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2.7 Overall Rating

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Most voted positive review

28 People found this comment helpful

I was on Butrans Transdermal patch (also buprenorphine) but they were sweating off in the TX summer heat so I was switched to BELBUCA. I like it. It's a small square"film" that sticks to the inside of your cheek and dissolves within 30 minutes. I do that every 12 hours. It is simple and this medication works great. I highly recommend it! It is the one and only pain medicine I take. I have DDD i...

Most voted negative review

8 People found this comment helpful

Not gonna give even single star. Just wasted my time when I went to pharmacy for pick up.

Shared reviews and ratings

Sabri | 55-64 | Male | On medication for 2 to less than 5 years | Patient
2/3/2024
Condition: Chronic Pain
Overall rating 2.0
Effectiveness
Ease of Use
Satisfaction

First of all very expensive second it is effective but not worth it ! Why Because So Dangerous ! Yes after I took Belbuca for two years I Lost thirteen teeth yes now I have sever back pain and severe tooth pain! I went to the Dentist specialist and He asked for twenty thousand Dollars to fix my teeth. Don't ever take it for long time !

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Jpronch | 65-74 | Female | On medication for 5 to less than 10 years | Patient
1/29/2024
Condition: severe chronic pain requiring long-term opioid treatment
Overall rating 3.7
Effectiveness
Ease of Use
Satisfaction

So much better for a rec pain med than pills. Fewer withdrawal symptoms. Although absorption varies greatly so may not cover pain all the time so well. Also film always sticks to my teeth.

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Rrcsellers | 45-54 | Female | On medication for 1 to less than 2 years | Patient
1/12/2024
Condition: severe chronic pain requiring long-term opioid treatment
Overall rating 3.0
Effectiveness
Ease of Use
Satisfaction

I am supposed to be on palitive care. I was referred to a “pain” doctor. I was started on a buprenorphine patch at 7.5 mcg. And was also started on 75mcg. Of Belbuca. Then after several months of suffering in severe pain, upped to the next highest which for me was 7.5/hr. And after over a year.. as of today started on 300 mcg. Of Belbuca. I’m still sufferInc in severe pain after over a year. And all they do every few months is raise my dose of Belbuca. Why am I on two different patches that are buprenorphine? And still have to suffer in this kind of pain at end of life? I’m not being heard!Read More Read Less

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Jeff | 55-64 | Male | On medication for 1 to 6 months | Patient
12/25/2023
Condition: Chronic Pain
Overall rating 3.3
Effectiveness
Ease of Use
Satisfaction

After suffering with chronic pain for two years, I started to seek help from a pain management Dr. Started with Vicodin, next was Oxycodone, then Morphine.None of these medications yielded much relief.Finally she prescribed BELBUCA. She started me on 300 mcg. Worked better than all the rest. We decided that I should try the next higher strength, 450 mcg. I experienced a very bad reaction. Extreme stomach pain and cold sweats. Never took it again. I really thought I had found something that might change my life.Read More Read Less

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Oosa.Talks | 45-54 | Female | On medication for 1 to 6 months | Patient
12/21/2023
Condition: Chronic Pain
Overall rating 2.0
Effectiveness
Ease of Use
Satisfaction

