Methadone, Bupe and gasp Codeine!

[Stiffeno]

How do you suppose you're going to be able to support an oxy or smack habit?

I have money, n I would only use enough Oxy to relieve the back n knee pain.
The dr has stated he is unwilling to change my dose so I gotta use my own means

 

[Christ!]

Stiffeno - Make an appointment with the Doctor ASAP, write down what you want to say so you don't forget. Be honest and I'm sure he'll bump the dose for you!

Sounds like the dose IS a little low for you. Just looking at those three posts in a row - you were doing great/positive - next one you were starting to feel sick but still included one smiley face - 3rd post Today 21:37 and everything has changed.

Tell your doctor you're really craving other opiates, and explain how seriously you're considering using them. A 10mg bump could make a huge difference. Tell him you want a followup appointment a day or two afterwards.

 

[Stiffeno]

Just got back from the clinic, the dosing nurses asked how i was going with the Methadone, to which i replied "Terrible!". I explained what was going on and that i would like to see the doctor on this coming Monday. They said my normal doctor wont be in, but another doctor will be, they told me to give him a call on Monday and explain things and ask to see him!

The staff then read my history in my file and i heard one say to another "He was on 32mg of bupe before this, and now he is on...this much? huh?" they then said "Just give us a minute, we will check your script to see if you can go up in dose"...but sadely i couldnt due to the doctor. I could see straight away from the facial expressions and what the staff were saying that they too knew i should be on more then 30mg...even to the point where they double checked my script!

Hopefully this other doctor can help me out on Monday...coz i need it -_-

Oh and i am sick again today =/, and my back...my god! On the way to the clinic i had to stop multiple times and get down on my knees coz my back was causing a pain which made me sick to the stomach...it was horrible!

 

[Crankinit]

That's pretty awful man, but it sounds like you've just been unlucky with one hardass doctor. As you said and as the nurses seemed to realize, it should be obvious that 30mg of methadone is nowhere near enough for someone who was previously on 32mg of bupe for an extended period of time. Keep pushing to get your dose increased and it'll happen.

 

[Stiffeno]

That's pretty awful man, but it sounds like you've just been unlucky with one hardass doctor. As you said and as the nurses seemed to realize, it should be obvious that 30mg of methadone is nowhere near enough for someone who was previously on 32mg of bupe for an extended period of time. Keep pushing to get your dose increased and it'll happen.

I was on bupe for 7months before the Methadone, 2+ months at 32mg and before that 5months or so at 16mg (but double dosing every 2nd day), how much do you think i should be on?

And yes i know what you mean about a hardarse doctor, as soon as he said "32mg of bupe is equal to 30mg of Methadone" i knew straight away he was lying, he didnt even look me in the face when he said it!

His whole plan is to make me sick long enough for my tolerence to go down to a point where 30mg of meth would work, problem is this isnt why i moved up to methadone, i changed to methadone because it doesnt have a ceiling effect, so id be able to udjust my dose until i DID work correctly! Them outright forcing me to stay forever on 30mg is the complete opposite to what i was hoping for! Hell even the Bupe worked better then this dose!

 

[Crankinit]

I was on bupe for 7months before the Methadone, 2+ months at 32mg and before that 5months or so at 16mg (but double dosing every 2nd day), how much do you think i should be on?

I can't say, the equivalent dosing seems to vary from person to person, but you absolutely need your dose increased until you're comfortable.

 

[Stiffeno]

If this other doctor wont change my dose i dunno what im going to do...i know for a fact that if it isnt adjusted ill 100% as soon as these Oxy's arrive ill be popping em like skittles, i know i shouldnt but when you have no choice you have no choice!

Edit: Each day i wake up and know i have to head down to the clinic i feel like im wasting my time...i feel miserable knowing that i gotta make the epic trip there in this horrible heat...to get ZERO relief! But if i dont go to get even the measly 30mg ill get massively sicker...

 

[Christ!]

