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* Methadone Maintenance Therapy (MMT) MEGATHREAD *

Yup, I only wish I was able to find a doctor to prescribe monthly methadone scripts... it might be a lot more reasonable now that I'm on a much lower dose, but still I kinda doubt I'd be able to pull that kinda bullshit off. Then again I don't like the idea of seeking out a pain doc to lie to, no matter how justifiable such action would be, and I probably suck at such blatant kinda lying outside of having to do so with police.
 
Does this site actually have moderators? I am an English woman with a science tv producer background. I am 5 years 9 months sober from the family drug alcohol. Due to a disaster with a crap General Practitioner (doctor) and high doses of codeine I am now in a total disaster with methadone. I used it a decade ago very easily and successfully to get off heroin (which I do not like or enjoy) to get away from an abusive violent controlling life long user (male obviously). The methadone clinic kept putting me up and up as it wasn't holding, I am only getting 7 or 8 hrs out of it. So just like the codeine I'm sick on it and sick to the point of torture if I try and taper off. I'm on 170mls a day and getting more and more WDs instead of stabilization, as my tolerance grows. Fortunately, the science background plus a fairly iron discipline means I have worked out how to solve this and am on day 4 of the solution. It's pretty unpleasant, but still, I think going from 170 to nothing with only mild WDs is quite clever, but you have to understand the science (unlike most clinics) and you have to be very disciplined to use my method. My nearly 6 years in AA has obviously helped (although I am totally uninterested in God, higher powers or any of that religious crap. Not an atheist, not an agnostic, not not interested. Only interested in philosophy and metaphysics. Very easy to do 12 steps without God, believe me. Just update the underlying principles.). I have just joined this fascinating and useful forum tonight to get anecdotal evidence about methadone and concluded that it behaves very differently at high doses to low doses which is well documented scientifically e.g. Very high doses actually protect from respiratory distress/failure. I liked this site a lot until I just now came across this ridiculous and offensive profile video for "Lysis". There are vulnerable young female addicts desperate for help on this site. Do you think this video helps them? Moderators where the hell are you? This breaks your user agreement that I have just agreed to. Scandalous. Btw if you think I'm being uptight all I can say is this is an abusive video. Oh yeah and I was born in Cambridge, England and my accent is like Lady Mary's from Downtown Abbey. Yet have tried pretty much every "recreational" drug and even discovered a new one in a programme I wrote and directed for UK and US network TV which was about drug use in Ancient Egypt. So not so uptight? Make up your own mind as I'm sure you all do.
 
Aryastark said:
Does this site actually have moderators? I am an English woman with a science tv producer background. I am 5 years 9 months sober from the family drug alcohol. Due to a disaster with a crap General Practitioner (doctor) and high doses of codeine I am now in a total disaster with methadone. I used it a decade ago very easily and successfully to get off heroin (which I do not like or enjoy) to get away from an abusive violent controlling life long user (male obviously). The methadone clinic kept putting me up and up as it wasn't holding, I am only getting 7 or 8 hrs out of it. So just like the codeine I'm sick on it and sick to the point of torture if I try and taper off. I'm on 170mls a day and getting more and more WDs instead of stabilization, as my tolerance grows. Fortunately, the science background plus a fairly iron discipline means I have worked out how to solve this and am on day 4 of the solution. It's pretty unpleasant, but still, I think going from 170 to nothing with only mild WDs is quite clever, but you have to understand the science (unlike most clinics) and you have to be very disciplined to use my method. My nearly 6 years in AA has obviously helped (although I am totally uninterested in God, higher powers or any of that religious crap. Not an atheist, not an agnostic, not not interested. Only interested in philosophy and metaphysics. Very easy to do 12 steps without God, believe me. Just update the underlying principles.). I have just joined this fascinating and useful forum tonight to get anecdotal evidence about methadone and concluded that it behaves very differently at high doses to low doses which is well documented scientifically e.g. Very high doses actually protect from respiratory distress/failure. I liked this site a lot until I just now came across this ridiculous and offensive profile video for "Lysis". There are vulnerable young female addicts desperate for help on this site. Do you think this video helps them? Moderators where the hell are you? This breaks your user agreement that I have just agreed to. Scandalous. Btw if you think I'm being uptight all I can say is this is an abusive video. Oh yeah and I was born in Cambridge, England and my accent is like Lady Mary's from Downtown Abbey. Yet have tried pretty much every "recreational" drug and even discovered a new one in a programme I wrote and directed for UK and US network TV which was about drug use in Ancient Egypt. So not so uptight? Make up your own mind as I'm sure you all do.
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I have no idea what video your talking about but if you think it violates the BLUA than use the report button on the offending post its in the top right corner of each individual post. What is this secret scientific method to get off methadone pain free you allude to?
 
