Opioids methadone duration, how long for you?

[tyler5]

hey fellow methadone/opiate users in general,

how many people are there around who genuinely goes into wd's after 16-18hrs while on methadone maintenance?
i get 100mg in the morning at 8am and get up every night at 2-4am and just sit and watch the clock every 5mins and try and waste the time with watching the tv untill it gets to 7.35am and i can start going to the clinic which opens at 8.
its absolutely fucking stressful. i mean the medication thats supposed to keep me well is not doing it.
is there anyone else that feels like theres no way mdone lasts 24h and more like 12h? i mean, to me, it would be perfect if i would get a dose in the morning and then one before sleep or something.
anyway, i hate the fucking waiting and fiending. its EXACTLY like waiting for the dope man to answer the phone or to meet with him/her. im just wondering - am i alone in this? what should i do? is there some kinda test that shows stuff like that, i mean whats going on in my body concerning this issue and all?
ive began to chip by using some fentanyl at night or before going to bed, cant handle sleeping 2-3 hours a night forever. so if theres no solution, its back to illicit opiates (which is only fentanyl, in my case.

and please dont suggest bupe. ive tried it. hated it and will not go back to it. it was absolutely completely placebo for me. it might have been 96hrs from my last smoke of fentanyl and i take 2mg of bupe and im still wd'ing like crazy. after the wd's subsided after about 5-6 days, there came the horrible paws and everything else horrible you can think of. it was seriously like a tablet filled with water but just for jokes there was written that it 'cures/replaces/ELIMINATES WD and cravings'. absolutely NO WD help from bupe for me, i waited 24hrs+ for the first tablet even though i was using 3mf (3-methylfentanyl) and i was in wd's about 2-3hrs since my last smoke. so in theory it shouldve been ok to take it after about 12hrs or so. but i waited 30 or 32 or something. nothing. just became worse. took another at the 46-48hrs mark. nothing, just worse. so i waited and wasted away. and after 6 days i said fuck it and went back to fent.

now ive decided to start with MMT only i find out that it doesnt hold me for 24hrs!

my life is so wonderful aint it 8) sorry for my english its my third language.

 

[80mg]

Hi. I've noticed your taking a designer drug 400-6000 times morep otent than morphine! As you can see while taking a drug SOOO potent your body would require a higher ammount or stronger narcotic to be well. My honest opinion is to tell the maintence worker the truth. They obviously need to up your dose or consider take homes for you. My advice is tohugh is to GET OFF THE OTHER SHIT. I had a similar thing withm y suboxone but it was only with oxycodone and heroin not what your on. You truly got my sympathy and I KNOW That waiting.

I do it once am onth when it;s time to get more suboxones. If I had too daily I'd go INSANE.

 

[bighooter]

40 ml usually lasts 24 hours

 

[Kid Amine]

you write English very well for it to be your third language!

anyway, I noticed you said you hated bupe (buprenorphine, subutex, suboxone), but the dose you listed (2mg) is WAY too low to kick a habit like that. Bupe docs here, from what I understand, will titrate your dose in the office, up to 32mg a day (they will not go higher as bupe has a ceiling effect of 32mg). Bupe sucks, no buzz at all, but imo it is infinitely better than methadone if you get the right dose. 2mg for the amount and types of opiates you were/are on - no wonder you were fucking miserable - just way way too little an amount, and only for one day?

I have no idea how hard methadone maintenance is in Estonia, but I know in the states it takes a LONG time to get "take-homes" of methadone (other than the days the clinic is normally closed. Bupe/subutex/suboxone is much easier to get take homes (prescription actually) and for me suboxone lasts well past 24 hours. Perhaps you can go in the evening time to get your methadone, or perhaps alter your diet? I know there are drugs that potentiate methadone, not gonna list them as mixing is dangerous.

I personally feel that it's a hell of a lot easier to get off of bupe than methadone. ymmv (your mileage may vary).