His whole plan is to make me sick long enough for my tolerence to go down to a point where 30mg of meth would work, problem is this isnt why i moved up to methadone, i changed to methadone because it doesnt have a ceiling effect, so id be able to udjust my dose until i DID work correctly! Them outright forcing me to stay forever on 30mg is the complete opposite to what i was hoping for! Hell even the Bupe worked better then this dose!

You gave it a go at 30mg. I can see where the doctor is coming from, in trying to get your dose down to a sane amount...and I'm sure once he hears that you've been finding it so hard, he'll have no problem increasing. A better thing to do would have probably been to start you around 50-60mg, waited until you were comfortable and then reduced that to 30mg over a number of weeks.

I think the Doctor just doesn't want to see another no hoper high dose methadone junkie (no offence to those people on methadone who are not like this) he actually cares about you, even if his methods might have been a bit conservative at the start. I'd still stick with him though dude, so long as he's willing to up your dose until you're comfortable enough.

Your whole problem stems from that first Doctor you saw, who was stupid enough to put you on 32mg for a 400mg codeine habit. It should be illegal to do that to someone.

Your 30mg each morning should make some difference. How many days you been off the bupe for now? I guess that 32mg will still be hanging on, and blocking things. When I was taking 4mg of bupe I'd have to wait 3 days to feel a different opiate properly - and you were on eight times the dose.

At least you gave the 30mg a proper go. I bet at the moment you're just wanting some relief, any relief...can't blame you for that. Just don't forget who got you into this mess

Oh yeah - Please don't go consuming boxes and boxes of codeine/paracetamol/ibuprofen tablets! There's no way you'll be able to break through the blocking power of the bupe that's still in your system with codeine.

 

[Stiffeno]

Its been 8 days since my last Bupe dose.

 

[Christ!]

and the 30mg of methadone in the morning isn't even making you feel slightly better?

 

[Stiffeno]

and the 30mg of methadone in the morning isn't even making you feel slightly better?

I feel better on the Methadone then on nothing, but worse then i did when on Bupe. Got cramps and stuff right now, had to wake up early coz my son is over and he gets up in the morning -_-...wanted to just sleep in so the cramps go but noooo

 

[barry351]

Stiffeno, I know what you mean about being on a large amount of codiene. Codiene was my first opiate addiction, toward the end I was taking up to 15 tylenol number 4 at a time. tylenol 4-s have 60 mills of codiene each so add that up, its alot of codiene. I started pissing a small about of blood and so my doctor put me on plain codiene phosphate 60 mills each. Anyone who thinks coming off of a large codiene habit is not so bad, well I say try it yourself. It to me was just as bad a a gram a day heroin habit, I see no big deal in getting 32 milligrams of buprenorphine for this.

I have been on subutex for a few years now and I do think 32 milligrams is to much to be on anytime. I am prescribed two 8 milligram subutex a day and I have tried them in every way one can imagine. I have I-V d them, snorted them, drew them up in a 3 - CC syringe and squirted it up my ass.

I have been put in jail and so had to come off them cold turkey, and I will say there is very little if any difference in coming off of 32 milligrams or 8 milligrams. I also find little if any difference in taking more than 8 milligrams per day, i am prescribed 16 mills a day yet I take only 8, I have disolved five 8 milligram pills at one time trying to get a high, huh big waste. Really I feel no difference, I see many people on 32 mills a day and I just dont understand it, why ? I feel buprenorphine is real close to being a non abusable drug.

Many doctors will say it is abused when people inject it, well ok but I am willing to bet anyone who is injecting it does not keep doing so for long. I will explain why, to inject it you have to put it in a spoon and heat it up, first problem is there is to much water so you have to use one large 3-cc or bigger syringe. If you try and use an insulin syringe its to thick and to much liquid. When I did it I used a 3-cc rig and took the needle off, put a large cotton in spoon and drew up liquid without needle on syringe, I put needle on and I-V it hmmm no big deal. I feel a very small rush and think was that worth all that trouble ? NO so I do it no longer as I think most others would find.

