Dennyfan, CZZ74, Mslday,
I spoke with my doctor today about the Suboxone. Here are as few sites.
If you just put in the search for " Suboxone for pain Uk", Canada, Australia, US etc, you will get some information to be able to make a more informed decision. A lot of meds were used for something different in the beginning, Botox is just one of many. Which by the way is now also beginning used for pain treatment. It was first used by optomologists. When used in withdrawal, Suboxone, they found was giving the patients pain relief as well, with less side effects.

http://www.suboxonedoctor.com/articl...ain.html<br />1UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, 2The Pain Institute at Little Company of Mary, Redondo Beach, CA, and 3Friends Research Institute, Inc., Los Angeles, CA


Presented at 3rd World Congress, World Institute of Pain, September 21-25, 2004

“Pain Advances in Research and Clinical Practice,” Barcelona, Spain.



AIM OF INVESTIGATION: Managing opioid dependent patients with chronic pain is challenging and hampered by limited treatments. We explored buprenorphine sublingual tablets (BUP) for treating 65 opioid-dependent patients (34 male) with chronic severe pain at a multidisciplinary pain management center in Redondo Beach, CA.



METHODS: Patients received medical and psychological assessment at entry. Open-label treatment included maintenance or medically-supervised withdrawal using BUP over varying periods of time, urine drug screening, on-going pain assessment using a

0-10 rating scale, monitoring of adverse events and centralized case management. Concomitant medications were prescribed according to medical and psychiatric disorders. Patients averaged 47 years old (range 18-87), 6.4 years of opioid dependence (range 0.25-30) and prior treatment attempts for opioid dependence had been unsuccessful. To control pain, all patients used prescription opioids (legally and illegally) and 5 also used heroin. Pain ratings at initial evaluation averaged 6.5 ± 0.2 (SEM). Common comorbid disorders included depression, anxiety, and musculo-skeletal maladies. All patients had stopped using opioids before starting BUP 2 mg and BUP 8 mg tablets, two to four times per day, were prescribed according to patient need. Maintenance doses averaged 14.7 ± 1.1 (SEM) mg/day and maintenance is ongoing in 81% of patients.



RESULTS: Average pain ratings declined to 2.9 ± 0.3 (SEM) on maintenance BUP, and ongoing medical and non-substance abuse-related psychiatric problems were stabilized.



CONCLUSIONS: BUP therapy safely and effectively managed opioid-dependent Pain patients with comorbid chronic severe pain and reduced their pain ratings. Additional controlled research is needed to evaluate BUP for treating these opioid addicted patients.

http://www.patient.co.uk/showdoc/30002448/
http://painandaddiction.com/4abstracts2162006.htm

There is alot more info out there. When you do a search on Medicine you have to go further into the search. The drugs companies with their money will have all of the first few pages. If there is say..1 of 7777000 go to page 20.
Hope this helps! Having RSD since 1989, I am totally open to research any avenue but surgery.....Tried that and it didn't work... Subcutaneous Upper Thoracic Radio Frequency Sympathectomy.
All the best
Diana