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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards | negrogesic

Can someone please just give me a straight answer and tell me if it is a waste to smoke heroin after taking 50ml methadone??

JessFR said:
No what I was curious about was, when you initially get on methadone, how frequently can you increase your dose?

Like if I wanted to increase by 10mg, I couldn't do that in one go, they'd likely give me a 5mg then another 5mg in 3 or 4 days.
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The prescribing policy keeps changing over here, but when I was on it they'd start you off on no more than 30mg for safety reasons as it was common practice for addicts to exaggerate how much gear they were using in order to get a higher dose. They'd let you stabilise on that for a month or two then if that wasn't holding you they'd let you increase by 10mg/month until you reached 70 or 80mg which seemed to be what they considered to be the optimum dose. Some people went higher but I found it not really necessary unless you were using a lot of gear on top. 70mg was my sweet spot and I stayed on that for years until I was ready to reduce. That was in the days when we could virtually dictate when and how much we increased or decreased - if at all.

But I believe things have changed over the last decade and the drug services are having their arms twisted to get away from maintenance prescribing and encourage reducing asap.
 
JessFR said:
It is terrible HR. and NO ONE should take that as advice if they've already got things going semi-sustainably with smoking. There's no point trying to switch to IV to save a bit of money, you'll just put that extra money back into heroin anyway.

And yet, I agree with you. IV is the only way I use heroin. I'd never use it any other way.
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^ I did follow that up clarifying that I am 100% definitely NOT advising this and gave pretty much the same opinion/explanation as yourself.
 
F.U.B.A.R. said:
The prescribing policy keeps changing over here, but when I was on it they'd start you off on no more than 30mg for safety reasons as it was common practice for addicts to exaggerate how much gear they were using in order to get a higher dose. They'd let you stabilise on that for a month or two then if that wasn't holding you they'd let you increase by 10mg/month until you reached 70 or 80mg which seemed to be what they considered to be the optimum dose. Some people went higher but I found it not really necessary unless you were using a lot of gear on top. 70mg was my sweet spot and I stayed on that for years until I was ready to reduce. That was in the days when we could virtually dictate when and how much we increased or decreased - if at all.

But I believe things have changed over the last decade and the drug services are having their arms twisted to get away from maintenance prescribing and encourage reducing asap.
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FOR A MONTH OR TWO?! wtf? That's insane. I'd never have gotten stable with that kinda rule.

It's so fucking stupid that every government has a system, every time they say it's too dangerous to do anything else, every time they insist it's the correct way, and it's always bs.

As I said here you can start on as high as 40mg (30mg is a bit more common but it depends on what you say you're on), and go up 5mg every few days (usually 3-4, I think 2 is the shortest I've got). Which I now find myself feeling fortunate for after hearing that.

Regarding " it was common practice for addicts to exaggerate how much gear they were using in order to get a higher dose." I has a somewhat similar problem at my first public clinic, they'd ask how much I was doing, I'd tell them, they'd act like I was lying. So eventually I just told them whatever they wanted to hear since it made no difference other than them giving me extra judgy "you're lying" looks. Basically you gotta lie to be seen as telling the truth.

When I got to a private clinic where they let me go up even faster, it was cause I'd explained that that had happened and how it had already been a huge frustrating mess because of it previously, and fortunately that time I was believed.

Funny... almost like paying money makes people give a shit. :D
 
JessFR said:
FOR A MONTH OR TWO?! wtf? That's insane. I'd never have gotten stable with that kinda rule.
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Heh, thinking about it now perhaps it was a week or two. My memory of that period of my life is hazy to say the least... :D
 
F.U.B.A.R. said:
Heh, thinking about it now perhaps it was a week or two. My memory of that period of my life is hazy to say the least... :D
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10mg a week is a lot more reasonable.

I get it. My memory for that time also gets kinda hazy. Details get a little rough, then you have to think about it and then you start remember your thinking about it rather than the actual memories.

I've wondered a few times if it's normal that my memory is sometimes that bad or if it's the drugs or something.
 
JessFR said:
10mg a week is a lot more reasonable.

I get it. My memory for that time also gets kinda hazy. Details get a little rough, then you have to think about it and then you start remember your thinking about it rather than the actual memories.

I've wondered a few times if it's normal that my memory is sometimes that bad or if it's the drugs or something.
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it's the drugs I get memory problems to unless someone directly tells me "remember when so and so happened" then I'm like "shit yeah I forgot all about it"

I'm off to get some weed :D just a couple sliffs a mates sorting me but I gotta travel to the other side of town
 
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