I think you are on the right track going for the methadone, if you are really in that amount of pain you should have been on it long ago but the worlds view on drugs can at times make things very difficult even for a chronic pain sufferer. I would myself be on methadone yet here in the usa and especially my area methadone clinics are hard to come by, the closest one to me is 50 miles, so i settle for the buprenorphine, I have a good doctor who never gives U-A s and gives me 4 refills every visit so i only see him about 3 times per year. Good luck with your methadone and with your pain I would not be afraid to be on a large enough dose to help you, I know people who are on 220 milligrams per day !

 

[opi8]

900mg of codeine is equivalent to roughly 90mg of morphine, or about 45mg of heroin which is 0.045 grams - it is nothing like a gram a day heroin habit.

 

[Mr Blonde]

I came off a 2 gram codeine habit and it wasn't that bad. I had some benzos to help me relax, some loperamide for diarrhea and that was it. I just dealt with it because I had to get better.

Stiffeno, I honestly think that switching from codeine to buprenorphine and now to methadone has just made your situation worse. Those drugs are much harder to get off then codeine.

 

[footscrazy]

^ Absolutely.

Stiffeno, from your posts it seems to me your pain issues or withdrawal symptoms aren't the only reasons you started on maintenance opiates. I get the feeling that what you want, is the relief opiates can give you in multiple ways - in other words, you still want to get high. What you've been told throughout this thread, and have now experienced, is that maintenance opiates aren't going to help with the psychological addiction. Just a few posts back you were complaining about still having cravings on methadone - despite being told that maintenance opiates don't deal with cravings. I think you're expecting way too much from maintenance opies - it seems to me you wanted a legal, acceptable way to way to substitute your codeine addiction. I'm not surprised that now you've found out what the real deal with maintenance opiates is, you are thinking of moving on to smack or oxy.

I sympathise with your position because addiction, both physical and mental, sucks, but you seem to be unwilling to help yourself. You've used flawed reasoning to make one bad decision after another, while pretending you have 'no choice'. I don't believe you will be able to move past your addiction if you're not willing to approach it from every angle - the maintenance opies being only one part of it. Hopefully you can prove me wrong.

I have money, n I would only use enough Oxy to relieve the back n knee pain.

i know for a fact that if it isnt adjusted ill 100% as soon as these Oxy's arrive ill be popping em like skittles, i know i shouldnt but when you have no choice you have no choice!

 

[Stiffeno]

^ Absolutely.

Stiffeno, from your posts it seems to me your pain issues or withdrawal symptoms aren't the only reasons you started on maintenance opiates. I get the feeling that what you want, is the relief opiates can give you in multiple ways - in other words, you still want to get high. What you've been told throughout this thread, and have now experienced, is that maintenance opiates aren't going to help with the psychological addiction. Just a few posts back you were complaining about still having cravings on methadone - despite being told that maintenance opiates don't deal with cravings. I think you're expecting way too much from maintenance opies - it seems to me you wanted a legal, acceptable way to way to substitute your codeine addiction. I'm not surprised that now you've found out what the real deal with maintenance opiates is, you are thinking of moving on to smack or oxy.

I sympathise with your position because addiction, both physical and mental, sucks, but you seem to be unwilling to help yourself. You've used flawed reasoning to make one bad decision after another, while pretending you have 'no choice'. I don't believe you will be able to move past your addiction if you're not willing to approach it from every angle - the maintenance opies being only one part of it. Hopefully you can prove me wrong.

I am not trying to "get high", if that was the case i would never have taken the bupe in the first place, ida just used codeine till i couldnt get any more effect from it, then move to harder shit...thats not the case! I have also been seeing a Psychologist AND have been put onto anti-depressant/anti-anxiety pill! So far the Psych hasnt helped that much, but the Avanza i was put on helps me sleep much better, and i can actually leave the house now and go places...hell i even went out yesterday and bought some shorts to wear outside, after being so worried about how i "look" in terms of being skinny for 15 years!

