Can bpd symptoms be helped with buprenorphine

Question

Daughter has occasional drug binges but not addicted
Borderline personality drives her treatment resistant depression
Psychiatrist suggests it is time to use buprenophine
Has it been used to treat borderlines?

Answer 1

At present, buprenophine is not an approved drug for borderline personality disorder. However, there is a certain theoretical rationale for hypothesizing its potential benefits in BPD.

BPD appears to be associated with insufficient production and/or activity of endogenous opiates in the body -- especially the activity related to the so-called mu-opiate receptor.

Therefore, the thinking goes that introducing an opiate that activates mu-opioid receptor might relieve some aspects of BPD. Notably, buprenophine activates mu-opioid receptor while blocking kappa opioid receptor, which makes buprenophine less addictive that classic opiates like morphine or oxycodone. This might be the rationale your daughter's psychiatrist had in mind when suggesting buprenophine.

That said, I am not aware of any clinical studies so far where the use of buprenophine as BPD treatment was actually investigated. So, while the hypothesis is interesting and perhaps even plausible, there is no clinical data yet on whether buprenophine actually helps in BPD and what the scope of benefits and risks of such use might be.

Answer 2

There was a little bit of research done mainly in Europe on buprenorphine and psychopathological disorders, including bpd. There seems to be some benefit - but there were only a couple of very small and very limited studies, so any firm conclusions are probably still unwarranted.
Here's the review: http://www.europad.org/journal/2006/Maremmani%208%281%292006.pdf