Buprenorphine dependence · Mexico City
Ibogaine Treatment For Suboxone Dependence
The month after you stop is the most dangerous month. We will not pretend otherwise.
Suboxone keeps people alive, and the research on what happens when people leave it is not comfortable reading. This page gives you that research first, then explains why ibogaine cannot be booked while buprenorphine is still on board, and what has to happen before a date exists.
The short answer
What is ibogaine treatment for Suboxone dependence?
Mu-opioid receptors occupied on a 16mg daily dose
Held by buprenorphineFree
Ibogaine treatment for Suboxone dependence is 1 physician-supervised dose, given on day 3 of a 7-day inpatient stay, but only after buprenorphine has been transitioned off under your own prescriber. It cannot be given while Suboxone is still working.
The picture on the left is why. Buprenorphine binds tightly to the same receptors ibogaine acts on, and at a 16mg daily dose PET imaging has measured it occupying roughly 4 in every 5 of them, and in some subjects more. Ibogaine’s best-documented effect is interrupting opioid withdrawal at those receptors. It cannot interrupt what is already being held.
A Suboxone case is therefore not a booking. It is a sequence, and most of that sequence happens at home with your own prescriber before you ever speak to us about a date.
- What it is
- Buprenorphine and naloxone
- The gate here
- Receptor occupancy, not your heart
- Before any date
- A prescriber-led transition
- Price
- $12,500, with 90 days of follow-up
Read this before anything else
Leaving buprenorphine is the risk, not staying on it.
We are a clinic that treats people who want to come off Suboxone, and we are telling you that the largest study of this question found the month after stopping to be 8 times deadlier than the time on it. You should know that before you read anything else we have written.
All-cause mortality, people prescribed buprenorphine
Deaths per 1,000 person-years. Longer bar means more deaths.
While on buprenorphine
4
First 4 weeks after stopping
32
Rest of the time off it
11
Source: Sordo and colleagues, BMJ 2017, meta-analysis of cohort studies. Buprenorphine arm: 3 cohorts, 15,831 people. The methadone arm, 18 cohorts and 122,885 patients, shows the same shape.
The danger is concentrated in a window, and the window is about 4 weeks long. Everything this clinic does for a Suboxone patient is built around that fact: the transition is slow, the follow-up runs 90 days, and the tolerance warning is given in writing and said out loud more than once.
If that figure has made you reconsider, that is a good outcome and you owe us nothing. Speak to your prescriber before you speak to us. The opioid overview covers what is the same for every opioid case.
The sequence
What has to happen before a date exists.
5 steps, and we only control the last 2. This is the part competitors skip, because it is the part that takes weeks and cannot be sold as a quick answer.
Tell your prescriber what you are considering
Not us first. The person managing your buprenorphine has your history, and the decision to come off an effective medication is theirs to advise on and yours to make. If they think you should stay on it, that is a clinical opinion worth more than anything on this page.
Transition from buprenorphine to a short-acting opioid
The published safety guidelines in this field are explicit that patients on long-acting opioids must switch to a shorter-acting one before ibogaine, because ibogaine can potentiate whatever is still in the blood. That switch is a prescribing decision, not something we arrange remotely.
Hold there until the buprenorphine has cleared
This is the step nobody can shorten and the reason we publish no day count. The field’s own guidelines work the same 4mg dose 2 ways and get answers a fortnight apart, depending on which half-life they assume. When the published models disagree by that much, the honest answer is that your physician decides, in writing, for you.
The cardiac and lab screen
A 12-lead EKG read by a cardiologist against written thresholds, potassium and magnesium, a liver panel, and a full medication review. For most Suboxone patients this is the straightforward part, for reasons the next section explains.
A written answer, then a date
Yes, not yet, or no, with the reason. Only then does a date and a deposit exist. If the transition has not gone the way it needed to, the answer is not yet and the date moves, with no penalty and no argument.
An honest ledger
What a Suboxone case has going for it, and against it.
Every other page on this site has the heart as the main obstacle. Here it usually is not, and the obstacle is somewhere less familiar. Both columns are true at once.
Buprenorphine is easy on the heart
A 2018 review of opioids and arrhythmia places buprenorphine at low risk and states it does not cause torsades de pointes. The cardiac screen is still run in full, but it is less often the thing that stops a Suboxone case.
It holds the receptors ibogaine works on
At a 16mg daily dose, imaging has measured buprenorphine occupying roughly 4 in 5 mu-opioid receptors. Ibogaine’s main documented effect cannot happen while that is true, which is why the transition is not negotiable.
You already have a prescriber
Most people arriving here have no clinician managing them. You do, which means the transition can be supervised properly and the after-care has somewhere to hand back to.
It leaves the body slowly
The long half-life is what makes Suboxone a good maintenance medication and a difficult one to time treatment around. Published models of the same dose disagree by roughly a fortnight.
No acetaminophen, no adulterants
A prescribed, dispensed medication of known strength. There is no counterfeit question and no liver load from a combination product, unlike the street-supply and combination-tablet pages on this site.
