On average, suboxone stays in your system for around eight days due to a comparatively long half-life of 27 hours. Still, it can linger in your body for much longer, which can lead to positive results on drug tests even weeks later in some relatively rare cases. There are many reasons why this substance takes so much longer than other opiates to leave the system, and many of them are why it has become such an excellent option to treat addiction issues. While there are some negatives associated with the medication, it has shown to have overwhelmingly positive benefits compared to other treatment options.
| Test | Saliva | Blood | Urine | Hair |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time | Up to 3 days | Up to 2 days | Up to 14 days | Up to 90 days |
What Is Suboxone?
Suboxone is the brand name of the medication buprenorphine. It also contains the medication known as naloxone. The medication is used to prevent patients from experiencing uncomfortable experiences of withdrawal. Buprenorphine is a partial opioid agonist that can reduce some of the urges of an addict by blocking their opiate receptors. The naloxone serves to prevent patients from feeling the effects of opiates, which discourages them from taking additional drugs like heroin or prescription medications that have been obtained illegally.
How Do You Get Suboxone?
Suboxone is one of the most preferred medications for addiction treatment, as opposed to other options such as methadone. It is illegal to take this medication without obtaining a prescription from a doctor, and not taking it as prescribed can cause significant problems, including death from respiratory failure. One of the reasons why it has become such a popular medication is that general practitioners can prescribe it without having to go to a center for additional treatment. It’s important to note that to have the best results, suboxone should always be prescribed alongside mental health treatment such as therapy, counseling, and medications for long-term effects.
What Are Some Of The Factors In Suboxone’s Metabolization?
The half-life of this medication is much longer than most other opioids, which means that it will potentially stay in your system longer as well. Weight, other medications, dosage amounts, and length of time taking opioids all can affect just how long the medication will be found in a drug test. The metabolites produced from the medication metabolizing in your liver are also tested for, and it is these substances that can create a positive test after the initial eight days.
How Do They Test For It?
There are multiple different ways that the presence of suboxone can be tested for in a professional setting. These include blood, hair follicle, urine, and saliva tests. While blood tests can be more accurate and can test for its presence shortly after ingestion, it is much more invasive, which is why urine and saliva tests are used more often. Hair follicle testing can detect some drugs for months after taking them, but it is considered less reliable than the other methods that are in use today.
Is Suboxone Right For You?
The benefits of suboxone are numerous, but several drawbacks need to be considered when deciding to use it for medication-assisted addiction treatment. Like any drug in the opioid category, it is possible to become addicted to it, which means that it can be abused, and patients will likely experience withdrawal symptoms when coming off of the medication. To avoid relapse and uncomfortable symptoms, doctors should taper their patients off of it under medical supervision instead of quitting the medication cold turkey. Like any other medication, no one should be taking it without a prescription or at improper doses.
