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What is a good taper to get off 25mg methadone

SoCal424

Bluelighter
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Apr 22, 2018
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I've been taking 25mg of methadone daily for over 20 years. I want to stop it. How fast can I do it without getting sick? I know it varies, but I'd like to hear your opinion if you have some experience with this.
Thanks.
 
Luckily 25mg isn’t a huge dose.

Have you been on it at that dose for the entire 20 years? What is causing you to want to get off now?

I’d suggest 1mg/week taper, taking weeks off as appropriate. When the time comes using comfort meds as appropriate.

The bigger question is how you’ll manage without the methadone. The more you rush getting off the methadone, the more discomfort you’ll experience.
 
I started at 20mg a day, then went up to 25 a few years later. Mostly what makes me want to quit is the difficulty in getting it now. I used to get it from my doctor, but after the bad press of overdose deaths in the last year, he decided everyone that needs pain medicine should go to pain treatment places. Those places are pretty miserable. The doctors quit frequently - and while one gives me the medicine, another will tell me I have to cut back -and immediately cuts me back. Add to that the pharmacy issue: I used to get this with no issues, but again - in the last six months, I get told it's out of stock every time and it takes a week to get it. I tried two other pharmacies and they said they can't take new opiate patients. One said they got in trouble for filling too many opiate prescriptions because they took the patients from other places that were turning people away. Last time I went to that pain treatment center, they had cancelled my appt because my doctor quit - they said they called me and left a message, but no one called. Then I got another appointment a week later and when I got there, they said we can't take your insurance anymore because the contract expired, but I could be seen for $150.00. I paid it and waited. After two hours waiting, they called me up and said "we need a drug screen before you see the doctor." and without insurance, that alone costs $500.00. I got so frustrated that I just walked out. I don't have $500.00 to pay them. Amazing I have good insurance but things like this still happen. So, out of sheer frustration, I decided to stop it and see if I could manage without it. I am beginning to feel like the medical world just sees people like me as euphoria seeking junkies instead of people that are very sick. Maybe I can manage without it - I won't know if I don't try.
 
I don’t have time to go into detail atm, but man do I hear you. We are beyond second class citizens. For brevities sake I’ll just say one word...

Buprenorphine.

Can you get that? It’ll make a huuuuuuge difference. Most important comfort med for what you’re doing that’s out there, although you’ll need to be careful to avoid precipitated w/d.

If not buprenorphine, can you get other comfort meds?
 
Thanks for your advice. I have a very old Rx for clonazepam. I can take it if I need it, but so far I don't. It's many years old though and I don't know if it gets weaker or stronger with age - do you?
I imagine I could get buprenorphine if I asked my doctor for it and if it isn't an opiate. What exactly is it? Is this off label use? I read a story about someone that recommended loperamin?.. the anti-diahrea medicine that's over the counter. I don't have the runs at all, but it seems to be some kind of opiate if I read correctly.

You know I kind of thought I could stop this without a lot of problems if I cut 5mg every week for 5 weeks. I could be wrong though. Anyway, let me know what you know about dissolving one of these in a liquid so I can precisely control cutting back. I get 10mg pills now and I already break them in half. There's no way I could break those halves into 5 sections.

Thank you.
 
Any taper would help. Unfortunately buprenorphine is a highly controlled opioid. Loperamide would be helpful if nothing else is avaliable, just try not to use too much or too long. Kratom would be better if you can get it.

Clonazepam should still be good if it’s been in its bottle and hasn’t gotten contaminated with moisture. That will really come in handy.

Just to emphasize, the biggest thing that’ll help you get off methadone is tapering. 5mg/week is pretty fast, but it’s better than nothing for sure. The longer/gentler the taper the better generally speaking.
 
That's prescribed use of Bupe and it is certainly a controlled opioid. However, it's generally easier to get than methadone because it's a lot safer, it's also an opiate-blocker. Generally it's less controlled than methadone, but YMMV.
 
Last night, I woke up at 3am and I really felt the withdrawals, so they are here. I read that it hits at the 3 day mark after stopping/reducing methadone and that is my 3rd night. I couldn't go back to sleep and my skin felt like it was burning tingling frozen cold even though I was pretty warm and under a thick blanket (does that sensation even make sense?) It was really uncomfortable. I feel it this morning and my nose is running a bit, but it's not as bad as last night. It hasn't beat me yet but I will slow to 2.5mg a week. Do you know if a methadone oral pill can be diluted in water or juice so I can cut back with more precision? I want to try that but not without knowing if it's safe. Seems like it would be fine in my opinion. By the way - what does YMMV mean? I guessed it is Your ? might vary.
Thanks for the help.
 
Your mileage may vary

Nights were always worse than the days for me during withdrawal.

You can crush up a pill and dilute it in water or juice, just don’t make too much so that it might spoil.
 
