Help? Feeling really depressed and miserable tapering off methadone

[Clarckent311]

One more thing. Marijuana does help a great deal. I'm lucky enough to live in ca and get med pot. Heres the catch. It must be a good clean indica. Don't go buy an eighth from some guy in a park. Poor quality weed, or any kind of sativa will make u feel worse. Also, if u can get ur hand on some good indica...go easy. A few puffs help a lot. Getting stoned as hell just makes lithe wd worse in the long run. And make sure ur getting plenty of antioxidants to account for the oxidation from the smoke. Take a few puffs, but the bowl down, and u will get a small serge of seratonin along with all of the pain management of a good indica. This is not a solution, but can offer brief moments of relief that will allow you to regain ir strength for the next push. A good indica, in slightly larger amounts, will also help u sleep. Don't do anything illegal. Move to ca. The warm weather doesn't hurt either!

 

[Swimmingdancer]

Sorry guys, I kind of forgot about this thread as I wasn't checking Bluelight very often at the time that I started this thread. Thanks for all the tips and sorry I didn't reply to some of you.


Actually I am feeling a bit better today than I was when I began this thread, which is something at least, although it does vary from day to day. I am now down to 4mg of methadone every 12 hours, which is a HUGE accomplishment for me, but it has been a pretty rough ride and I do still have a ways to go.

tokenname - I see you've gotten as addicted to Bluelight as I have Thanks so much for all your encouragement. That is the only thing that really keeps me going, the hope that someday it will get better. I have to believe that, otherwise I would just give up and go back on a high dose of methadone, which I really don't want to do.

Clarkkent311 - I am really nervous about using cannabis, as when i have done that in the past it made me feel far worse, but that is an interesting point that the effects may depend on the strain and how much you use. Thanks for all the tips about vitamins and supplements. I have quite a few and they do help (to a degree), but it's hard to remember to take them every day or to force myself to take a whole bunch of pills/capsules etc when I feel nauseous. I live in Canada so unfortunately I can't move to California or get American-style medical care (for example, a pain management specialist is very difficult to get an appointment with here, doctors here are also much more strict about prescribing opioids and benzos, and it's very hard to find a good doctor who is accepting new patients). However we can get medical marijuana here, and even if bought illicitly there is not really any danger of getting arrested for mere possession - weed is more socially accepted here than smoking cigarettes, lol. I wish the weather wasn't so grey and dreary here, I'm sure that it making things a lot worse. When is summer going to arrive??

Rose Petal - Yes I have definitely done a ton of work on my addiction. It's really not the methadone keeping me clean, it does nothing for my cravings or pain and I have been getting withdrawal symptoms for a long time (and as you may have noticed, methadone certainly didn't prevent me from using when I was first on it). All the methadone has done for me was give me a period of time where I didn't have to use just to keep from going into withdrawals, so I could use that time to work on my mental addiction and improve my life and my mental health. It is not a cure or even a real treatment for addiction, it just deals with the physical dependence while taking enough of it, so you still have to do the work. It is also helpful in that it is cheaper and safer and longer-lasting than heroin so it makes it easier to get some stability back in your life. That doctor I mentioned didn't know me at all and seems to have a lot of judgment towards anyone who is on methadone/has admitted to an addiction, and also seems to be of the mindset than any opioid addict needs to be on methadone forever. Thankfully I am back with my old doctor, who, while not all that helpful with much other than prescribing the methadone, at leasts knows and trusts me and is respectful and kind to me.

BananasAndOranges - How are you doing?


I still need to work on my chronic pain and my ADD. I have been trying out a lot of traditional and "alternative" therapies, which are helpful provided I can motivate myself to actually do them often enough I am trying to find a new GP who might be more helpful with treating the withdrawal symptoms and anxiety, even if they are not the one prescribing the methadone.

 

[Rebel Maven]

Here is what I call my “Rules of Engagement”:

It doesn’t matter what drug you are withdrawing from recreational or prescribed. It doesn’t matter what your withdrawal symptoms are. We are all going through the same thing if we are trying to get off whatever we are on and it is mostly physically, psychologically, and emotionally unbearable.