 

[drunken_etard]

I am in that same boat man. But Im only on 4mgs Im almost off! But even when I was on a higher doses up to around 60mgs I still woke up in w/d everyday wich is very unusual. No one I know wakes up sick at any dose over 40mgs. My doctor said its because I have a very fast metabolism. Hence the reason I take thyroid meds. Soo I feel you man. Sucks.

PLus I remember reading about your posts about how you were addicted to fentanyl and its sold like heroin in Estonia. Thats nuts dude! IT might take a little longer for you to get adjusted to methadone then say someone who was doing Hydromorphone/heroin/oxycodone. My reasoning behind this is that you were addicted to a very very strong opiode.

 

[80mg]

I would love to see a estonia oxycodone lol. But yes everyone here is correct. All great advice. And you type VERY good English for a third language. (actualyl should be very WELL haha see , better than me XD)

 

[doppelganga196]

Yeah man, i started methadone a couple weeks ago & am now on 55mg. I swer the full effects seem to last 12 hours then i'm in wd in the middle of the night & am taking loads of amitriptyline; which i thought was utter shit until i mixed it with methadone & found, for me, they have a fantastic synergy. You should maybe give it a go. Adds to the analgesic & sedative nature of the drug.

But still, just like you op, i'm waking up about 4 times a night, each time thinking its like 7 am whe in fact is about 3! & that's on 55 of methadone & 100 of amitriptyline...

I dont have time to read all the posts 'cos i gotta go out but i'm up for continuing this disscussion as i feel i'm in the same fucking boat mon ami.

 

[tyler5]

to the people saying 'just go later man, like in the noon or in the evening'.
well, yes, that would let me sleep better perhaps but i would stil be miserable about 6hrs before its time to go get my dose.
there are no take homes here. only for weekends (you get two bottles for saturday and sunday on your friday's visit).

im not using the dope right now, at least not every day like i used to for about 3 years and chipped for a few years before that. if i could get the methadone to work right for me now, i would say id do the fent maybe once every 6 months if that.

next time when im going to see my methadone doctor (i get the every day 100ml of liquid from a nurse whom i have to drink it all of in front of her). all the nurses-orderlies working at the clinic are 55+ and extremely jaded / just your average pissed ussr stereotype person. so no talking to them about maybe getting something for later inte day.
ive got to get the Dr. to understand that i have a crazy metabolism or some shit like that which is causing me to wake at 2-3am and from that point on its a wait till i can be there at 8am exactly.
how long does it take for you to start feeling the effects of your liquid methadone on a completely 100% empty stomach?
i would say about an hour and then it lasts for about an hour max and then it fades away to nothingness and pretty soon i get a feeling like i should be talking another dose soon. pretty depressing.

about the bupe: ive tried it in all doses starting with 32mg and ending with 0.2mg. it just doesnt work. id rather suffer with the methadone and perhaps work out something with the fentanyl if i cant get the Dr on my side in that i would smoke some fentanyl when i first start getting the wd feelings (about 2am-4am depending on the day).

my tolerance is pretty high, too. i drank 100ml of methadone at 8.05am this morning, did 5 stamps of fent in the evening and IV'd 5 stamps of fent in the evening. got basically no rush, feeling from the IV's although i cant say i never felt it at ll.
i still would do it again... but its too expensive.
from a gram <NO PRICE DISCUSSION> you get 28-32 doses/stamps/bags. thats how small doses are in each bag.
the average persons paycheck is <NO PRICE DISCUSSION>/month.
methadone treatment is free for everybody, whether you have health insurance or not. bupe is like <NO PRICE DISCUSSION> for 7x8mg tabs.

so bupe users get to come every 7 days, get their bupes, go to sweden or finland and sell theirs over there for 50€ a pop because those 'tards there IV it 24/7. its THE most popular thing there other than alcohol. used to be amps, now its just bupe, sniffed or IV'd (99% IV'd). they have some fent but nothing like us because here absolutely nobody abuses bupe, everybody considers it useless except selling it to the finns/swedes