Aryastark said:
Does this site actually have moderators? I am an English woman with a science tv producer background. I am 5 years 9 months sober from the family drug alcohol. Due to a disaster with a crap General Practitioner (doctor) and high doses of codeine I am now in a total disaster with methadone. I used it a decade ago very easily and successfully to get off heroin (which I do not like or enjoy) to get away from an abusive violent controlling life long user (male obviously). The methadone clinic kept putting me up and up as it wasn't holding, I am only getting 7 or 8 hrs out of it. So just like the codeine I'm sick on it and sick to the point of torture if I try and taper off. I'm on 170mls a day and getting more and more WDs instead of stabilization, as my tolerance grows. Fortunately, the science background plus a fairly iron discipline means I have worked out how to solve this and am on day 4 of the solution. It's pretty unpleasant, but still, I think going from 170 to nothing with only mild WDs is quite clever, but you have to understand the science (unlike most clinics) and you have to be very disciplined to use my method. My nearly 6 years in AA has obviously helped (although I am totally uninterested in God, higher powers or any of that religious crap. Not an atheist, not an agnostic, not not interested. Only interested in philosophy and metaphysics. Very easy to do 12 steps without God, believe me. Just update the underlying principles.). I have just joined this fascinating and useful forum tonight to get anecdotal evidence about methadone and concluded that it behaves very differently at high doses to low doses which is well documented scientifically e.g. Very high doses actually protect from respiratory distress/failure. I liked this site a lot until I just now came across this ridiculous and offensive profile video for "Lysis". There are vulnerable young female addicts desperate for help on this site. Do you think this video helps them? Moderators where the hell are you? This breaks your user agreement that I have just agreed to. Scandalous. Btw if you think I'm being uptight all I can say is this is an abusive video. Oh yeah and I was born in Cambridge, England and my accent is like Lady Mary's from Downtown Abbey. Yet have tried pretty much every "recreational" drug and even discovered a new one in a programme I wrote and directed for UK and US network TV which was about drug use in Ancient Egypt. So not so uptight? Make up your own mind as I'm sure you all do.
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Dang, lady....I gather what you are saying is that your Lady Mary sensibility is offended by Lysis' avatar? I couldn't really tell because apparently while you were mastering the world of video production you didn't take a class on basic paragraph structure so most people are going to take one look at your post and skim over it in exhaustion w/o digesting it.

But I'll help you out here...

I believe Lysis IS a female ( I think??? Sorry Lysis if I am wrong!!!) So am I. And I am a young addict girl, I guess, too, and a little avatar of a swingin' dick doesn't seem to bother me or anybody on this forum... you're also derailing the thread, ps. I was having an interesting read on this thread, educating myself on methadone tapers and such, until I came upon your wall of text. If you have an issue with somebody's profile you can always send them a PM, or like Crimson said, go ahead and click that little notebook picture on the bottom left and talk to the mods.

Anything you don't like, you can easily report it to the mods, they are, contrary to your post, all over and usually pretty on top of shit. In fact, one even responded to this thread. But nobody will ever respond really or attempt to resolve some personal issue you have, you're more likely just to get harshed on by a bunch of grouchy addicts like myself. :)
 
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Thanks to dognasher and crimson junk for your advice. Not only am I new to bluelight, this is the first time I have posted anything on any internet forum anywhere.8) So really useful the advice on posts that are too long, breaking up paragraphs, derailing threads etc. I really appreciate the advice.