I am on my 3rd month of being on Belbuca. This is my first week of 300mcg twice a day, and I started on 150mcg twice a day. Prior to Belbuca I was on Buprenorphine sublingual tablets, before that Suboxone (reacted badly to naloxone), and before that the transdermal patch Butrans, which gave me horrible rashes where the medicinal patch sat, and the adhesive would come off a day into my week. My best pain relief was 5+ years ago on Buprenorphine Sublingual with Tramadol 50mg between doses. My pain is from a combination of Anklosing Spondylitis (autoimmune bony growth spurs), Osteoarthritis/Degenerative Disk Disease, Fibromyalgia and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (benign hypermobile type). One day my insurance told me I couldn't have both Tramadol and Buprenorphine, so I chose the Buprenorphine. My new insurance won't cover Buprenorphine sublingual, even with a prior authorization, and they cut me off on day 1, cold turkey, so I went through hellish withdrawals WHILE also having dental abscesses and a large kidney stone and swollen kidney and ureter!!! The ER and dentist gave me the lowest mg of hydrocodone and oxycodone, which is like taking nothing at all for me. My pain doc put me back on Tramadol, but even after success with it for many years, I ended up having to discontinue it because of serotonin syndrome! Funny how our body's betray us and change in such a short time. October is when I started the Belbuca. I do think it works BUT I am having a heck of a time getting them to stick to my cheek properly! Yes, I do yellow towards the cheek and white with the writing towards my finger, but it doesn't seem to matter. When it does stick, it rolls or bunches up into a blob, OR it'll stretch out and morph across my inner cheek all broken and weird. I'd say 30% of the time I have to unstick it from my finger and attempt to restick, which it doesn't work. Tonight I gave up and shoved that little ball of goo between my lower lip and gums and came looking for answers or alternative placement. It's a shame, because the 300mcg film is half the size of the 150mcg, which makes zero sense! It has a pleasant minty taste, unlike the nasty bitter orange of Suboxone and Buprenorphine SL. But I can't gauge how much I've actually absorbed based on trying to reapply it, having it roll and ball up, stretching out and breaking, etc? *Note: I also have Sjogren's, and extremely dry mouth. I've lost 8 teeth in the last year due to that and/or previous Buprenorphine SL use. I saw a class action lawsuit about it, and never would have guessed my pain med caused that! In addition to the dry mouth (and eyes and skin) of Sjogren's, I also have a deviated septum, sinus polyps and am a literal mouth breather, which dries everything out worse, and I take allergy meds daily, which also are drying. The boxes of Belbuca state that it should take up to a half hour to dissolve/absorb completely, but I've had it taken 45 - 75 minutes before! It's very hard, if not impossible, for me to go so long with my mouth closed, and not drink anything!!! My rheumatologist prescribed a pill to increase moisture in my eyes and mouth, but it also makes me sweat worse than I normally do. Can't seem to win either way! I also take Advair inhaler, Humira, Methotrexate, folic acid, esomeprazole, and Gabapentin for various issues. I'm 47 years old, female, postmenopausal. My current med list is only a quarter of what I was on last year and years prior, as I felt worse side effects from a lot of them than I did the actual conditions themselves, and wanted to take a break and reduce the amount of meds I was on. I'm sure all of my issues and issues I've had with various meds over the last 30 years make it difficult for doctors, but I would love to find a holistic doc that would look at all of it together and see what they say. My insurance won't cover it - I'm disabled and on Medicaid (which I'm grateful for because I don't have co-pays) - so I'm kind of at a loss and so tired of suffering! IRead More Read Less

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Karen | 65-74 | Female | On medication for 6 months to less than 1 year | Patient
12/19/2023
Condition: Chronic Pain
Overall rating 3.0
Effectiveness
Ease of Use
Satisfaction

It sticks on teeth often which makes it useless for pain relief for 12 hours. It’s also extremely expensive.

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Joanoa | 35-44 | Female | On medication for 2 to less than 5 years | Patient
11/30/2023
Condition: Chronic Pain
Overall rating 4.0
Effectiveness
Ease of Use
Satisfaction