- or the odd russians who want to wd by themselves - because if you didnt know - in russia, there is NO bupe and NO methadone.
the morale is: drug addiction is not cured with drugs! instead treatment should be and IS a ki nd of "for animals only" type of mental asylum, where they tie you to a bed, you get yelled at 24/7 by 55-66 yr old babushkas for being the low peace of shit 'narkaman' that you are, give you all kinds of weird anti psychotics and other types of drugs made in russia for the russians but NO benzos or anything of the sort, just lots of shit that is only going to make being tied up worse. the morale this time is: the shit is supposed to be SO bad that nobody ever would want to come back. (why would they, it costs something like <NO PRICE DISCUSSION>, to be "in rehab" in russia so only the top 1-3% of the population's kinds can afford this, other children's parents could NEVER afford this kind of luxury. that is equivalent to many a russians 1-2 months salary. tough life there. glad i dont live there even though its right across the border and we USED to be Estonian SSR (until '91, im born in '86). sorry for the offtopic bit in the end
russia even has its own benzo: i forgot the name but its basically diazepam but a bit longer lasting and has a higher dose but is otherwise the same. oh, phenazepam, right.

 

[Znegative]

man, I'm sorry to hear it.. I understand you were using fentanyl, which is an incredibly potent narcotic, but 100mg should be enough to hold you. I'm at 30mg of methadone right now (though I cam off of a pretty light dope habit, my reasons for MMT were more for the structure that I couldn't get from bupe), and it holds me great.

How long have you been on the program? I only ask because sometimes it takes a while (even up to 2 weeks) for people to stabalize on their dosage.

 

[Kid Amine]

<NO PRICE DISCUSSION> a pop for a (presumably) 8mg bupe??? wow.

If I can make a suggestion, can you get a bit more methadone, say, 120mg a day, and use your weekend take homes to get you thru the night? Right now you've got access to 200mg of methadone, unsupervised if you will, that you can take when you want. Maybe take half Saturday and half Sunday and use the other 100mg to get you thru the other five days of the week? You get 100mg at ~8am, you could take another 20mg at 8pm. Saturday and Sunday would be a bit rough, like 25mg in the am and 25mg in the pm, but it's an idea anyway.

 

[brutus]

Right now you've got access to 200mg of methadone, unsupervised if you will, that you can take when you want. Maybe take half Saturday and half Sunday and use the other 100mg to get you thru the other five days of the week? You get 100mg at ~8am, you could take another 20mg at 8pm. Saturday and Sunday would be a bit rough, like 25mg in the am and 25mg in the pm, but it's an idea anyway.

That's a horrible idea, but a great way to overdose.

 

[Kid Amine]

That's a horrible idea, but a great way to overdose.

Could you explain why please? I would never knowingly give bad advice, and Im lost on why increasing from 100 to 120mg a day is a "horrible idea".

 

[brutus]

^ Increasing your dose while on MMT without telling the doctor is never a good idea.

That extra 20mg could prove to be fatal to someone who currently has methadone accumulating in his body.

Coming from someone who has overdosed twice from methadone; methadone is no joke.

 

[tyler5]

That's a horrible idea, but a great way to overdose.

lolwut?!?! i think it is a great idea and how the hell can i overdose with this??
basically this user is suggesting that i up my dose to 120mg so i can save ~50mg from my two weekend takehomes and use that during the week. where in this suggestion is there an overdose factor?

btw, the first time i got the takehomes, i took 100mg at the doctors office, then another 200mg 5 mins later in the car, so i was on 300mg. didnt even knock me out and felt only a little high and that was when i combined it with benzos. the drive wasnt long, 10mins most, so please no mentioning of omg you are gonna kill everyone with that dose while driving.
as we know, methadone doesnt even start working after like an hour or so..

thank you for the advice! ive kinda been thinking of the same thing only in the sense that i ask that they give me 100mg at morning and then 20mg takehome every day so i can choose myself when i want to take the other 20mg.

but still, this post was meant to find out if there are any other people out there that dont get by 24hrs+ with one dose of methadone so lets get back on topic

 

[Znegative]

I know this is getting off topic now, but I feel compelled to respond to the above post.

