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Methadone To Quit H Or No Methadone To Quit H ?


Posts: 1
Joined: November 1, 2018


Posted: November 1, 2018, 7:33 PM
Hello , I am new on this board. I was looking for a support group online to have someone to talk to and get advice before I completely lose my mind. The past week has been nutz! So to give some background on my story, I've been on and off pain killers for the past 15 yrs and then in 2017 I went through a divorce , lost everything because of depression. Long story short , I ended up back on pills because I do have chronic pain with a back injury , the pain is unbearable many days, I have a difficult time even walking around the store for very long and I have to sit down.

With that said so I fell off again on the opiates and being depressed I just kind of sank into it all feeling lost and alone until one night I was pulled over on the side of the road and this gentleman asked me if I needed help? That is how I met my current boyfriend. So him and I both had a lot in common, both out of work, both had chronic pain, both of us had gone through a divorce that left us shattered. AS the saying goes " Misery loves company, " isn't that the truth. So this was back in April 2018 when we met and both of us trying to support our pill habits became expensive because we'd run out of our scripts and buy from mutual friends. By the end of May 2018 , we started smoking H , mainly only between our scripts to get us by until our next refill. Now fast forward to today November 2018 , we find ourselves smoking every day and even when we have our meds. Last week however I had this idea that we could quit with methadone and since we've been trying to quit and haven't had much success I thought why not, what could it hurt right ? So on the past Tuesday of this week 3 days ago, we admitted into a methadone clinic , paid the 90 bucks for the week and we got our first dose on Tues morning. Wed morning, I woke up in horrible w/d , I went down to the clinic and got my 2nd dose , thinking it would take away the w/d symptoms I felt ...nope! Sure didn't ...so I called and spoke with a nurse at the clinic and she explained to me about how it doesn't work instantaneous and how it has to build up in your system and so on. So that explains why the Doctor during my admission appt told me most people will use during their first week on Methadone. I was thrown off when he told me that but now I know why!

So yeah we ended up smoking again on Wednesday and it drove me crazy since the methadone blocks receptors I couldn't feel anything at all, the pleasure part of it was completely gone. I thought no wonder this works, you don't have any desire to use on methadone. We smoked on and off Wednesday but we felt so weird , didn't feel good at all. So I began to read and ask around about it and I found that you can become hooked on methadone in a matter of a couple weeks and see we only had plans to use it to get through the withdrawl part of it but from what I understand even at 90 milg you can have a horrible hard time tapering it off , we were started out at 40 mg and over a week would be increased to 100 mg.

Every post I read where someone had experience with w/d from H and w/d from Methadone read that if they had known they would have just went trough w/d from H and never got on the methadone. From my understanding it takes weeks or more to get off methadone and the pain is 100x worse and so on....so in reading this I've completely scared myself into stopping this whole idea and so today Thursday we didn't go to the clinic to get our dose. Instead we got some H and smoked a little in the morning. The methadone is finally wearing away now it's been over 36 hrs since the last dose . I've started to read up on how to taper off H and then quit it. I'm looking for anyone who has any advice on this whole thing with the methadone and does anyone have any experience "weaning" off H ? Since we started smoking to current , it's been 6 months and between the 2 of us on average we may smoke 1 - 2 grams a day , some days less and in a given month there's days we don't smoke at all because we have our pain meds so we just take those. Does anyone know how long the w/d symptoms would last for? I've been through w/d from opiates before and I recall after a week or so but I've not carried it through on H yet .....I'm scared :(

So I told my boyfriend we should just cut down on the amount we're smoking per day and taper it , and then stop. I hope this works. He wants to continue the methadone but I told him after the horror stories I've just read I really think that we'd be trading in one for the other and the methadone is going to be much much worse But Any information you can share with me would be much appreciated. Thank you and God Bless you. Noelle



Posts: 4
Joined: December 16, 2018


Posted: December 17, 2018, 4:26 PM
Give the MAT program a chance...what do you got to loose? They explain everything to you and you will learn that methadone isn't replacing one drug for another. Think about it... Your smoking heroin. Methadone is prescribed by a medical professional to help you from getting sick and to get and keep you clean. Don't let other people's opinions keep you from recovery and saving your life. I had the same thoughts to at first and now I think completely different. I'm grateful for the MAT program that's what works for me. Everyone's different and it's what's going to work for you. Have a blessed day and I hope to hear from was a help in some wsy


Posts: 2
Joined: December 12, 2018


Posted: December 20, 2018, 7:11 AM
Good job! i like your post!
Bryan






Posted: April 9, 2019, 4:01 PM
I was addicted to painkillers for years and years and I realized that the pills only last about 4 good hours and then the prices are crazy, so I figured it was time to get help. My best friend had been going to the methadone clinic for a couple of years and he said that the first 30 days is free and they start u out at 5mg liquid. Now everyday I have to fill out the paperwork for going up on mg and answering questions about the withdrawals and how bad they are that day. Well a few months ago I was at 115mg, passing all the drug tests and I can also say the methadone works great for pain and it last a day and a half. I screwed up by not weening off the methadone when I lost my job because of my epilepsy. Luckily I am prescribed Xanax and they help to sleep and calm down the restlessness.
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