I’ve been on belbuca films for maybe three years. I am in a wheelchair and can’t walk without pain meds. My bones dislocate with even slight pressure. I’m in unbearable pain in morning from 3 am on. So I take hydrocodine 30 mgs a day and then added the belbuca (to reduce hydro to 30). Belbuca gave me zero side effects and i am highly sensitive to all things esp meds. I started with 50 or 75 and worked up to 150 then 200 maybe and every week maybe up to 300. that helped a lot. A year later it wore down and i went to 450. a year later that wore down and i went to 600. 600 has been working now for a year. I have no addictions issues because my pain is deathly and addiction causes people to suffer in excruciating pain. People who take meds for fun are killing people. Drs who hold back meds and suspect people are cruel. Lawmakers making stupid laws to save one addict yet make dozens or hundreds suffer utter pain as they waste away are truly guilty of worse than murder…torture. The worst torture there is they are guilty of. Those addicts would just find something else. Want to know who are the addicts? They drink, smoke, poss have a tattoo, and may or may not have a decent job, they eat fast food, and have bad finances. You can test their blood for alcohol, nicotine, and drugs. If someone is truly in pain they would quit those for pain meds. If they can’t quit they are an addict u shouldn’t give that stuff to. Addicts should have to come in for their daily dose! done, crisis solved, millions saved. Read More Read Less

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Anonymous | 45-54 | Female | On medication for 2 to less than 5 years | Patient
11/26/2023
Condition: Chronic Pain
Overall rating 2.7
Effectiveness
Ease of Use
Satisfaction

PLEASE, PLEASE pay attention to what symptoms you have prior to use of these patches. otherwise you might not realize just how many and just how bad the side effects of this medicine can be. This is what happened to me. I was not warned before taking this medication of the possibility of having such bad side effects. As a matter of fact, I was told exactly the opposite and that most people had no bad interaction at all. When I did start noticing that things were beginning to happen that were new or that were worse then before, anything that I would begin to complain about or even question, the pain management Dr would just blame on my lupus or systemic scleroderma or one of the other pain conditions that led me there in the first place. And yes of course because of the opioid crisis, I am also one of the many victims that was punished for the lack of someone else's irresponsibility. My primary care Dr was forced to send all of his chronic pain patients to pain management, after the epidemic began. This wasn't something he was comfortable doing. As he thought it was better for him to treat the patients that he'd already been treating and had already established relationships with. He didn't like the idea of sending us to somebody new, due to the cruel treatment of exactly what's taking place to a lot of chronic pain patients now. Never the less I went. I will say I was allowed to keep using my pain pills twice in a 24hr period thankfully and I will say that yes I did notice a difference in my level of pain for several hours after applying the patch to the inside of my cheek. However, I never needed or wanted to add the patch to what was already working for me. The pain pills alone had been working fine for 5yrs prior to being forced into pain management. For some reason, the Dr would only allow me to keep using my pain pills if I was also using the pain patch 600 twice daily, along side them. Drug testing was done monthly to insure the use of both. Which that alone was an embarrassing experience in itself. This went on for almost 3yrs and during that time I'd become worse then ever in my diseases, or so I was told. And I would experience some of the worst pains, in my entire life on a daily basis. When the patches would start to wear off, my arms & legs would begin cramping so bad, until about an hour after applying my next patch. For one whole year I would be bed ridden, which had never happened before and my over all quality of life would decline. My mental health also began to fail, as I lost all interest in family and in everything. My teeth are now rotting and very painful as well. Along with many other things others have also warned about. But overall, these are by far the most extreme of the side effects that I had been suffering with and that's just what I knew about. Please if you decide to use these, do so with extreme caution. Read More Read Less

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Mike | 65-74 | Male | On medication for 1 to 6 months | Patient
11/5/2023
Condition: Chronic Pain
Overall rating 2.7
Effectiveness
Ease of Use
Satisfaction

Gets stuck in my dentures. Can I use under my tongue

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Connie S. | 55-64 | Female | On medication for 2 to less than 5 years | Patient
11/4/2023
Condition: Chronic Pain
Overall rating 2.7
Effectiveness
Ease of Use
Satisfaction

Occasionally, very difficult to keep film in place. Easy to swallow. Pain relief is fair. Belbuca is Very expensive.

