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  • AADD Moderators: swilow | Vagabond696

methadone, buprenorphine and other opioid pharmacotherapies

yeah, i would have assumed your tolerance would have adapted to that dose after a few weeks of being on it as well. weird.

i wouldn't go any higher than 50mg if you do dose with prometh. personally i start to feel the negative side effects from the first generation anti-histamines, esp prometh, once i start going over the recommended dosages - doxylamine succinate is the exception. it gets rid of the histamine and nausea but also makes me tired/lethargic in a sickening kind of way, wishing i'd not have dosed in the first place. i'd stick to travacalm (or other 2nd gen anti-histamines) if you experience this.
 
How many other maintenance patients at clinics not community pharmacy's got put on the bretho yesterday morning after the AFL G.F. day before ? at my clinic you had to blow 0.00 before you could get any dose at all wonder how many got refused ?
 
^ I had no idea they even did that, what's the reason..? It seems ridiculous to me, someone not getting their dose is going to cause nothing but harm :|
 
Yea I totally agree I think the reason that they came up with was that dosing somone with a strong opiate like methadone/bube/suboxone + possible benzos I know that currently I am prescribes 7.5mg Diazapam that you could possibly OD good luck it would take considerably more than that to OD me personally but I know the 3 combined can be deadly as I lost a mate only last month from mixture of Oxy+Xanax. So I have a really mixed opinion on this practice?? But I totally agree that not dosing someone there prescribed medication can cause nothing but harm !
 
Yeah...I did consider the possible interactions between maintenance opioids and alcohol. TBH I'm not too familiar with the danger here, and I've always considered the contraindication of alcohol and maintenance opioids a precaution rather than a serious concern. I'd be grateful for any information on the real risks of combining methadone/bupe with alcohol.

Either way, having to test 0.00 seems to be a punitive measure rather than an attempt at HR. Do you know if people were allowed to come back later if they blew a reading?
 
footscrazy said:
Either way, having to test 0.00 seems to be a punitive measure rather than an attempt at HR. Do you know if people were allowed to come back later if they blew a reading?
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Yeah, having to blow 0 is ridiculous. They used to pull out the breathalyser every now and again at my old clinic, but you just had to be below the legal limit.

A. <3
 
they would have definitely implemented it in for those who maybe got a little loose throughout the weekend on the piss as an attempt to protect those, who likely wouldn't have said anything in prevention of further discrimination of already being a junkie/dope fiend, who may have been at risk of overdosing. i personally support this from the little knowledge and reading i did.

footscrazy said:
Either way, having to test 0.00 seems to be a punitive measure rather than an attempt at HR. Do you know if people were allowed to come back later if they blew a readin
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i certainly hope so otherwise my view on the matter would flip instantaneously. what would give them the right* to refuse after sobering up - how is it any different to any other citizen having a few and blowing over the next day, right?

*power trip/abuse
 
Yes I'm pretty sure that if you did hapen blow over 0.00 they would tell you to go home or sit in waiting room drink plenty of water have a snooze or what ever & come back I asked around to see if anyone was refused but couldn't find anyone.
 
I have my appt early november.

Today it's chemist shopping for codeine. *hangs head in shame*

Hopefully I can get put on the buprenorphine or methadone. My codeine dose is at 1+ gram, and I can tell you that 400mg saturation limit is bullshit eh.
 
^ Why do you want to go on maintenaince for codeine? I think getting on bupe in my situation was overkill too, but I just see getting on maintenance for a codeine habit as making things worse in almost every respect.
 
footscrazy said:
^ Why do you want to go on maintenaince for codeine? I think getting on bupe in my situation was overkill too, but I just see getting on maintenance for a codeine habit as making things worse in almost every respect.
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I was put on methadone for codeine use, 9years now so but don't do much :(
 
footscrazy said:
^ Why do you want to go on maintenaince for codeine? I think getting on bupe in my situation was overkill too, but I just see getting on maintenance for a codeine habit as making things worse in almost every respect.
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There are legal reasons I am limited to codeine use, Each daily dose (1+gram) is costing me almost as much as a H hit would. I can't turn to anything else for legal reasons. Nor can I say any more, apart from Yes, I am drug tested. and Yes, I have a problem.

It's not a habit by any means... It's a physical (and mental) addiction, I can't really admit to anything here but let's just say codeine hasn't been my only problem that I've struggled with.
 
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I guess I'm wondering what you're hoping to achieve by being on maintenance. In the codeine thread you said you were 3 days clean which suggests to me the problem is predominantly psychological - as codeine addictions mostly are, as the physical wds are unlikely to be severe. I just feel that the main benefit of being on maintenance is to avoid the physical wd, rather than deal with the mental side. I've found bupe surprisingly good for cravings but even so, if you want to get high every day, maintenance is unlikely to take that feeling away. I guess my worry is that you'll get on maintenance, it wont do anything for your cravings and you'll still be seeking a high - but the maintenance will raise your tolly so that that's that much harder/more expensive to achieve, and eventually you're going to have to face withdrawals that are incomparably more severe than you ever would have had just sticking to the codeine.
 