Today while in the waiting room for the doctor at the Methadone clinic, i had an extremely bad back pain. I was just sitting on the seats, and i went to stand up and i got like a volt of lighting run up my back, i sat down and i got a constant pain up my back that was like....hmm how can i describe it?...umm you know where you walk too much and you get a stitch in your side? well image that but 4 times worse, and constant for about 45mins straight! I actually lay down on the ground in front of every coz when i turned my body right, and stood up straight the pain would get worse...even taking deep breaths caused pain so i started breathing shallow to stop it a little. Now the good part about this was i was with the doctor when this took place, so he was able to see it first hand. This type of pain only happens a few times a week but its by far 100 times worse then the just regular pain i get....i actually get anxiety when the pain hits coz im affraid of it!

Anyways i spoke to the doctor and he said indeed that the oher doctor didnt put my dose at the right level i should be on, he was going to move me to 35mg...then after 3 days couild move to 40mg, and if need be after that to 45mg. I asked him giving my current situation and the pain (and that i hadnt dosed yet today) if i could just go straight to 40mg, he said "Yes i can see why you would be eager to move up giving how you are, ok you can have 40". Its been about an hour since i took it, and while my back still hurts it difinately did take the edge of it. In 3 days if need be ill go to 45 and give it a really good go of things! Its just the 30 wasnt enough!

I hear what you mean about making bad choices with the codeine, to bupe to methadone...and that Methadone is way worse then codeine, but i just dont want pain anymore...im not trying to get high or nothing like that...otherwise id just go pop benzo's with my methadone and get high that way, i dont WANT to get high...relief is all i want, and hopefully this revised dose will do the trick!

I have cancelled the Oxy's order!

Edit: The clinic was closed after i seen my doctor but he took me in so i could get dosed during their closed time, wheni was dosing the staff there asked "Why did -insert doctors name here- only put you on 30mg after being on 32mg of bupe?"...i explained the doctors plan to basically have me underdose long enough so that my tolerence was lowered to a point where 30mg might work....the staff and other doctor didnt like his reasoning i could tell from their faces.

 

[footscrazy]

I didn't say you were trying to get high. I said I think you still want to get high. I could have worded that better, because I guess more specifically I think you still struggle with wanting to get high and cravings. What I'm trying to say is, I think you're trying to deal with this aspect of addiction the wrong way. You've said a couple of times you've been frustrated with your maintenance because you're still cravey and this is what makes me say you're expecting too much of bupe or methadone. These are only a crutch to keep you well while you do the most important work in dealing with an addiction, the psychological and behavioural aspect. To me, (and I'm only going by what you've said, so I apologise if I'm wrong) it seems you've got them the wrong way round, and think that getting on maintenance will basically solve the problem, with just a few loose ends to tie up here and there. If you're going to have to be on opiates long term for pain, it is so important that you work on your addictive behaviours or you really have a recipe for disaster.

 

[Stiffeno]

I didn't say you were trying to get high. I said I think you still want to get high. I could have worded that better, because I guess more specifically I think you still struggle with wanting to get high and cravings. What I'm trying to say is, I think you're trying to deal with this aspect of addiction the wrong way. You've said a couple of times you've been frustrated with your maintenance because you're still cravey and this is what makes me say you're expecting too much of bupe or methadone. These are only a crutch to keep you well while you do the most important work in dealing with an addiction, the psychological and behavioural aspect. To me, (and I'm only going by what you've said, so I apologise if I'm wrong) it seems you've got them the wrong way round, and think that getting on maintenance will basically solve the problem, with just a few loose ends to tie up here and there. If you're going to have to be on opiates long term for pain, it is so important that you work on your addictive behaviours or you really have a recipe for disaster.