You can’t do it alone. You have to find support. Most of us don’t have any support, just family and friends that don’t understand or make us want to use more, and doctors who are profilers, oblivious, and clueless. I promise to be here for you for anything, anytime, always no matter what even if it has nothing to do with the drugs. I promise to leave you alone when you need to be alone. With your permission, I promise to watch over you and do my best to not let you sink in the pit of despair or let you give yourself a false sense of wellbeing. I expect nothing from you. In helping you to heal I am healing myself.

My best advice is to never ever give up and to keep fighting every moment in every day that you possibly can. Give yourself a break once in a while and then get up and start fighting again. You will think you can’t do it and you will never make it and sometimes you will fail. Accept that failure and get up and start over again. You will be sick of starting over again and again but you have to do this. It’s only for a while. It will end but not right this minute. It is going to take a long time. Stop resisting that and just accept it that no matter how long it takes and how high and low you get it will be over for good one day and you will never ever go back.

Swimmingdancer: I have been on this forum with you for only a few days and you have helped me more than anyone else has helped me in over 20 years. I can read your kindness and compassion in your posts to me and it is more than anyone has ever shown me in my life. You are a freaking genius and my former career is in biomedical research. When this is all over for both of us, or maybe even sooner if I get my brain back and you hang in there with me, we are going to sit around in our spare time (ha, ha) and write and publish research papers while also forming a support protocol for everyone who would be receptive to it. So come on over. It is a beautiful day, nice and cool, and we will go sit out on the back deck here at the ranch and have a protein shake, watch the animals and the clouds and laugh, cry, suffer, and rejoice together all at the same time.

 

[Swimmingdancer]

Wow, thanks so much Rebel Maven, your post really made my day

I am definitely feeling better now than I was when I made this thread, but it is still a long slow uphill battle and seems to get harder the lower my dose gets. Your advice is really good and I agree with everything you said. I have quit a lot of other drugs, both prescribed and illicit, methadone is the last hardest one for me. But I am feeling positive and hopeful. Being able to use my knowledge and experience to help others has been very rewarding and is also very helpful to me, if that makes sense. And I am learning a lot. I'd love to take you up on your offer someday.

I hope you have a beautiful day and I wish you the best of luck on your drug tapers. Thanks for your support. I also hope you stay in involved in Bluelight; please keep in touch and let me know how things go for you.

I am totally imagining hanging out on your deck with you, that sounds great You write very well and are able to evoke imagery and emotion with your words.

 

[8L4YN3]

I'm tapering down from 140mg of methadone, at 32.5mg right now. Been pretty hard, perhaps us methadone quitters should form some kind of support group. %)

 

[LeLa]

OMG, do i feel like shit. started on 80mg down to 35. Benzos are helping me sleep. I just mope around the house during the day,

 

[Frosta]

Perhaps you can you use Suboxone to get off methadone and then taper of Suboxone, which is likely to be easier.

Not fun. They would have to wait at least 3 days with NOTHING until they could transfer over. That's a bitch all in itself.

 

[LeLa]

Seriously, it's not fun. And if you even deceide to do it before...even worse. I mean if you're gonna go thru it for 3 days...dude go the rest of the way....that's how i see it.

 

[projump2001]

I am feeling extremely depressed and hopeless and would love some help and support with what I'm going through, especially from people who have actually been in this situation, and some advice on coming up with a plan. It is my goal to get off methadone (and all other opiates or other drugs that cause physical dependence) completely.

Some backstory: I have been on methadone for 10 years. I was using heroin for about 5 years before that and continued using it for about the first 5 years while I was on methadone. My highest methadone dose was 100mg/day. I eventually got down to 50mg/day and stayed at that level for a long time. I have recently started tapering down with the goal of getting off it completely. A few things about me include that I have an extremely fast metabolism in that the effects of methadone does not last me anywhere near as long as the "average" - at 25mg for example it would last about 9-10 hrs before withdrawals set in, and so I take my methadone twice a day. I have recently gradually gotten my dose down to 24mg a day and I feel sick, joyless and totally unmotivated to even get out of bed, pretty much constantly. Of course it's not as bad as if I just stop taking it altogether though. I cannot fathom how anyone could ever quit methadone cold-turkey, I would definitely kill myself if I had to. I also seem especially sensitive to withdrawal symptoms and experience worse effects than average, although I may have just been led to believe this by clueless doctors and people who stopped taking methadone after only taking it for a short time. If I even decrease my dose by like 2mg I can feel it, and the resulting withdrawals seem to go on and on and get only marginally better a month or 2 after each decrease in dose.

