Someone I knew had been on methadone for 20 years and quit, he said after one year when he still felt like ahit he went back to it because life just wasnt worth living that way. It seems methadone can fuck up your endorphin activity for good, I hope this is not the case with you swimmingdancer.
Yeah, me too! That is my biggest fear. I could deal if I knew I would feel healthy and happy in a couple months or something, but hearing about people who said they still felt awful a year or more later is really scary. The not knowing is really hard. I remember some study (wish I could find it) where people experiencing pain were either told that they would feel better in a week or would have the pain for the rest of their life (when that wasn't really the case), and the subjective and objective markers of pain were much higher when people were told the pain would not improve. Makes total sense to me.
Me too, Swimmingdancer. I seriously hope that this is not the case for you. Does exercise help? Sorry OP for off topic question.
I don't feel the "high" that normal healthy people feel from exercise, and it's extremely hard to motivate myself to do any, because I am so weak, fatigued and in so much pain, and because I don't notice any immediate benefits/rewards from exercise, but I'm sure it's definitely a good idea and would be helpful in the long run. It does seem to help with the restless legs a bit. I am really trying to gradually get more exercise, as I feel it's important; gentle things like yoga and short easy walks seem to be the best right now.
sounds possible. methadone detox was much closer to benzo withdrawl than opiates for me, at least the "paws" were because I got the physical symptoms out of the way with a taper. It made my mind go crazier than an other opiate, pupils the size of dimes, random bits of sobbing for no apparent reason.
I
wish that my taper had alleviated the physical withdrawals. In retrospect if I had to do it again I would taper much faster than I did. It goes against conventional wisdom but I think that tapering so slowly and gradually actually did me a dis-service and just substantially prolonged things while only make WDs slightly less intense.
That sounds kind of common. I think if it were me on done everyday for several years plus I would go on an antidepressant after about the first month off methadone knowing PAWS could probably go on up to two years.
I do think the brain does eventually "normalize" itself given enough time.
I don't think taking an antidepressant for one month would do anything - most antidepressants take over a month to see any effects. And a lot of them simply don't even work for most people (the ones I've tried certainly didn't help for me), plus they are dependence-causing and can leave people with lasting depression etc after they stop them. I don't really want to just end up with another drug dependence. I am taking some meds to try to help with PAWS though, not sure how well they are helping though.
Thanks for the replies
Wow okay I always knew methadone w/d's were overall described as the worst opioid, but never knew the extent.
I can't believe of all the opioids for maintenance they choose methadone. That's like how they originally used heroin as "cure" for morphine addiction.
Good luck to all you folks on long term methadone. I was shooting dope for almost 2 years and prescribed oxy for a few more. Have been on bupe for a year now, and am tapering, and I'm glad I chose that over methadone after reading so many horror stories
I know, it really makes me angry that methadone is so easily given to people trying to get off opioids. Not only is it more dependence-causing, it can be worse for your mental and physical health. When I first started methadone my doctor at the time said that it had no adverse health effects, and there was no hurry to get off it because you can stop whenever you want by tapering over a few weeks time and would get no withdrawal symptoms at all that way! I really think people deserve to know what they are getting themselves into.
I also believe that the pharmaceutical companies and methadone clinics are perfectly happy that methadone is so dependence-causing because it often means a guaranteed customer for life. Many methadone doctors believe that opiate addiction is a incurable disease that requires the person to be on medication for the rest of their life. I actually had one doctor say to me that anyone who has been addicted to opiates should take methadone forever, saying "You wouldn't expect a diabetic to stop taking their insulin would you?" and that "the risk of relapse is too great for people who quit methadone so it's much better to be on it forever than take the risk that you might turn back to other opioids if you quit methadone".
Then there is the "moral" issue (especially in North America), methadone is considered "better" than other opioids because once someone has stabilized on it for a few weeks they usually feel no euphoria and simply the alleviation of withdrawals, plus a high enough dose will substantially block other opioids, and it's hard to abuse methadone, so the anti-drug view feels all this is a good thing because maintaining someone on an opioid that they felt
good from would somehow be immoral
. We get treated like criminals and our freedom and privacy hugely limited, the term "liquid handcuffs" exists for a very good reason.
Anyway, sorry for taking over your thread
