Tchort said:I get sick of people pushing Buprenorphine to people who are benefiting from or who would potentially benefit from Methadone.
Buprenorphine does not work well for a lot of people. For me personally, it did nothing for cravings and produced a series of unpleasent side effects (including a severely more unpleasant withdrawal syndrome than IV Heroin). After a few months on Buprenorphine I went back to shooting dope, and ended up using a lot more Heroin than I ever used before starting with Suboxone. I've been clean from dope almost 2 years thanks to Methadone.
Methadone holds a number of advantages over Buprenorphine for treatment of opioid addiction.
Psych0naut said:Since I started out on Methadone I aquired through non-medical ways a few days ago, I completely stopped using IV Heroin like I did before. Before that, I used to shoot up to a gram a day of extremely pure Heroin #3. Now I haven't shot or did H in any other way for 3 days, and I definately feel I will keep it up, staying off of Heroin for the rest of my future. The Methadone kills all cravings as well as the withdrawl. I'm having an appointment on octobre the 24st with a Methadone doctor, to get me onto a Methadone treatment. I'm hoping to taper down with the Methadone till I'm at a low dose(under 20mg a day at least, preferrably even lower, like 10mg a day), and then switch over to Subs for the last bit, and do a fast taper with Subs in 10 days, and quit alltogether.
Thanks for the support man, I appreciate it. I've heard the same thing about the short acting narcotics sometimes being prescribed for the last bit of tapering down to nill, but that won't happen here, not in the Netherlands. All doctors prescribe is Methadone, and on some occasions Bupe. And a hand full of the most hardcore Heroin addicts get pharmaceutical Heroin on prescription. But they never use short acting narcotics on the end of the taper. I have faith in my approach of using Methadone at first, and Subs for the last bit though. We'll see how it goes, I'll report back on Bluelight how my progress goesTchort said:Best of luck with your plan. A lot of people do that, or try to do that. Maybe you should try tapering with just the Methadone first, and if it's too difficult then try something else. I've heard some doctors will switch a low dose Methadone patient to a shorter acting narcotic (Oxycodone, Hydrocodone, Dihydrocodeine, etc) and taper with the shorter acting drug. Buprenorphine can be very difficult for some people (myself included), and the partial agonist nature of its being makes switching back and forth to full agonists often needlessly painful.
Psych0naut said:Thanks for the support man, I appreciate it. I've heard the same thing about the short acting narcotics sometimes being prescribed for the last bit of tapering down to nill, but that won't happen here, not in the Netherlands. All doctors prescribe is Methadone, and on some occasions Bupe. And a hand full of the most hardcore Heroin addicts get pharmaceutical Heroin on prescription. But they never use short acting narcotics on the end of the taper. I have faith in my approach of using Methadone at first, and Subs for the last bit though. We'll see how it goes, I'll report back on Bluelight how my progress goes
You should at least visit the Netherlands for the BL 2009 meet up then, I could arrange you a place to crash if you'd come over! But yeah, the Netherlands is certainly one of the best countries in the world regarding opioid detoxing possibillities, but it's not completely perfect. I think you are right, I was probaply a bit pre-assumptious, but doctors are like you said, very liberal regarding medication prescribing as well as there treatments for opioid, as well as other types of addictions. Heroin, and before that Palfium, are available in some cases, but only rare ones. The official requirements for prescription Heroin in the Netherlands are that all other treatments have failed, and that you've been a repeated criminal offender for the last while, if not, you won't get pharmaceutical Heroin as far as I know, nor would you have gotten Palfium, or get it, if it's still prescribed nowaday's. On the other hand, doctors here in the Netherlands are extremely free in their prescribing, they can basically prescribe anything they want as long as they think if would be of benefit. Even normal GP's could, in theory, prescribe you Heroin, or Methadone together with Palfium, though finding such a doctor would be extremely difficult. There are however some doctors out there who are willing to prescribe like that. The doctors in Methadone clinics are probaply even more relaxed regarding what they would prescribe to treat your addiction, and as long as you stick to their rules and behave yourself nice, than I'm shure many doctors would prescribe more unorthodox medicines like prescription Heroin or Palfium even though you haven't tried and failed every other treatment and/or are a repeated criminal offender for recent period. So there might certainly be a fair chance that I could get some short(er) acting opioids considering I'm a true role model as far as opioid addicts go(I'm still studying for a nice education, never come into contact with the justice system, don't use any other drugs nor relapse and use Heroin again, now that I've been on Methadone for some while). I'll go and see what the possibilities are One thing is certain though, we do indeed have much better clinics and doctors, as well as insurance coverages for these kind of things. Every Dutch citizen has a full insurance coverage for Methadone/Bupe treatment, so even the expensive Bupe treatment is fully covered and payed by one's insurance. And there are hardly any, if any waiting lists at all in the urban parts of the Netherlands. And the clinics/addiction specialists are much more willing to try anything out, therapy and medication wise. Ow, Dihydrocodeine isn't used in the Netherlands, so I'm shure you've probaply mixed up the Netherlands with some other country.Tchort said:I've had fantasies of immigrating to either Holland or most likely (and preferably Britain) for treatment. If I had my choice and a good doc I think a partial IV partial oral dose of Methadone plus oral Dextromoramide for break through cravings would be my g-spot Heroin addiction treatment.
I thought you guys had a much more enlightened addiction treatment environment, more medications, better clinics, better doctors, etc?
I'm pretty sure I've read of Dihydrocodeine being used to taper Methadone maintenance patients off at the end in the Netherlands. Hm.
Bump -
Shouldn't this be used to clean up OD?
Apparently they died from seizures.
The second lady did, the first article though states that the lady died from malnutrition and not being rehydrated enough to keep up with her constant vomiting and diarrhea. I did not know seizures were a symptom of methadone WD?