Re my method, I'm only on Day 5 so won't know if my theory works for another 2 weeks at least. So I'll post again when I know if I've been successful. All I can say now is that it costs money (around £800 sterling - sorry feeling too ill to look up exchange rate just now) and involves exploiting the difference between opiates and synthetic or semi synthetic opioids. It also requires good hypnotics (sleeping pills). I couldn't get any so having to use diazepam (called Valium in UK) which are anxiolytics and so crap for sleeping.


Reading this site more I see there are a lot of funny avatars and it is a rather nice penis, so I prob overreacted coz of bad mood from WDs in middle of night.


My plan is to do what I'm doing for 2 weeks, then go back to methadone at massively reduced dose. When I know it's worked, I'll do this again for approx 2 weeks, then back to methadone on nice small dose. I need to get down to 30-50 mls when either a) the methadone will start to behave properly or b) I can be switched by the clinic to sustained release morphine. Apologies for inexperience at writing on internet and for being a writing, spelling and grammar fanatic. :) This post is too long again, too tired to edit down but would be very easy since that is one of the key skills in writing for TV.
 
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I also need to get better at this type of writing and check that describing my method doesn't break user agreement oh no AGAIN derailing thread sorry - brain not working very well right now
 
Long story short- 3 months ago I was bangin 3 grams dope daily. Weened myself down to .5g daily. Last Friday entered methadone clinic and have been on 30mg for 4 days. It didn't take all my wd's away, but it's very tolerable. I am now tapering 1mg a day to be off in 30 days. My question is this- what will wds by like once I jump off completely? I know I won't have been on long enough to get the long drawn out methadone wd symptoms, but any idea what to expect?
 
Aryastark said:
I also need to get better at this type of writing and check that describing my method doesn't break user agreement oh no AGAIN derailing thread sorry - brain not working very well right now
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Hey man, no worries. It's hard to get accustomed to Internet Language. I wouldn't sweat the user agreement too bad. Somebody will let you know.

Just try to remember that, like email, things can come off really strange on the nets, but most everybody here is pretty nice and helpful. As in life, it's good not to take anything personally.

Welcome to BL!!!
 
GeesusFish said:
Long story short- 3 months ago I was bangin 3 grams dope daily. Weened myself down to .5g daily. Last Friday entered methadone clinic and have been on 30mg for 4 days. It didn't take all my wd's away, but it's very tolerable. I am now tapering 1mg a day to be off in 30 days. My question is this- what will wds by like once I jump off completely? I know I won't have been on long enough to get the long drawn out methadone wd symptoms, but any idea what to expect?
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Its hard to say man as its a very individual experience. But I would bet that your withdrawals are more manageable than if you had jumped of at 3 grams a day. Feel free to start your own thread to keep us updated on how it goes though.
 
Thank you so much dognasher :). I'm so prehistoric I'm having to look up every single acronym on urban dictionary :) !.

IMHO Methadone is a safe and good drug for getting clean at doses 30ml (equals 30mgs) to 50 mls/mgs. It holds and is long acting (unlike heroin) because as far as I remember it is stored in the lipids (fat deposits) of the body so hangs around for a long time. At those doses I have got completely clean twice from heroin and once from the evil evil codeine without any pain at all except awful sweats (not attractive, no point in blowdrying hair, looks like early onset menopause ;) :)).

HOWEVER at doses above this e.g. 100mls, 120 mls or the appalling 170mls my clinic has put me up to it can be dangerous, very hard to get off and sometimes behaves totally differently, giving you only 7-8 hours of "comfort" a day and WDs all night. It can become a nightmare, as it has for me, and ruin your life completely. If anyone is completely new to Methadone, try try not to get up to those high doses. The clinic kept putting me up because it wasn't holding, and being me, of course I wanted it to go up so I could feel a bit high and cope with my mother who at the age of 82 has decided to drink herself to death. In fact I didn't need to go up at all, that wasn't the reason it wasn't holding, it was the dose being above 50mls, so this is also all a huge medical (and my) mistake.

Still I've now completed day 5 without any methadone at all after 4 months on 170 mls a day and a year of erratic illicit using methadone before that. So far my theory seems to be working so I'm hopeful, really hopeful that I've worked out the solution. I'm not well enough to go to the corner shop or do much at all, but this is totally doable and no suicidal ideation or aches or vomiting or diarrhoea or anything much except sweats, chills, vivid nightmares and very emotional. We'll see what happens when I get to Day 7-10.

