[Paxiled]

But a caveat -- it's not a good idea to combine it with an antidepressant if you're taking one, and do know it has some side effects for some people.

[Paxiled]

Typically, taking downer drugs, and opiates are downer drugs, make people feel better while they're on them and more depressed when they're not.  It's not like taking an antidepressant, which once your brain gets used to it and it works, it keeps working all the time.  You don't say if this was prescribed or you're using it on your own.  It's value was to help addicts avoid the horrible withdrawals of stopping to bridge them over to not using at all, but if you keep using it it's no different really than using opiates.  You haven't really quit.  If the opiates didn't solve your depression problems, it's unlikely this will, but people are different -- who knows?  A question you want to ask is if it has any adverse interactions with the cocktail of antidepressants you're taking.  I think suboxone shouldn't be combined with benzos, but I don't know about antidepressants and the two you're taking work differently.  I think the mood changes are the same as anyone who uses drugs recreationally to the point of becoming dependent on them -- you're up if you take enough and you're down when it wears off.  You don't say if you were on the hydrocodone for pain relief or fun, so we don't know the nature of that.  The problem with taking drugs that create euphoria is it usually takes more and more to get the same feeling.  That's usually not true of antidepressants unless they poop out on you, which can happen after a long time on them.  No drug is going to cure your depression, though -- the best they can do is make you feel better.  If there is a cure it's through therapy or other lifestyle changes or just time sometimes but since medicine doesn't know the biological cause of depression there's no pill to treat that cause, they just treat symptoms.  Same with opiates.

[Paxiled]

By the way, in case your psychiatrist didn't tell you, quitting antidepressants can be as hard as quitting opiates for some people, though it can be much easier for others.  You need to taper off of them as slowly as your body needs when the time comes to stop taking them.  Doctors don't usually tell patients that, and because they're not technically addictive drugs, patients often have no idea this is true.  I didn't.  Bottom line, when you have tried everything and nothing has worked, it opens up things others might not consider.  You have to go outside the box.  Whether this is the right place to go or not, given your history, probably not, but again, who really knows?

[Satsong13]

It's a lot to digest but thank you kindly for all this info..