I'm going to continue posting so if there is anyone else taking the same dose as me, you'll see how it affected me cutting back. Today, I have some chills and weird skin sensations, but I'm okay in that regard. I've gotten an awful headache that I assume is from cutting back. I also feel quite run down and sluggish when I get up and move around the house (like I suddenly weigh twice as much as I did yesterday). Feels a bit like my head is in a fog. I'm sticking with this 5mg cut (so far) but my next cut will be half that much hoping it won't hit me this much when those withdrawals come.
 
Would you mind if I moved this to SL?

It would always be helpful to have this documented there to add to our collection of documenting various taper/withdrawal stuff.

Btw you don?t have to be into abstinence or even sobriety to be a part of SL, merely the desire to improve your life and focus on wellbeing (however you define it).

How much methadone do you have left to work with total?

Nights are a great time to take hot baths and showers, and if you can find it get some Tiger Balm for your legs and RLS. When I was coming off methadone I spend many a night up going hiking or walking around my town. It actually can be really nice to spend time outside like that all alone, with everyone else asleep.

This is sort of beside the point, but have you ever done DXM or ketamine or anything like that?
 
Doesn’t look like anything was ever posted, so perhaps just recreate it as best you remember?
 
It's fine if you move me to SL, but please send me a link so I can find it again. I haven't counted but I think I have 90 left (10mg). Never tried ketamine or DXM (never heard of either until I just looked them up). I'm pretty naive where drugs are concerned.

On the third day and night, I really felt "withdrawal," but day and night #four was significantly less. Today is day five. I woke up feel really cold (it's warm in the house) but if I put on a jacket or crawl under the blanket, I'm okay. No headache today so far. I had a bad one on day three (all day long) and part of the day on day four. This was not anywhere near as bad as I expected (except for day three).
 
Hi SoCal, thanks for posting your experience. I’ve found this thread interesting to read and will continue to follow it. I wish you the best of luck with your taper, you can do it. Just remember that any uncomfortable feelings or symptoms are temporary and they will go away eventually, and keep focused on your end goals. You’ll get there :)

I was abusing opiates for about 4-5 years. When I wanted to stop and found I couldn’t I got onto methadone as well, my maintenance dose ended up being 75mg/day I believe. Maybe 80mg, somewhere in that range. At that time Suboxone (which is a mix of buprenorphine and naloxone) had been suggested to me as a better alternative, but it was still under patent so it would cost about 3x per day what my methadone cost.

Eventually Suboxone lost its patent (drugs can be patented for 20 years, or 25? I think it’s 20), and it became much cheaper, so I switched to it. I went down 5mg of methadone each week until I was at 30mg/day, then had to stop taking it entirely for 72+ hours (to avoid precipitated withdrawal) before starting Suboxone. My maintenance dose of Suboxone is now 16mg/day. It comes as 8mg buprenorphine + 2mg naloxone, so I take two each morning. It’s also available in 2mg/0.5mg pills, so you can get a dose which suits you best in 2mg increments. You could probably even do 1mg increments since it is a sub-lingual pill, making it very easy to cut in half. But anyways, if you do switch to Suboxone you should do this with your doctor, just sharing my experience.

DXM (Dextromethorphan) and Ketamine are classed as dissociative anesthetics. I’m not sure why toothpastedog asked about those, so I’ll let him answer that.

Thanks again for sharing your experience. Best of luck, you’ll get where you want soon!
 
i just jumped off cold turkey from 42 mgs to ZERO..... was hard for like 3 days, and then its all attitude after that.... get some phenibut and a bottle of kratom capsules and try not to use them too much
 
ive never gotton off methadone, but based on what i've read about it, i would switch to mylan fent patches and cut them smaller and smaller then get off like that. or take extended release oxy in smaller and msller doses. It seems like methadone has some nmda antagonism and other extra pharmacology that would add to the withdrawal
 
Asked about DXM and ketamine because NMDA antagonists can make withdrawal infinitely more bearable. They come with costs and dangers, and most people hate dissociatives, but then again most people don’t understand what opioid withdrawal feels like.

I have mixed feeling about recommending something like DXM, but it is something to consider. When I discovered how useful it was for opioid withdrawal I was literally speachless. Again, doesn’t come with some costs (like not being able to function normally under the influence for the most part), but it’s also better than nothing IMHO.

But tapering is stil the most important part of getting off methadone IMHO.

Methadone withdrawal tends to begin peaking at day five abstience. Dose reductions tend to begin stabilizing around day 5-7.

What does of methadone are you at now OP? Or did you jump off entirely?
 
I've been on 20mg most of this past week - a cut from 25mg. I feel sick in the mornings like I have a mild hangover, but after I'm up a few hours, that goes away. I've been sleeping pretty good (that's half the battle right there). Today will be my first day at 17.5mg a day. I've been on 5mg four times a day, so I'll break one of those in half each day. Hopefully I won't have as strong of withdrawals with smaller steps by cutting less each time.

Thanks everyone for your posts. It helps reading about other people's experience.
 
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