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Gertie. D. | 45-54 | Female | On medication for 1 to 6 months | Patient
10/23/2023
Condition: severe chronic pain requiring long-term opioid treatment
Overall rating 3.3
Effectiveness
Ease of Use
Satisfaction

Belbuca has changed my life. I am off prescription Hydrocodone. My pain has subsided significantly. The worst part was the initial transition from Hydrocodone to Belcbuca, My dose was decreased of Hydrocodone for a month, then I started Belbuca. The only thing that is not cool about it is that the patches don't easily adhere to the inside of my cheek. I have to use a very warm water rinse to make it work. It is worth it though. My mind is clearer and I can do more things now that I am off opioids. Read More Read Less

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Daryna | 55-64 | Female | On medication for 1 to 6 months | Patient
10/19/2023
Condition: Chronic Pain
Overall rating 1.7
Effectiveness
Ease of Use
Satisfaction

Very sorry to say that Belbuca gives me no relief at all. When my Hydrocodone was reduced from 10-325 to 7.5-325 several times a day because of manufacturer's unavailability, my Pain Specialist supplemented me with Belbuca 150mcg every 12 hrs. It gave me no additional relief at all. It also gave me no side effects which was a good thing. In reading these reviews, i see many pain sufferers have raved about this med and just as many have complained about its ineffectiveness. I guess you just have to try it to see if it works for you. To all of you suffering constantly from agonizing pain like I do, you are in my prayers for your pain to be eased. God bless.Read More Read Less

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Lorraine | Female | Patient
10/3/2023
Condition: severe chronic pain requiring long-term opioid treatment
Overall rating 3.0
Effectiveness
Ease of Use
Satisfaction

I was started on Fentenyl many years ago because I can take oral pain meds. It turned into a horrible ordeal. I got off the Fentenyl and onto Belbuca. I've had severe back pain for 15 years, 2 operations on my back. 20 years of pain in all. All of my joints have been replaced--shoulders. knees, foot, very bad arthritis in fingers, wrists, neck etc. At least 10 operations. I've been on Belbuca films for about 2 years. I started with 750 mcg 3x a day. That was not enough. I still couldn't live with pain. I am now taking 900 mcg 3x a day. It manages general pain well but I still have back pain that prohibits me from sitting. I had ablation last week-burning of nerves in lower back. Don't know if that helps yet. I have a terrilble time with the films. They are especially large becausue of 900 mcg. They get stuck on teeth, melt and slide, break up, sometimes don't stick. I also get rashes that have gotten worse over time. I use milk thistle and other herbs to take down the redness. the films also make sores in my mouth. I use aloe gel to heal them. I have been using Nalexecon for more pain relief.Read More Read Less

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Nikki | 55-64 | Female | Patient
9/24/2023
Condition: Chronic Pain
Overall rating 4.7
Effectiveness
Ease of Use
Satisfaction

2 days in and iI like it. I was afraid to try it as only Percocet has worked and I've become tolerant, just going through the motions for a few years. Bad back/spinal issues, cervical surgery two years ago (ACDF). It's hard for me to walk even short distances without pain. I avoid movement whenever possible because it hurts. I live with pain. Full stop. All the other add-on's just didn't work. Lyrica, Ultram, Buprenorphine, Tramadol, nothing. This is working. I feel different and I'm moving more. I'm not focusing on my pain all day. I'm excited about Belbuca. I don't write medicine reviews. I mean, who does? My guess is dissatisfied people. That's I'm writing this. All those bad reviews scared me. I tried the film a month after I got it. It's working for me. I'm hopeful for continued success. I hope this review helps someone. I hope you feel better, too. Read More Read Less

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Barbarita | 45-54 | Female | On medication for 1 to 6 months | Patient
9/16/2023
Condition: severe chronic pain requiring long-term opioid treatment
Overall rating 1.3
Effectiveness
Ease of Use
Satisfaction

