Fellow devotees of "Addiction" magazine will have shared my fascination for a case report in this month's edition of a heroin addict whose life was apparently saved by the timely administration of buprenorphine by his mate..... as we all know, most injecting heroin users have themselves experienced overdose or been with someone else who has, and the majority of most overdoses that end up dead are witnessed long before calling an ambulance. This has led many to distribute naloxone injection with education to those in treatment, so that they can identify signs of overdose in others, and administer it before emergency services arrive.
But this is the first time I know of where a resourceful user (on take-out bupenrorphine) recognised the state of his friend with the blue lips, crumbled up one of his tablets and placed it under the tongue of his unrousable colleague. The subject woke up "all angry" within 10 minutes....
We all know of the paradoxical antagonism of buprenorphine at dose initiation, and this of course makes sense.... I wonder if we can make better use of this "off piste" use of buprenorphine?
But this is the first time I know of where a resourceful user (on take-out bupenrorphine) recognised the state of his friend with the blue lips, crumbled up one of his tablets and placed it under the tongue of his unrousable colleague. The subject woke up "all angry" within 10 minutes....
We all know of the paradoxical antagonism of buprenorphine at dose initiation, and this of course makes sense.... I wonder if we can make better use of this "off piste" use of buprenorphine?
