Opioids Methadone - go higher or stay at the moderate dose of 80 mg per day? + 2 other questions

[Båtmannen]

Hello,

I'm ont 80 mg of methadone per day now, since like a month, after being on 16-24 mg buprenorphine per day for years.

I get a buzz every day when I take my methadone. This is partly because I'm new to it (I haven't been on 80 mg since day 1 - they tapered up (can you say that?) slowly) and partly becauset the dose is low enough to decrease to low levels after 24 hours, and because of the drastic change in blood plasma level, I get a buzz.My best friend has 120 mg, and while he still feels "something" every day, he says he felt more at 70-80 because back then he was starting to get a little sick after 24 hours when he got his new dose, i e 80 mg didn't cover the whole day and therefore he felt it every morning and for some hours.

And to those who are going to tell me that I shouldn't feel anything: uh, ok, sure, but if me feeling some kind of opiate buzz keeps me away from heroin, then it's good for me, right? I was on bupe for a long time and rarely felt anything, and that didn't go well. And as methadone is a full agonist... it should be almost impossible to feel absolutely nothing when you take a dose of 110, if you've been without for 24 hours.

I feel no, or very little, euphoria though. It's not a real opiate buzz, I just get that heavy feeling in my head and get a bit energic, and feel a bit sick

1. Is it true that I will feel less and less if my dose increases? Before I started I wanted to go to 200+ (although now my clinic has 150 mg as the maximum dose). Is the goal of the treatment that I should feel nothing at all?

2. If you have a large dose, like ... say 140 mg, do you feel close to nothing when you take your medicine?

3. What are the pro's/con's of a) staying at this low dose, and of b) increasing to as high as possible?

(I know a large dose is better when you miss a day, but other than that. And feeling a buzz is a positive thing. It's what keeps me away from other drugs. I haven't been clean from benzos in years. I managed to be clean for a month now. It's thanks to the methadone "high".


If my friend and some other guys are correct about this, why do doctors think that they should keep doses low so people don't go around nodding?

 

[Båtmannen]

Guys, plz?

 

[CFC]

Sorry I don't know the answers to your questions my friend, though it looks like you're still looking for those elusive highs. I hope you're doing better than a year or two ago though?

 

[Båtmannen]

Sorry I don't know the answers to your questions my friend, though it looks like you're still looking for those elusive highs. I hope you're doing better than a year or two ago though?

Thanks, bro'. How are you yourself?

Well, I'm still addicted to needles, but instead of 1 gram of amphetamine per shot, I use 0,1 grams. I still get a high heart rate from time to time, but no panic attacks, except for once when I had been up for days, my pulse was at 140 beats per minute, and I was close to a panic attack, and some brown heroine came with the mail. I shot up 0,3 grams at once. Whooooooosh and *losing consciousness", panic, have no clue what's going on ... and then I smelled at it (spelling/idiom?), and within a few minutes I realized it was some degenerate Mephedrone that had miscolored. I know there was some benzodiazepines somewhere in my room - I shouted for my brother, and he helped me turn everything upside down until I found a small amount of benzodiazepines (Alprazolam or Clonazepam) ... It wasn't much, but the chance is quite high it saved my life ... but then again, I've been certain I'm going to die a lot of times (and been it twice), but whatever, thanks for your concern.
'
Now, today some doctors and nurses are passing a sentence that terrifies the shit out of me - something my several real trials never have. I accidently kicked in a window at the hospital where I get my Methadone, and they recently kicked someone out because he took a chair and smashed it to pieces. However, the nurse told me that they don't want to kick me out because I've been a good boy for almost 3 years, and I have a zero-record of violence or threats or fighting with other patients. People who break stuff are usually trouble makers. But if I get kicked out...well I know the social service will get me in touch with another so called "methadone team" within not very long, but these weeks or if - god forbid - my social clerk (correct word?) has gone on vacation already. Then I'm without methadone for up to 5 weeks. And I obviously will not go from opioids, after 2,75 years of use every single day, but will start shooting dope again.

I just had to wrote this, and since I already made a thread about my methadone troubles, I added it here.

[ON TOPIC PART OF POST]
However, I still wonder what I originally asked, but will rephrase it:

Has anyone been on 80 mg and perhaps 110-130 or even more, and can tell me what the difference is? I e the subjective feel of being on either 80 mgs per day, or > 110 mgs per day.

[/ON TOPIC PART OF POST]
I have seen people on as little as 70 mg, nodding off 24/7 - and this one guy did it for eight months straight. His days looked like this:
06:59: Alarm goes off, and off he runs to the medicine room.
07:01-07:10: Runs to the television room, nods away.
12:00: Runs to the dining room, eats lunch, and then runs back to the television room and nods off (although he was away most of the time, he had to be the one with the remote control, or he started fighting. He never watched the TV, he just sat there with the remote.
17:00: Runs to the dining room, eats dinner, and then runs back to the television room.
Somewhere from 20:00-23:59: Gets told by the staff to go sleep, and he wakes up and heads to his bed.

I mean like literally, on 70 mgs (at least he was when I spoke to him the first time - it's very possible, even probable, he talked his way up a few 10 mgs ... if he managed to stay awake during his meetings with the doctor, obviously. And people was so jelous of him they told the staff. I hated the guy, because he was an evil bully towards those who couldn't defend themselves, but ratting someone out is the worst sin known to man-kind. Always sitting with head tilted down, sometimes mumbling some stupid shit. Although once, during christmas, he took 50 % of the candy/stuff-you-could-eat-besides-food and stuffed it in his pockets, and hid it away, and then told the staff he didn't know where it was. I'm no 100 % sure that was because of the Methadone, but probably, as people usually gains 20 kg on Methadone ... something that is incomprehensible to me ... until I noticed the increased hunger myself.

And then my best friend is on 130 mg and you couldn't tell he was on it at all.

One lucky MFer I was with at a treatment center (the place where I injected 90 % of my panic attacks, had 220 mgs of Methadone. And my doctor tells me "at most I will up the dose to 100 mg".


About "looking for those highs" ... man, aren't we all? As long as it's not dangerous or ruins you, it's neither good nor bad. Actually, it can even be good. If the high from a legal, clinical drug helps you stay away from the street, crazy street dealers, the police, commiting crimes to get money ... how is that high something bad?


And opioids/endorphines mimic some of the effects of oxytocin, right? I'm diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, and oxytocin has been tested as a medicine for real Autism. Conclusion: I need to shoot dope.

Well, seriously: I'm not physically dependent of/on benzodiazepins anymore. This was made possible because I got methadone. Well, the first critical days when I was delirious and couldn't find my way home in the middle of winter and got terrified and cried like a cry-baby (and wrote about it here), and after that I used less, but was still dependent. I could only taper to zero when I got methadone.

Another on topic question, or at least regarding methadone, let's call it question number 2:

If I ingest Alprazolam or Clonazepam (the most used benzodiazepines illegally in my country), I don't notice the effect of the methadone at all. And I've used no monster doses, but like up to 6/12 mg of Alp./Clo. Why, or perhaps how, is this?

I would sell my soul to whatever deity offers me to stay in the Methadone program. I would regret it when I die, obviously, but right now ...