For sure, it's so far nothing remotely like the times i went cold turkey from heroin to try to get rid of an abusive man who had introduced me to smoking tar. He was smoking in another room, (in my flat with my money of course) and beating me, and I couldn't keep down water. After three days of vomiting up even tiny sips of water I ended up in hospital on a drip with my hands cramped and paralysed because there were no electrolytes (minerals, salts etc.) in my body. Proper dangerous. So what I'm doing now is a piece of piss compared to that. Going cold turkey from high doses of methadone is WORSE than that lasts much longer and in very very rare cases can be lethal.

So please please if you are new to methadone be really careful of high doses. Do the research I failed to do. Pretty bloody stupid of me since I used to be a trained investigative journalist in television, including news and current affairs and science/medicine too and if hadn't been drunk and insane I would have researched the f**k out of everything as when sane am a knowledge sponge. Just goes to show how much the wrong drug can warp your personality (I'm referring to alcohol here). And I don't even like heroin its not my DOC coz I get panic attacks on it so 'twas completely ridiculous to have become so controlled and so mad.

This is fun, internet forums !! Hello everyone :)
 
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Just to note again, the management of each clinic can very widely. I have visited clinics to guest dose that were really very nice (in Santa Barbara) and not so wonderful (Portland). My clinic was amazing with the original manager, but when she started working at corporate and was replaced the new manager was such a hard ass about everything, completely inflexible and unknowledgeable about company and state regulations regarding her fucking job that I had to end my taper much sooner than I would have liked (jumping off at ten instead of something like one).

I just want to emphasize that if you at all have a choice of clinics and are unhappy with your own you can always shop around. Also to point out is the importance of maintaining a good, professional type relationship with the staff (whenever possible), so they don't end up as likely to treat your like a suspicious thieving junkbox.
 
^^^you would think they would take an altruistic approach when it came to certain regulations in order to help a wider range of people. I know some regulations are in place for a reason....but think on this: With suboxone a doctor can only have 100 patients and it is incredibly cost prohibitive. Why 100 patients you ask? I am not sure...I guess they just don't want people to be stable.
 
Now suboxone doctors can prescribe for 250 patients, although in the first year they can only prescribe for 90. It's only something like 90,000 patients being care for with it though - in the whole country, which is a joke.

When a clinic's staff, from the manager to the prescribing doctor, is more concerned about regulations and their license than the well being of their patients, well, in a way I can sympathize, but it is a major fucking issue. The patient's needs would come first, you'd think. . . it is a super flawed fucking system, to say the least.
 
TPD - just putting one foot in front of the other is all we can do sometimes. I like to think you're still making it... It makes me happy. gives me hope.

The clinics are business. Its not the place to go for help. Sometimes I do believe that the only ones equipped to help us and care at all about helping us, are US.. I'm good with that. I've met some amazing people who happened to be addicts. Its like anything, good & bad, and everything in between, right?
 
Sadly, they are primarily a business, and they put their interest ultimately ahead of the patient. That said they do provide an extremely useful treatment. Couldn't agree with you more though.
 
I have hit the brick wall where methadone no longer gIves me any pleasurable effects to really speak of. I know this is the point where the work I've been doing on myself is supposed to take over and keep me clean. I guess I failed at that. I am using benzos to the point of blackout and I am flirting with physical dependence. I've decided to start smoking weed again in hopes of it stabilizing my addictive impulses.

Any suggestions?
 
Do what you need to do. I'd work first on dealing with the benzo issues. Getting exercise and doing things that cultivate good health help methadone work better. But methadone isn't going to get you loaded like dope will, not if you're using it ever day via the clinic. You know this.

I have a feeling you already know the answers CJ, keep your head up! Love you brother.
 
Hi everyone I have a quick question...
I've been on methadone for about 2 weeks. I started at 40mg and upped my dose to 75mg and thats where its been for about a week. Things were going well but this morning I missed my dose. Will my dose from yesterday hold me until tomorrow?
 
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