Brief Answer: Explained below Detailed Answer: Hi, Welcome to Healthcare Magic! Suboxone contains an opioid buprenorphine which is indeed a pain killer. So it is not that you have started a medicine which will be of no use to you. At the same time, your second doctor was also not wrong. Because of its specific receptor binding properties, buprenorphine is not as strong an analgesic as some of the other opioids. But since you have already been on opioids long enough to have developed a tolerance and I guess you must have been on a fairly high dosage to overcome the tolerance, the option of hiking your current dosage was not considered viable by your doctors. Hence they suggested buprenorphine, which provides pain relief but at the same time, is safer than your previous opioids as there is very less chance of respiratory depression. Respiratory depression is how people die when they overdose on opioids. You need not worry that you started Suboxone before the surgery. It has a long half life and if you cannot take your medicine on the day of surgery, there will be no withdrawal. Buprenorphine is also available as patches and injections which can be used if you cannot swallow the pills. You mentioned something about being surprised about not having withdrawal symptoms. I was not able to understand why you were expecting any withdrawal symptoms. Please let me know what you meant so that I can explain it. Hope this clears some things for you. Best wishes. Dr Preeti Parakh MD Psychiatry

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