Anyway, it is huge accomplishment for me to have gotten my dose down this low and to be tolerating how miserable I am feeling without having an uncontrollable urge to run out and buy dope. Add on top of all this I have various untreated or poorly-treated health issues, such as chronic pain, injuries, mental health issues such as ADHD etc (not that I've not tried to treat them, just nothing has helped all that much). As much as I do want to be rid of being chained to a pharmaceutical (and at the mercy of doctors/clinics/lawmakers etc), this is having a pretty adverse affect on my life and my mental state. I'm not sure how much more of this I can take with no end in sight. I am also terrified that I will never feel well again.

Thoughts? Advice? Compassionate words? Anyone successfully quit methadone after being on it for 10+ years?

Thanks.

I guess i would be considered a success story. I was on methadone for about 8 years. I started at 75mg and i went down to 2mg over time. I started going down 5mg per every few months. when i got down to about 30mg i was going down 1mg every few months, sometimes i was on my dose for 6 months before going down 1mg.

In the process i was feeling weak but it was not too bad.. at one point i was down to 2mg and this is how i beat it. I would actually get 6 bottles to take home with me each week and I would use an eye dropper i bought at walmart. the 2mg dose was about 5 or 6 drops so i would take 4 drops and put the other two drops in a separate bottle. I managed to save about 100mg of methadone by doing this.

at one point i was taking 3 drips one day and 4 the next and back to 3. When i would go to the clinic i would have to take the 2mg 5 drops and this was a major flaw with the way the programs works..

One day when the fees at my clinic were going to go up i took the jump off the program. and this is what i did..

I went down to 1 drop per day for awhile maybe 2 or 3 weeks.. I was going to dilute the 1 drop into 4 drops of water and take 2 drops of that but before i did that, as an experiment i said to myself that i was going to stop cold turkey as 1 drip is about .2 mg.

what happened next will probably scare you a bit.. but this is how it went down..

when i stopped the .2 mg mind you that this is less than 1mg. I felt terrible for 10 days.. I just had no energy at all and had the feeling i wanted to sleep but sleep would never come.. what was keeping me going was the fact that i was getting off this drug once and for all.. i also noticed that when i walked outside the colors seemed more real and the wind and sounds were more natural, as if i woke from sleep and i was seeing the world in a new light.. Depressed and feeling miserable i found something real and that is what kept me going on this quest.

I was feeling so unmotivated for weeks on end.. i had not trouble sleeping but i was feeling blah. for months .. its been about 6 months and so far i seem to be back to normal, i do notice that i feel better as time goes on, so i dont know if i am 100% back to normal or not, but i can work and live my life free of this horrible burden.

my point is you need to come off this stuff very slowly.. just go down 1mg every few months.. you should go down so slow that one day you realize you are on 2mg as opposed to see it happen.. Once you are off it you will feel like you are of the same as the people who are not on it.. you will feel that your working with natural chemicals just as they are and you are in the same family..

 

[PlesantlyOpiated42]

Keep pushing through, I know its not easy but you can do it. I went cold turkey off 60mg a day because I couldnt afford it anymore and it was absolute hell. The acute withdrawl lasted about 30 days and I had PAWS for about 2 months after. I lost 20lbs in the first 4 days because I couldnt eat a piece of food and I could barely hold water down. The insomnia was the worst part for me I stayed awake the first 76 hours and then I would get an 1-2 hours of sleep for every 36-72 hours I would stay awake. Hang in there though, I got through it and so can you, things will get better!

 

[Swimmingdancer]

I guess i would be considered a success story. I was on methadone for about 8 years. I started at 75mg and i went down to 2mg over time. I started going down 5mg per every few months. when i got down to about 30mg i was going down 1mg every few months, sometimes i was on my dose for 6 months before going down 1mg.

In the process i was feeling weak but it was not too bad.. at one point i was down to 2mg and this is how i beat it. I would actually get 6 bottles to take home with me each week and I would use an eye dropper i bought at walmart. the 2mg dose was about 5 or 6 drops so i would take 4 drops and put the other two drops in a separate bottle. I managed to save about 100mg of methadone by doing this.

at one point i was taking 3 drips one day and 4 the next and back to 3. When i would go to the clinic i would have to take the 2mg 5 drops and this was a major flaw with the way the programs works..

One day when the fees at my clinic were going to go up i took the jump off the program. and this is what i did..