The withdrawal can be drawn out
Coming off buprenorphine is widely reported to be slower and longer-tailed than coming off a short-acting opioid. That is the experience the transition step is designed to manage rather than deny.
You are not in crisis
Stable patients screen better and plan better than people arriving mid-crisis. Decisions made from a stable place hold up better afterward, and the follow-up has something to work with.
Stopping carries a measured risk
The mortality figures above are the strongest argument against doing this at all, and they apply to you whether or not ibogaine is involved. They are the reason some people should not.
What you will read elsewhere
3 claims about Suboxone, answered straight.
If you have searched this subject you have met all 3. We disagree with the framing, and we would rather say so here than have you arrive expecting us to agree.
Suboxone is a trap, and maintenance is just another addiction.
What we would say instead
Dependence and addiction are not the same thing, and the difference matters medically. Someone taking a prescribed medication, at a stable dose, holding down a life, is physically dependent. That is not the same as the compulsive use the medication was prescribed to stop.
The evidence is that buprenorphine maintenance reduces deaths. Calling it a trap is a good sales line and a poor description of a treatment that works. Wanting to be free of a daily medication is a real and legitimate reason to be here. It does not require the medication to be the villain.
Ibogaine lets you skip the endless taper.
What we would say instead
It does not, and any clinic promising that has skipped the pharmacology. Buprenorphine has to be off the receptors before ibogaine can do the thing ibogaine is known for. There is no version of this where the transition does not happen.
What ibogaine may change is the part after the transition, which is where the published opioid research sits. It does not remove the weeks in front of it, and a clinic willing to tell you it does is telling you something worse than an inaccuracy.
One session and you are done with it for good.
What we would say instead
Every published study measures a reduction in use, not a resolution of dependence, and none of them isolates people coming off buprenorphine. Nobody can tell you what your odds are, because that study has not been done.
What we can tell you is where the risk sits. The mortality data points at the 4 weeks after stopping, which is precisely the stretch a single session does nothing to supervise. That is what the 90 days of follow-up are for.
The other half of the tablet
What the naloxone in Suboxone is doing.
This comes up on most screening calls, usually as a worry that it complicates the treatment. It does not. It is worth 30 seconds so it stops occupying space in your head.
Why it is in there
Naloxone is included to deter injection. Taken as intended, under the tongue, almost none of it reaches the bloodstream, so it is the buprenorphine that does the work.
What it means for treatment
Nothing on its own. The planning question is entirely about the buprenorphine, its receptor occupancy and how long it takes to clear. Naloxone is not what stands between you and a date.
Subutex and the injections
If you are on buprenorphine without naloxone, or on a monthly injectable, say so on the first call. The injectable forms in particular change the timeline considerably, and we need to know which one you are on.
The evidence
What is known, and what would change it.
No published study reports ibogaine outcomes for people coming off buprenorphine. The right column is what we would need to see before any of these claims got stronger, which is a more useful thing to publish than a confidence score.
Ibogaine interrupts opioid withdrawal
Withdrawal scores fell within 36 hours of a single dose across 102 opioid-dependent inpatients in a monitored facility (Mash and colleagues, 2018). It is the most consistently reported finding in the literature, and it is measured in people already off long-acting opioids.
What would change this
A series reporting withdrawal scores specifically in patients transitioned off buprenorphine, with the transition protocol described. None exists.
It reduces use in the months afterward
12 of 30 people reported a 75% reduction in opioid use at 30 days and about 1 in 3 reported abstinence at 3 months (Brown and Alper, 2018). Small, self-reported, no control group, and no breakdown by which opioid people came from.
What would change this
A controlled trial, or at minimum a series large enough to report buprenorphine patients separately from heroin and fentanyl patients.
Buprenorphine maintenance reduces deaths
This is the best-evidenced claim on the page, and it argues against what most visitors came here to do. 3 cohorts and 15,831 people show 4 deaths per 1,000 person-years on treatment against 32 in the 4 weeks after leaving (Sordo and colleagues, 2017).
What would change this
Not much would. It is a large meta-analysis with a consistent direction across cohorts, and we treat it as settled rather than as something to argue with.
Ibogaine is safe when the screening is done properly
A 2026 preprint covering 19,071 patients across 11 clinics under modern screening reported 0.03% mortality, with all 6 deaths in opioid cases. An earlier forensic review of 19 deaths found pre-existing heart disease or other drugs explained most of them.
What would change this
Peer review, which the preprint has not yet had, and independent verification rather than clinic-reported figures.
Ibogaine works for Suboxone dependence specifically
There is no evidence for this claim in either direction. It has not been studied, and the transition requirement means anyone treated was no longer on buprenorphine at the time of dosing, which complicates the question further.
What would change this
Any published study at all. Until one exists, a clinic quoting you a Suboxone success rate is quoting you a number nobody has measured.
Before you call
Score your own case honestly.
This is the section most clinics would not publish, because the first row costs us enquiries. Read it anyway. Every answer we give arrives in writing with the reason, and any deposit is refunded in full.
You are stable, well, and have no clinical reason to come off
If Suboxone is working, your life is intact and the only driver is dislike of being on a medication, we will usually tell you to stay on it. The mortality data is why. We would rather lose the enquiry than take a stable patient into the riskiest month of their life for no clinical gain.