Just because you dosed 300 mg, and didn't get high or die, does not mean that it is a safe thing to do. I did the same thing myself when I was on methadone the first time, I even mixed it with benzo's, and all that happened was I got really sloppy and my heart rate was really slow. There was no high to speak of as at dosages over 60 mg, the brains opiate receptors are too saturated to provide any pleasant opioid effects anymore, just the negative ones (resperitory depression, sedation, extreme constipation, etc..).

However, there was one time when I took the same dosage (300 mg of meth, 4 mg of xanax), and I fucking overdosed. Taking such a huge quantity of meth to begin with is super dangerous (and pointless as you wont get any higher), and adding other CNS depressants to the mix skyrockets your chance for OD.

As for the half life, according to wikipedia it ranges from 15-60 hours. If someone can find a more precise time range that would be helpful, but how methadone is metabolised varies from person to person. Are you taking any other drugs that may increase the metabolism of methadone?

 

[80mg]

to the people saying 'just go later man, like in the noon or in the evening'.
well, yes, that would let me sleep better perhaps but i would stil be miserable about 6hrs before its time to go get my dose.
there are no take homes here. only for weekends (you get two bottles for saturday and sunday on your friday's visit).

im not using the dope right now, at least not every day like i used to for about 3 years and chipped for a few years before that. if i could get the methadone to work right for me now, i would say id do the fent maybe once every 6 months if that.

next time when im going to see my methadone doctor (i get the every day 100ml of liquid from a nurse whom i have to drink it all of in front of her). all the nurses-orderlies working at the clinic are 55+ and extremely jaded / just your average pissed ussr stereotype person. so no talking to them about maybe getting something for later inte day.
ive got to get the Dr. to understand that i have a crazy metabolism or some shit like that which is causing me to wake at 2-3am and from that point on its a wait till i can be there at 8am exactly.
how long does it take for you to start feeling the effects of your liquid methadone on a completely 100% empty stomach?
i would say about an hour and then it lasts for about an hour max and then it fades away to nothingness and pretty soon i get a feeling like i should be talking another dose soon. pretty depressing.

about the bupe: ive tried it in all doses starting with 32mg and ending with 0.2mg. it just doesnt work. id rather suffer with the methadone and perhaps work out something with the fentanyl if i cant get the Dr on my side in that i would smoke some fentanyl when i first start getting the wd feelings (about 2am-4am depending on the day).

my tolerance is pretty high, too. i drank 100ml of methadone at 8.05am this morning, did 5 stamps of fent in the evening and IV'd 5 stamps of fent in the evening. got basically no rush, feeling from the IV's although i cant say i never felt it at ll.
i still would do it again... but its too expensive.
from a gram (which costs 240€) you get 28-32 doses/stamps/bags. thats how small doses are in each bag.
the average persons paycheck is <NO PRICE DISCUSSION>
methadone treatment is free for everybody, whether you have health insurance or not. bupe is like <NO PRICE DISCUSSION> tabs.

so bupe users get to come every 7 days, get their bupes, go to sweden or finland and sell theirs over there for 50€ a pop because those 'tards there IV it 24/7. its THE most popular thing there other than alcohol. used to be amps, now its just bupe, sniffed or IV'd (99% IV'd). they have some fent but nothing like us because here absolutely nobody abuses bupe, everybody considers it useless except selling it to the finns/swedes