I went down to 1 drop per day for awhile maybe 2 or 3 weeks.. I was going to dilute the 1 drop into 4 drops of water and take 2 drops of that but before i did that, as an experiment i said to myself that i was going to stop cold turkey as 1 drip is about .2 mg.

what happened next will probably scare you a bit.. but this is how it went down..

when i stopped the .2 mg mind you that this is less than 1mg. I felt terrible for 10 days.. I just had no energy at all and had the feeling i wanted to sleep but sleep would never come.. what was keeping me going was the fact that i was getting off this drug once and for all.. i also noticed that when i walked outside the colors seemed more real and the wind and sounds were more natural, as if i woke from sleep and i was seeing the world in a new light.. Depressed and feeling miserable i found something real and that is what kept me going on this quest.

I was feeling so unmotivated for weeks on end.. i had not trouble sleeping but i was feeling blah. for months .. its been about 6 months and so far i seem to be back to normal, i do notice that i feel better as time goes on, so i dont know if i am 100% back to normal or not, but i can work and live my life free of this horrible burden.

my point is you need to come off this stuff very slowly.. just go down 1mg every few months.. you should go down so slow that one day you realize you are on 2mg as opposed to see it happen.. Once you are off it you will feel like you are of the same as the people who are not on it.. you will feel that your working with natural chemicals just as they are and you are in the same family..

This thread is from over a year ago and I am off methadone now, but thanks

FWIW I really didn't find tapering slowly to work for me, once I got down below a certain dose I just felt like shit all the time, no matter how tiny I made the dose cuts or how long I waited in between them (up to months) and I really wish I had just tapered it rapidly after that point. I honestly really think I did myself more harm than good by doing a slow drawn-out taper (like a ripping off a band-aid, I should have just got it over with). Obviously everyone is different, but because of my experiences I no longer recommend that people taper slowly if they get in a situation like I was where their brain/body doesn't seem able to adjust after they get to a low dose. I think it delayed my recovery a lot. The sheer endless-seeming duration of feeling like crap for so long has really ground me down and I feel like my brain is conditioned to feel this way now.

I have been off methadone for months now and I absolutely do NOT feel at all like how people who have never been dependent on opioids appear to feel or say they feel. Things do seem to be slightly improving but VERY slowly and it's an up and down, one day I will think I notice improvement and feel happy about that and the next I will be so depressed and in so much pain (or a cycle of that in the same day). Just trying to persevere, focus on the positive and do what I am able to speed up my recovery and not give up hope that some day I will feel happy and healthy

Keep pushing through, I know its not easy but you can do it. I went cold turkey off 60mg a day because I couldnt afford it anymore and it was absolute hell. The acute withdrawl lasted about 30 days and I had PAWS for about 2 months after. I lost 20lbs in the first 4 days because I couldnt eat a piece of food and I could barely hold water down. The insomnia was the worst part for me I stayed awake the first 76 hours and then I would get an 1-2 hours of sleep for every 36-72 hours I would stay awake. Hang in there though, I got through it and so can you, things will get better!

Thanks for the support

 

[herbavore]

Good luck, SD, you are doing all the right things for yourself and that always pays off, though sometimes the gains are only seen in hindsight. Change is subtle and slow and incremetal. Remember also that we live in a culture that teaches people that they are failures if they are not happy--the entire world of advertising is based on showing us that life is supposed to be one Hallmark/CocaCola/Corona moment after another and if it isn't we either haven't bought the right products or we are somehow different from everyone else and need to buy some fix or another. So people exaggerate how good they feel and hide their misery. I have found that simple appreciation for what is, in any given moment in my life, is much more meaningful to me than happiness. The wonderful upshot of that is that the appreciation frequently morphs into happiness after all. It feels akin to that old adage that you find love by not looking for it.

 

[Swimmingdancer]

Good luck, SD, you are doing all the right things for yourself and that always pays off, though sometimes the gains are only seen in hindsight. Change is subtle and slow and incremetal. Remember also that we live in a culture that teaches people that they are failures if they are not happy--the entire world of advertising is based on showing us that life is supposed to be one Hallmark/CocaCola/Corona moment after another and if it isn't we either haven't bought the right products or we are somehow different from everyone else and need to buy some fix or another. So people exaggerate how good they feel and hide their misery. I have found that simple appreciation for what is, in any given moment in my life, is much more meaningful to me than happiness. The wonderful upshot of that is that the appreciation frequently morphs into happiness after all. It feels akin to that old adage that you find love by not looking for it.