Structural heart disease or a QTc above threshold with no correctable cause
The same permanent cardiac no that applies on every page here. Less common in Suboxone cases than elsewhere, because buprenorphine itself is easy on the heart, but the threshold does not move.
You want the dose without the transition, the 7 days, or the follow-up
There is no shortened version. The transition is pharmacology, not policy, and the follow-up covers the window the mortality data identifies.
Your prescriber does not agree with the plan
We will not work around your own clinician. We will talk to them, and sometimes that conversation changes one view or the other. What we will not do is treat someone whose prescriber is against it and has a reason we cannot answer.
You are on a monthly buprenorphine injection
The depot forms change the timeline substantially and the planning is different. Not a no, but not a case anyone should be giving you a quick answer about either.
You have tried to come off before and it went badly
Common, and not disqualifying. What we want is the detail: how far you got, what happened, and whether anything was being supervised. A previous failed attempt often improves the plan rather than ending it.
You have a prescriber who is engaged, and a reason beyond dislike
Side effects you cannot live with, a plan that always had an end date, or a clinical reason your own doctor supports. With the transition supervised and the follow-up honoured, this is the case we can work with.
Pregnancy or breastfeeding and anyone under 18 are a no on every page. The full decline list covers every dependence we treat, and the oxycodone page covers prescription opioids taken without buprenorphine.
Common questions
Suboxone and ibogaine, answered plainly.
The screening call costs nothing and there is no deposit until an answer is in writing. If the honest answer is that you should stay where you are, that is what you will hear.
- 01Can I take ibogaine while I am still on Suboxone?
- 02How long does the transition take?
- 03Will you tell me to stop my medication?
- 04Is Suboxone withdrawal worse than heroin withdrawal?
- 05Does the naloxone cause a problem?
- 06Does ibogaine work for Suboxone specifically?
- 07What happens in the 4 weeks after I stop?
- 08What does it cost, and what is not included?
Can I take ibogaine while I am still on Suboxone?
No. Buprenorphine binds tightly to the mu-opioid receptors ibogaine acts on, and PET imaging has measured it occupying roughly 4 in 5 of them at a 16mg daily dose. Ibogaine’s best-documented effect is interrupting withdrawal at those receptors, and it cannot interrupt what is already held. The published safety guidelines in this field also warn that ibogaine can potentiate long-acting opioids still in the bloodstream, which is a separate and serious reason not to dose through it.
How long does the transition take?
Weeks, and we do not publish a number. The field’s published guidelines take a single 4mg daily dose and produce answers roughly a fortnight apart depending on which half-life they assume, which tells you the honest range is wide. Your physician sets it for your case, in writing, before any deposit exists. Any clinic quoting you a fixed number over the phone is quoting a model, not your body.
Will you tell me to stop my medication?
No, and you should be wary of anyone who does. Buprenorphine is prescribed by your clinician and the decision to come off it is between the 2 of you. Our role starts once that decision is made and a transition is under way. If your prescriber thinks you should stay on it, we will usually agree with them.
Is Suboxone withdrawal worse than heroin withdrawal?
Different rather than worse. Short-acting opioid withdrawal is sharper and shorter. Buprenorphine leaves the body slowly, so the withdrawal is widely reported as milder at any given moment but longer-tailed, which many people find harder to sustain. That difference is exactly why the transition step exists and why it is managed rather than endured.
Does the naloxone cause a problem?
Not on its own. Naloxone is in the tablet to deter injection, and taken as intended under the tongue almost none reaches the bloodstream. The planning question is entirely about the buprenorphine. If you are on buprenorphine without naloxone, or on a monthly injection, tell us, because the injectable forms change the timeline considerably.
Does ibogaine work for Suboxone dependence specifically?
Nobody knows, and we will not pretend otherwise. No published study reports ibogaine outcomes for people coming off buprenorphine. The opioid research that exists was done in people already off long-acting opioids, and none of it breaks results out by which opioid people came from. A clinic quoting you a Suboxone success rate is quoting a number that has never been measured.
What happens in the 4 weeks after I stop?
That is the window the mortality research identifies, and it is the reason the follow-up is structured the way it is: weekly calls through day 30, then psychiatrist calls at days 45, 60 and 90. Tolerance falls after treatment, so an amount you once used carries a higher overdose risk than it did before. That is said at discharge, written into the summary for your own doctor, and raised again on the first call. Naloxone at home is part of that conversation.
What does it cost, and what is not included?
$12,500 for the 7 days and the 90 days of follow-up, the same for every dependence we treat. Not included: flights, the EKG and labs your own doctor orders before screening, anything your prescriber charges for managing the transition, extra nights beyond 7, medications prescribed after discharge, and family accommodation outside the facility. All of it is itemised on the pricing page.
Screening costs nothing
Start with the conversation you may not want to have.
3 questions on the contact page. A physician or nurse calls you back within 1 business day. Sometimes the answer is that you should stay on your medication, and you will hear that just as plainly as a yes.