^ maintenance can be a real bitch, coming of methadone was one of the worst experiences of my drug taking career. It sounds like you're just exhausted with addiction and need a mental break stato, im sure so many of us can empathise with that, i sure can. I went on methadone as a last ditch effort to sort my shit out, i was so exhausted with trying to maintain my habit and getting on the program was a huge sigh of relief. I keep swinging back and forth with feelings about OST, it helped me so much in some ways but really fucked me over in others and I think there are times when people should seriously consider whether or not they should go down that path, especially of they're not heavily physically and mentally addicted to strong opiates like smack, trading codeine for methadone probably isn't worth it in the long run. But I think I know how you're feeling, if not maintenance then what? If you feel like you're seriously about to crash and burn then definitely go and see a doc and talk your options over, it would probably be a good idea to get a referral to see a therapist as well if you intend to quit opiates, OST is kind of empty without support. It hard to know what the trade off you are making by swapping codeine for done/bupe will be but you should have a good think about what this can lead to down the track, it sounds like a good idea for now but it will cause you some significant trouble later. And be wary of replacing your current destructive addiction for another, once heroin was off the table for me I got a bad speed and benzo habit that was probably as bad as my heroin habit, I still had that hole to fill and I filled it with whatever I could use. OST doesn't just make your addictive behaviour go away I guess is what I mean, finding someone to talk to about those kinds of issues is key if you want to stop.

If you have any questions about treatment PM me man, I'd really like to help someone out who's in a bad spot and you seem like a good dude. I'm in the middle of hellish h and poppy seed withdrawal at the moment so I can definitely feel your pain. Fucking opiates!
 
Sorry Methadonia I've had to remove all the prices in your post to conform with our guidelines here. We don't allow prices for anything to be posted.

I hear what you're saying though, I'm paying the max you had listed there, and it's definitely a considerable expense for a poor student like myself.
 
The price seems excessive to me too, they defend it by pointing out that it's not as expensive as a street habit, but that's rather disingenuous I feel, the two really aren't comparable, both in terms of their effects and where you're trying to be at that stage in your life. I don't know, it just seems like the price isn't enough to be the determining factor either way in whether a pharmacy would be willing to distribute, but still manages to be enough to significantly burdensome to those who have to pay it while trying to change their lifestyle. I'm a student like foots and the cost I pay just to stay on bupe each day adds up to a significant portion of my income. I then pay probably that much again for other medication that I wouldn't take if I was still using strong opiates on a regular basis, and it starts to feel like it's biting into my financial wellbeing almost as much as a drug habit did.

Does anyone know more about the cost? Who does it go to? The pharmacy? The government? The health department? Does it help defray the cost of the maintenance program? Is it (as some have suggested) supposed to be a 'show of good faith' from the patient? I can't imagine it's possibly intended to pay for the medication itself, you can get a box of oc80's from the pharmacy for the same price as a single dose of methadone/buprenorphine.
 
crankinit said:
I can't imagine it's possibly intended to pay for the medication itself, you can get a box of oc80's from the pharmacy for the same price as a single dose of methadone/buprenorphine.
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apart from the ridiculously long waiting lists to get on a program in my region this is one of the main contributing factors that has me staying on my morphine and codeine scripts. i can get near an 8ball (3.5grams) of morphine for around the price of a single dose. and i don't have to rock up to a clinic everyday, avoiding all the bullshit stereotyping and crude treatment which is often associated with such places.

i get more respect and better treatment from the ladies at the needle exchange now then i was when i was seeing ATODS (they're joined together, same building) on a weekly basis for counselling related to my use. the snide, rude remarks (within earshot) have all of a sudden stopped, though, i don't doubt it still goes on behind my back after i leave.

i get a power trip walking in there when i see a certain psych who was an absolute ass to me who didn't want to help me in anyway, who i felt was going out of his way to send me even further down from where i was. walk in, smile from ear to ear and give him a "g'day, how are ya? me? i'm doing perfectly fine and getting the proper treatment i need from my gp". i can see him gritting his teeth, fake smile mumbling a "hey, that's good to hear, congratulations". i'm using needles again but my mental health is ten fold better from simply talking to my GP about my problems and not someone trained in that profession.

/sorry for the off topic rant.
 
^ (Cranky) I don't know for sure, but I spoke to my bupe doc about the price as like I said, mine is at the high end price wise. He said that it's upto the pharmacy to set the price, and he said that as I'm getting 5 takeaways a week there's really no reason for it being so high, which suggests to me that the price is a dispensal fee, to cover the time it takes the pharmacist to give you your dose.
 
which takes all of 2 mins and the oh so intensive clicking of a mouse, typing in a few things here and there...

they should try being put out on a work site doing manual labour for a day.
 
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