- or the odd russians who want to wd by themselves - because if you didnt know - in russia, there is NO bupe and NO methadone.
the morale is: drug addiction is not cured with drugs! instead treatment should be and IS a ki nd of "for animals only" type of mental asylum, where they tie you to a bed, you get yelled at 24/7 by 55-66 yr old babushkas for being the low peace of shit 'narkaman' that you are, give you all kinds of weird anti psychotics and other types of drugs made in russia for the russians but NO benzos or anything of the sort, just lots of shit that is only going to make being tied up worse. the morale this time is: the shit is supposed to be SO bad that nobody ever would want to come back. (why would they, it costs something like <NO PRICE DISCUSSION> A DAY, to be "in rehab" in russia so only the top 1-3% of the population's kinds can afford this, other children's parents could NEVER afford this kind of luxury. that is equivalent to many a russians 1-2 months salary. tough life there. glad i dont live there even though its right across the border and we USED to be Estonian SSR (until '91, im born in '86). sorry for the offtopic bit in the end
russia even has its own benzo: i forgot the name but its basically diazepam but a bit longer lasting and has a higher dose but is otherwise the same. oh, phenazepam, right.

I read about Russian rehab. Ridiculous. It boggles my mind those sub prices. I see <NO PRICE DISCUSSION> TOPS for them here in NY. Shit. Almost worth a plane ticket haha. Anyway..I never thought this would be helpful...but why not USE one of those weekends...better yet two of those weekends straight so you have a little stock piled?

 

[tyler5]

i am sorry for coming across as a douche.
i was not trying to dicksize my tolerance and you are correct in that it was and is a dumb move to consume that much opiates and benzos.
and no, i dont take anything that might make me lose the methadone 'protection' sooner.
its like i feel it late in the evening, slowly, and then when i wake up i feel like im 'sober' and in slight wd (rls, cold in 79F etc)

 

[brutus]

lolwut?!?! i think it is a great idea and how the hell can i overdose with this??
basically this user is suggesting that i up my dose to 120mg so i can save ~50mg from my two weekend takehomes and use that during the week. where in this suggestion is there an overdose factor?

btw, the first time i got the takehomes, i took 100mg at the doctors office, then another 200mg 5 mins later in the car, so i was on 300mg. didnt even knock me out and felt only a little high and that was when i combined it with benzos. the drive wasnt long, 10mins most, so please no mentioning of omg you are gonna kill everyone with that dose while driving.
as we know, methadone doesnt even start working after like an hour or so..

thank you for the advice! ive kinda been thinking of the same thing only in the sense that i ask that they give me 100mg at morning and then 20mg takehome every day so i can choose myself when i want to take the other 20mg.

but still, this post was meant to find out if there are any other people out there that dont get by 24hrs+ with one dose of methadone so lets get back on topic

Methadone can be a very unpredictable opiate and while it is building up peak plasma levels in your body, it can be dangerous to increase your dose by 20mg instead of a smaller increment such as 5-10mg. I wasn't trying to come across as condensending, just I have overdosed twice off methadone and I wouldn't want anyone to go through that just because of "taking a little bit more."

I know methadone very well and I know that you wouldn't have killed anyone driving 10 minutes after dosing 300mg plus benzos but that doesn't make it safe.

Back on topic: I have taken methadone for years and 8-12 hours was the absolute longest that I could feel any effect from dosing methadone. While I was on MMT, I would be sick by 4pm every single day after dosing at 8am.

I'm not sure if anyone has suggested it, but some clinics allow you to split your doses in half. Is that an option?

 

[tricomb]

Split dosing policy varies by clinic.

For me, I can "feel" methadone for 18 hours, and by the 24 hour mark I feel nothing, but no urge to use, and the 24 hours that follow have MUCH less cravings, although I usually end up using the day after methadone anyways.

 

[Znegative]

^that's pretty much exactly how I experience it, even at 30 mg. I dose around 9:00 in the morning, and then I get up the next day at 6:30 AM. I wont feel the methadone at all, but I don't start to feel sick from withdrawal as long as I make it to the clinic by 10 PM. If I get there later than yes, I beging to feel uncomfortable.

When I was at 90mg and up though, I could easily skip three days without dosing.