avoiding oxy w/d with methadone

[hellocatastrophe]

i've found myself in a rut where i can't afford to buy mass quantities of oxycodone every single day, but i'm terrified of going through withdrawal again. not to mention that i'm in school and rotate in hospitals 3 days a week, working in the operating rooms. so obviously, i can't afford to be sick either. it's impossible to get my hands on any suboxone at the moment, which i know would be optimal, but my only choice right now is methadone.

my question is this:
about how much methadone would i need to keep me comfortable?
i currently have a 140-150mg a day habit with the oxycodone.

i've never used methadone for this purpose before and the last time i even took it was back when i was using only 10-20mg oxycodone a day.

any help is greatly appreciated.
thanks in advance.

 

[daddysgone]

Believe it or not, a fairly low dose of methadone should hold you (20-30mg).

Now, as I said 20-30mg should HOLD you, but likely not get you high. My advice is to try to take this relatively small dose. You dont want to be on high doses of methadone especially if you are working in a hospital. At high doses methadone can be very sedating.

BTW-how do you plan on getting the methadone. If you are planning on getting it from a clinin, be aware that for the first few months you will basically have to come into the clinic every single day. Is that something you can do given your schedule? Good luck-DG

 

[hellocatastrophe]

@daddysgone-
thank you so much!
i'm not so much looking to get high, but rather to maintain. just keep from getting sick. i honestly don't even get high from my daily oxycodone use, it's more to keep me going and to occasionally catch a slight buzz when i can.

i'll be getting the methadone from a friend rather than a clinic. i've heard that at clinics they tend to put people on doses that are often too high to start. however, there are people in my program that go to a clinic everyday to obtain their doses before going to the hospitals, so if i did end up going that route it would be doable.

as i stated before, i'd love to get on a suboxone program, as i've had amazing progress using it in the past. i just can't afford it right now and it's pretty much disappeared from the streets around here. my fiance and i are looking around for an office which offers a sliding scale payment option.

another reason i'm trying to get away from the oxycodone, other than the fact it's draining my bank account, is that if i end up getting stuck with a needle or something while at the hospital- whether it's my fault or not- i get drug tested, and i don't think it would go over very well without me having a legit prescription. and the last thing i need is to get booted from my program. i do love my oxycodone, but i think it's time to say goodbye for a while. as with most other users, i never meant to get in this deep and i have other priorities which i need to focus on before my addiction.

thank you again for your help

 

[stuckinaloop]

just don't forget withdrawals are worse from methadone

 

[hellocatastrophe]

@stuckinaloop-
oh, i am very aware of that!
after all i've read right here on BL and actually watching a close friend experience it, i'll be sure to tread carefully! that's the LAST thing i want or need. which also leads me to my next question:

i talked to a guy the other day who also takes oxycodone daily, about half of my daily dose. he has only been using it for about 5-6 months or so.
he then proceeded to tell me that he did:

-1 week of 3 methadone daily
directly followed by
-1 week of 2 methadone daily
(i'm assuming they are 10mg pills each)

after that he supposedly stopped taking the methadone and said he had mild discomfort that was barely even apparent for only a day or so and was then fine. i know that everyone's body works differently and that there are also psychological factors to withdrawal, but does anyone think that this is true?

if so, could i too pull this off given my daily dosing habits?
i've stopped cold turkey before and the first 3-4 days are hell, obviously. i haven't gone longer than 10 days sober in about a year or so now. this just sounds too easy...

i'm not exactly looking to quit the oxycodone, but i feel as though i need to get my tolerance down a bit so i won't have to spend so much money on it. so i guess one more question- how long would i need to keep away from the oxycodone, or take lower doses to get my tolerance to drop, even a little bit?

thanks in advance, again!

 

[thelung]

hellocatastrophe: Are you a med student? You mentioned that you rotate in hospitals 3 days a week... i was just wondering

 

[BadMonkey]

hellocatastrophe: Are you a med student? You mentioned that you rotate in hospitals 3 days a week... i was just wondering

Just a guess, but if he were a med student he'd have some of these answers or at least a good idea of where to find them without having to ask on a forum...?

Probably doing something like transport or clean-up.

Again, just a guess.

 

[BadMonkey]

...as for the OPs question? Methadone is excellent for mediating dopesick of almost any flavor.

For me, no matter how sick I am, 20mg of methadone in the a.m. is a miracle cure. If I can swing another 10 or 20 at bed time, then I'm not just "not sick" I'm bullet-proof.

That's the wonderful thing about methadone; it works amazingly well and it's got a great half-life; on day two you've still got half as much methadone as you took the day before in the system. Used judiciously, it can keep you very well.

 

[hellocatastrophe]

@thelung-
i'm in a medical program at a local college, not actual medical school though.. yet! i'm now in training for surgical technology, which means i'm part of the operating room team 3 days a week and assist the surgeon during surgery.