09/16/23 I have been taking Belbuca for excruciating Chronic pain due to small nerve fiber neuropathy. It has been Totally noneffective for Me. I use a 450mg dose Twice a day. I have begged my pain Dr to switch me.to Oxycodone but she won't. I will have to change To a different insurance e if I don't get.help. We are all entitled to Effective pain relief According to the WHO And AMA. It's a human Right. I have sent my Pain Dr 8 emails since Mid August and had 1 office Appt in late August regarding severity of my pain. She does not change Anything. I'll have one Appt in late September Re my severe chronic Pain. Not expecting anything. Then I will write a grievance to Whomever I should. I wonder if these docs Get some kind of kick Back when prescribing This med. No adverse effects because it doesn't even Relieve my pain Read More Read Less

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Doug A | 55-64 | Male | On medication for 1 to 6 months | Patient
9/5/2023
Condition: Chronic Pain
Overall rating 4.7
Effectiveness
Ease of Use
Satisfaction

Significant mental clarity after just one week after being on different doses of Oxycodone for multiple years. The Oxycodone began having no effect after about 2 years and Dr did not feel increased dosage was in my best interest. He was right. Belbuca does everything I need at this point after a knee replacement and needing the second done. It's a miracle drug with no withdrawal symptoms either.

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Bengy | 25-34 | Male | On medication for 1 to 6 months | Patient
8/15/2023
Condition: Severe Pain
Overall rating 5.0
Effectiveness
Ease of Use
Satisfaction

I had no side affects just no pain

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Rosie | 55-64 | Female | On medication for 1 to 6 months | Patient
5/26/2023
Condition: Chronic Pain
Overall rating 4.3
Effectiveness
Ease of Use
Satisfaction

I am new to Belbuca. I have an unususel situation for taking it. I have Neurofibromatosis 1 born with this. I have been told that when going to pain management. It can be very painful. On Fentanyl 100 mcg and oxicodone15 mg for over 10 yrs. When I did not have those meds I was in severe withdraw. My first Belbuca taken there was almost no withdrew but nothing I could not take without it. It’s is one thing to go to pain management for injuries another for pain you have when you’re born with any disease that cause pain. I recommend going to pain management they will get you to where you need to really live with no pain or something you can live with. So I am using the Belbuca and a pain pill for break through pain. Always get primer authorization for any of your meds your insurance will not pay for. As for now everything is working well. I will have to change the pills but the Belbuca is working. Try different strengths to see how that works. Believe me you will find something even if it is not belbuca with something for brake through pain. Be your own advocate just don’t give up.Read More Read Less

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Anonymous | 55-64 | Male | On medication for 1 to less than 2 years | Patient
4/24/2023
Condition: Severe Pain
Overall rating 4.0
Effectiveness
Ease of Use
Satisfaction

The film works well for me because I don't want to take pills,and the patch gave me rashes.

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S C Lawson | 55-64 | Female | On medication for 1 to less than 2 years | Patient
1/12/2023
Condition: Chronic Pain
Overall rating 3.7
Effectiveness
Ease of Use
Satisfaction

This Medicine is a little square that you put in your mouth against your check to fully dissolve, which can take anywhere from 15-30 min. During that time I try not to talk much, and you can't eat nor drink. It has a minty taste. It comes in an foil pouch that you need to cut open with sizzors and then gently pull a part to find the much smaller square. Pros: I like that it controls my neuropathy and a good part of my other pains. Too higha dose will really make me lightheaded, but I'm happy with the pain control. Cons: The little square has caused me some issues. While it is easy to use by putting the square against your inner cheek, I have had the film get stuck on my teeth, fall off the cheek and just get into a mess of a ball or roll up in a tube shape (and all this while I'm not talking, moving my tongue or anything), to the point where I end up swallowing the mess of a square. In trying to open them envelope, I have never been able to rip it open withy hands so I use sizzors. Then I gently pull the envelope open to find the square only to have it fly out of the envelope - then I'm hunting for it. Then pouch is about 10 times bigger than the square. I wish the squares were in the pill pocket type holder which would be easier to open and you see what your looking for. I understand that having the medicine dissolve in your mouth is better than having it go through the stomach but I don't see the advantage when it rolls itself up or becomes a totally sticky mess in my teeth. Good medicine but questionable delivery. Read More Read Less

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