Thanks herbivore . I think that's all true. It's not like we get to see how other people truly feel inside and everyone's problems are different, so there is no point in thinking "why can't I just feel like a normal person?!?!?" because what is a "normal" person anyway? But it's still hard for me when I see friends who seem cheerful and energetic and appear to have no problem with things that I find hugely difficult, and many people don't understand what I am going through. Mental "illness" (for lack of a better concise term), addiction, pain, grief, etc are all invisible so it's hard for people to understand. It's not like having a broken leg where everyone can see it, can therefore comprehend that it must hurt and they don't expect you to be able to walk like they can.

The other thing that is hard for me is that the primary reason I quit opioids in the first place was because I wanted a different future, if I just lived in the moment I would never have quit, and I feel like I've spent a lot of time just barely surviving as opposed to truly "living" while getting off methadone. Hoping for the future is one of things that keeps me going, so I am having a hard time finding the balance between trying to not have expectations and to be ok with the present, yet still having aspirations for the future. I like what you said about trying to appreciate the little things in the moment. I'm actually having a tough day today because my mind keeps romanticizing how great my life was back when I was using heroin. Fortunately for me I have made it extremely difficult for myself to actually get any so that is a big help getting through weak moments where the irrational addiction lurking in the back of my mind tries to trick me into thinking that it would be a fine idea to use it "just once". But I am trying to focus on little things like having appreciation for the care and support of other TSD-ers or enjoy listening to a good song.

Ugh, and I am so hard on myself and so much better at giving advice to other people than I am to myself. Or I give myself advice but don't know how to actually put it into action.

I dunno, maybe I should talk about all this stuff in a more recent thread. I guess it's good to look back on older posts like my OP in this thread and try to see the subtle improvements over time though.

 

[thisisabsurd]

Hi SD - just thought I would drop in and say hello and congratulate you on kicking the BEAST!

I don't know if you remember me, but last summer I did a rapid taper off of a low dose Methadone prescribed for chronic pain. I did it because I had a drug test coming up for a very good job and I was forced to decide between disclosing the Methadone (which I didn't want to do due to stigma, even if just for CP) or quitting and trying to pass the urine test. So I decided to taper over 5 days in hopes of passing the test. Good news - I did pass the test and I got my job.

But what is MORE important is that you and others on BL took the time to respond to my neurotic posts and I learned so much about Methadone in general. I figured out for myself that I probably never should have been moved from Hydro to Methadone by the doc; Methadone was entirely too potent for my pain needs. And the miserable w/d that came with quitting, well, let's just say I wasn't prepared for it. I am eternally grateful that you and others shared your experiences, which prompted a very candid discussion with my doc that probably saved me a lot more grief down the road had I continued to take it.

So here I am - a year after you posted this and I am sincerely sorry I didn't see it back then so that I could have offered some support when you needed it most. I guess I was just so engrossed in my own physical/psychological HELL that I was just "stuck". I cannot say that I understand the long term effects of quitting it as my doc put me back on a low dose of Hydrocodone to control my pain after a few weeks of taking nothing (and luckily my tolerance wasn't shot from the Methadone). But I can say, and I am sure you already know, that you are one kick ass woman who takes care of her business.

From one former Methadone user to another - congrats to you and may you continue to see the small/large rewards of quitting everyday for the rest of your life!

 

[tabby33]

Hi all...I have been on methadone for ten years..highest dose wzs 80 and am currently down to 50. I am a rapid metabiliozer so by the next morning I am very sick. I tried to quit ladt week and 32 hours later I was so sick I couldn't walk..I was confused..couldnt think right or even see right....this was the first time I have went that long w out meth and it has scared me to death. Everyone keeps saying it gets better and u will eventually feel like u did before u took it but I don't want to feel that way because before I found opiates I was extremely depressed and had terribile panic attacks....noting ever helped but opiates...however my clinic charges $$$ a week and I am a single parent w two girls to care for and can't afford this any longer. I just feel so trapped and don't know what to do. I can't be sick forever because I have noone to look after my girls and I am caring for my dying mother as well. Thank u all fr sharing ur story because it does give me some hope.

 

[neversickanymore]

Nice work swimm