@badmonkey-
i would KILL myself if i had to go to school to do transport or clean-up!
good to know about the methadone though. it will indeed come in handy!

anyway, if you're even interested-
this is only the beginning of my medical training, so i haven't begun to learn about these types of meds/drugs yet. next year in nursing is when that will happen! the only things i know about so far are more along the lines of anesthetics and only in terms of putting people to sleep/waking them up for surgical purposes! i don't really need to know anything about pain management at this juncture of my line of work. :D

thanks again!

 

[hellocatastrophe]

oh, and by the way-
i'm a SHE

also, does anyone think that the above regimen of methadone this guy used for 2 weeks only would lead to pretty much no withdrawal? that is, if i decided to just stop taking everything after the 2 week period? or, given the information i provided earlier about myself, is it more likely that it would just be prolonging the amount of time before i experienced withdrawal and it would then be the same regardless of whether or not i used the methadone as a substitute?

 

[BadMonkey]

@badmonkey-
i would KILL myself if i had to go to school to do transport or clean-up!
good to know about the methadone though. it will indeed come in handy!

anyway, if you're even interested-
this is only the beginning of my medical training, so i haven't begun to learn about these types of meds/drugs yet. next year in nursing is when that will happen! the only things i know about so far are more along the lines of anesthetics and only in terms of putting people to sleep/waking them up for surgical purposes! i don't really need to know anything about pain management at this juncture of my line of work. :D

thanks again!
[/B]

No offense intended dude, ok?

Congrats on being in that program, sounds like you're lining up an excellent future for yourself. So yeah, I agree that you're wise to be thinking about cutting down on the oxys. I had a friend who was an MD that was addicted- it was ugly. Not nearly as neat and tidy as House would have you think, lol.

I wish you the best of luck in your training and career, and please, be safe man--in your line of work, access to killer pharmaceuticals will be a lot better than most folks will ever have, so you'll need to be super diligent to keep your shit together.

Be safe~

 

[Tommyboy]

I did a 5 day detox with methadone when I had a similar oxy prob. The detox was comfortable, no complaints. Only problem is that it was a "blind detox" so idk the dosage. I was given 2 doses a day for 4 days, then 1 dose on the 5th day.
so maybe in mgs 30 2x, 20 2x, 10 2x 5 2x, 5 1x on last day

 

[hellocatastrophe]

@badmonkey-
don't think that i was in any way upset over your post. no offense was taken to anything you said! you didn't offend me in the slightest!
in fact, you have been quite helpful! and i thank you again for that.

as for controlling myself around all of the pharms at work/school, it's no problem for me. honestly, i don't even think about getting high while i'm there just because i'm so busy and in to what i'm doing. everyday when i finish up working i'll realize that i'm actually starting to withdrawal. i take my morning dose of only 30mg (just enough to wake me up/ensure that i'm not sick because i don't want to look/feel/act like a zombie while i'm working)at 530a and don't get off until 130p, so i'm already beginning to get sick before then, but the great thing is that i don't even notice until i get off because i finally get the chance to slow down. it's great because i actually end up taking less over the course of the day on my hospital rotation days because i have that 8 hours without anything, whereas i usually re-dose every 2 hours or so.

i know that it will never be like house or nurse jackie- unfortunately! but i guess it's kind of a good thing as well, because knowing that fact helps me to keep myself in check!also, i'm sorry to hear about your friend's situation. may i ask what exactly happened with/to him, if you don't mind answering, that is?

@tommyboy723-
really?!
that's amazing, and such good news to hear!
may i ask the amount of oxy you were taking at the time, if it was a daily routine, and for how long before you detoxed?
also, are you still sober? if so, how long has it been?
was the psychological aspect of the withdrawal difficult, did you even much notice any negative issues mentally, or was the transition to sobriety pretty comfortable across the board?
regardless though, that's great, good job, and congratulations!
thank you for the information, inspiration, and hope!

 

[SZodiac]

After a couple of day of 30mg of methadone it will work better for you. It builds up over a few days and the first day in transition is always the worst. After 3 days I'd start to cut back to 25mg for 2 days then 20 for 2 days, etc...by the time you get to 10mg or 5mgs you'll hardly know the difference and be able to jump off completely. Just don't stretch it out more than the time this weaning takes.

 

[woamotive]

I agree that 30mg methadone should be decent, at least will rid you of the worst of withdrawal. I have a slightly smaller oxy tolerance (at 80-100mg) and find that 30mg is about the 'average' dose I take for easing w/d. I experience ZERO w/d at that amount. However, there are days when I find that 20mg methadone works just fine, zero symptoms noted (except the psychological of course). Start low.

Your plan of action sounds great. 30mg for a bit, then 20mg, 10mg...etc. I'd take your time with it, if you can afford to. Don't jump off too quickly or you'll just set yourself up for a relapse. As mentioned, methadone w/d is a bitch (as is any-this is just a bit worse, in my experience) so take it easy. Keep in mind that it takes a long time to kick in so don't redose too quickly.