What kind of addictive behaviors? i use to go around to multiple chemists buying packs of pills, getting home and taking heaps of them...i dont do any of that anymore =/. Im sure you probably mean other things, but i cant really tell which you might be meaning right now.

 

[footscrazy]

I mean specifically that's something you have to work out, but thoughts <---> feelings <---> behaviours; they're all interconnected. So when I talk about addictive behaviours I don't just mean things like the actual action of using a drug or going to score, but rather the whole interconnected situation that contributes to an addiction. I think it's important for anyone with an addiction to really investigate it and get to know it consciously. So for example, you've spoken about cravings. In investigating that you'd think of a list of all the things that make you crave that you know of, what situation you were in when it happened, what you were thinking, what you were doing, and what you were feeling. Each of those then needs to be looked at separately, but you might be able to identify a counterproductive behaviour if (just as an example) you identify that you crave around certain people, but still see them, or that when you're anxious and cravey, you start thinking about how much you feel you've fucked up in the past and stress yourself out further with guilt.

Like I said, I'm only going on what you've written, but it just appears that you avoid thinking about your addiction because it makes it more 'real', but I really think that understanding all these things about yourself is essential in beating it. Otherwise you are really putting your life in the hands of external factors, and have to react to situations after they've happened, rather than creating the best possibilities for yourself...

 

[Stiffeno]

I mean specifically that's something you have to work out, but thoughts <---> feelings <---> behaviours; they're all interconnected. So when I talk about addictive behaviours I don't just mean things like the actual action of using a drug or going to score, but rather the whole interconnected situation that contributes to an addiction. I think it's important for anyone with an addiction to really investigate it and get to know it consciously. So for example, you've spoken about cravings. In investigating that you'd think of a list of all the things that make you crave that you know of, what situation you were in when it happened, what you were thinking, what you were doing, and what you were feeling. Each of those then needs to be looked at separately, but you might be able to identify a counterproductive behaviour if (just as an example) you identify that you crave around certain people, but still see them, or that when you're anxious and cravey, you start thinking about how much you feel you've fucked up in the past and stress yourself out further with guilt.

Like I said, I'm only going on what you've written, but it just appears that you avoid thinking about your addiction because it makes it more 'real', but I really think that understanding all these things about yourself is essential in beating it. Otherwise you are really putting your life in the hands of external factors, and have to react to situations after they've happened, rather than creating the best possibilities for yourself...

I actually remember my psych mentioning that "thoughts <---> feelings <---> behaviors" thing to me . Thanks for your input, ill try and think about what triggers my cravings and things like that...i think one of them will be pain for sure, since in the past when i felt pain id pop pills (which is an addictive behavior) and i guess my body "wants" to get drugs to stop that pain! Another is probably stress, as of late i have been arguing a lot with my mother (though tbh its nearly always her that starts the fight! and ends up picking on me)...this clearly stresses me out, stress being another situation in the past where i would take pills to calm myself!

Edit: The problem with my mum is she loves bitching at me every single day, anything i do she finds fault in it and uses it as an excuse to scream shit at me. Hell i remember one night she told me she was gunna make some soup soon and watch a movie an go to bed, i thought i would be nice so i made the soup for her....she actually YELLED AT ME for "making too early, i didnt want it yet"....how fuckin rude can you get? Or when she complains that im always in my room (namely to get away from her annoying me), then ill come out for a min and she will yell for leaving the bloody light on..., no matter what i do she ALWAYS finds fault in it. For the most part i dont do anything around the house, due to her finding fault in it, i remember once i cut the grass for her..she actually got the shits at me because i cut it "at the wrong angle making it look wierd"....well needless to say i never cut the grass again for her.

This isnt just an argument here and there, she does this EVERY SINGLE DAY, no matter what i do she finds SOMETHING to do with what i just done in order to yell or complain at me...she drives me made but i got nowhere else to go. Its why i stay in my room all the time, so she leaves me alone....but then she YELLS AT ME for staying in my room to much? WTF! Does she want me to chuck myself infront of a train or something?