April 2, 2025

People in treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) who receive methadone or buprenorphine want more control over medication dosing, side effects, and discontinuation, based on an analysis of social media posts to the Reddit platform, specifically to the r/Methadone and the r/suboxone (buprenorphine) subreddits. A team of researchers who analyzed the Reddit posts proposed that addiction treatment professionals could help establish stronger consumer alliances and support better treatment outcomes by acknowledging consumer experiences with the medications.

The posts addressed three broad types of challenges related to taking medication for OUD, such as health care-related issues, medication-related issues, and treatment discontinuation. Those who posted to the discussions indicated detailed knowledge about dosage and tapering strategies for both medications.

Health care-related discussions included misunderstandings around appointments, prescriptions, bottle checks, using telehealth technology, and health insurance coverage. Medication-related discussions included withdrawal, cravings, dosage, side effects, and mixing methadone or buprenorphine with other medications. Treatment discontinuation discussions focused on protocols for tapering off the medications. About 20% of posts to the r/Methadone subreddit and nearly 15% of posts to the r/suboxone subreddit were about health care service topics, such as logistics and interpersonal issues with the clinic staff.

These findings were reported in “Medication Experiences In The Treatment Of Opioid Use Disorders: Insights From Reddit” by Alexandra Almeida, Mike Conway, David J. Grelotti, and colleagues. The researchers analyzed postings to the social media platform Reddit by people in treatment for OUD who are taking either methadone or Suboxone (buprenorphine) as maintenance medication for OUD. The analysis included 37,278 posts for the r/Methadone and r/suboxone subreddits (discussions on the topic) from 2011 through December 2022. The goal was to identify and characterize the challenges mentioned in the discussions. In total, the researchers identified 27 challenge-related topics for the r/Methadone subreddit and 34 for the r/suboxone subreddit.

The full text of “Medication Experiences In The Treatment Of Opioid Use Disorders: Insights From Reddit” was published March 13, 2025, by Society for the Study of Addiction. A free copy is available online at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.70022 (accessed March 30, 2025).