Opioids Methadone side effects, moving to subs, need advice.

[trevic]

So I’ve been on methadone for awhile now, maybe like 4-5 months. I’m only on 40mg, though that doesn’t quite cover me and I should be getting bumped up 5 soon. Currently I have to have just a little bit of heroin in the morning — less than half a sheet, barely anything.

Problem is I’ve developed this severe nausea that’s lasted weeks, we’ve ruled a lot of things out and the doc thinks it’s the methadone now. I’m also very, very sensitive to opiates in terms of cardiac depression. My resting heart rate is regularly 40 on methadone which my doc is obvi concerned about.

I’m wondering if switching to subs/bupe would help since it’s just a partial agonist? I’m terrified of both precipitated and normal withdrawal. I’m currently a complete mess though I’ve scraped myself together a bit over the last couple weeks. If I’m mentally destabilised from withdrawal I’ll inevitably do a bunch of other drugs and almost overdose/ actually do it since I’m runnng out of luck I think.

My doctor at the drug place when I asked about switching made it sound like the easiest thing in the world, just wait 24 hours and you’ll be fine. Granted, I’m on a fairly low dose, but I’ve heard of people waiting like 3 days before?

I’m also terrified of the subs not covering me. With methadone I can obviously just top up if there’s withdrawal — I shouldn’t I know but it’s an option and even if I don’t do it, knowing I’ve got a fall back makes me feel better. With subs that wouldn’t be an option right? If I topped up, I’d then have to wait it out again and endure some decent withdrawal?

 

[goodjunkie]

So I’ve been on methadone for awhile now, maybe like 4-5 months. I’m only on 40mg, though that doesn’t quite cover me and I should be getting bumped up 5 soon. Currently I have to have just a little bit of heroin in the morning — less than half a sheet, barely anything.

Problem is I’ve developed this severe nausea that’s lasted weeks, we’ve ruled a lot of things out and the doc thinks it’s the methadone now. I’m also very, very sensitive to opiates in terms of cardiac depression. My resting heart rate is regularly 40 on methadone which my doc is obvi concerned about.

I’m wondering if switching to subs/bupe would help since it’s just a partial agonist? I’m terrified of both precipitated and normal withdrawal. I’m currently a complete mess though I’ve scraped myself together a bit over the last couple weeks. If I’m mentally destabilised from withdrawal I’ll inevitably do a bunch of other drugs and almost overdose/ actually do it since I’m runnng out of luck I think.

My doctor at the drug place when I asked about switching made it sound like the easiest thing in the world, just wait 24 hours and you’ll be fine. Granted, I’m on a fairly low dose, but I’ve heard of people waiting like 3 days before?

I’m also terrified of the subs not covering me. With methadone I can obviously just top up if there’s withdrawal — I shouldn’t I know but it’s an option and even if I don’t do it, knowing I’ve got a fall back makes me feel better. With subs that wouldn’t be an option right? If I topped up, I’d then have to wait it out again and endure some decent withdrawal

I think everyone got scared to give advice since you mentioned the cardiac depression/ sensitivity thing. Sorry for no answers.
I wonder how did it go?
Personally I would just taper off methadone its a low dose anyway I don't see the need for subs complicating things.

About 6 months ago i came off of 75mg methadone which i was on it for a year. Did a fast detox and switched to subs via the bernese (microdose) method. Was in the hospital for 7 days.They slowly gave me more n more subs it really sucked at day 3 day 4. Day 5 was still receiving 50mg methadone. Day 6 no methadone but 16mg subs. I did all this to eventually get on the buvidal monthly shots. I was on buvidal 64 for 3 months and stopped without any problems.
I really had to fight the doctors to not give me much higher doses. But at the end she agreed on minimum amount. I did all this because i wanted to get that fly in fly out job in the mines.

Didnt even get the job now im back on H. im gonna run out in a few days and im physically dependant again. (3 half a point shots a day on average)
But i got 50mg methadone from a mate im sure it will soften the fall. Realisticly thats all you need if you wanna get off H. rather do it myself than get methadone prescribed to take it every day for years on end.

Next time just gotta make sure not to do it (H) more then 3 consecutive days

 

[Keif' Richards]

Switching from Methadone to Buprenorphine is inherently difficult. The bulk of information that we have is dedicated to this process specific to short(er) acting Opioids like Heroin, Oxycodone and to a lesser extent, Fentanyl (Fentanyl, especially the street shit, is known for shorter durations of action).

You are going to want to familiarize yourself with some concepts if you want to be successful here. The floors are lava and there are plenty of ways to fuck and fall right in. You are going to want to induct on the Buprenorphine beginning with only very small doses following significant periods of abstinence. It's more often common for a clinic to start a person at a pre-determined dose of say, 4mg-8mg Buprenorphine, all at once. The problem is, if you end up fucking up and starting too early, the more Buprenorphine you take, the greater the intensity of the Precipitated Withdrawal will be.

You're going to want to go ~72 hours without any Methadone. You will take a tablet/strip of Buprenorphine and split off a piece of insignificant size, I'm going to throw out 0.2mg Buprenorphine if I had to say. Put just a tiny, tiny fraction under you tongue. You then wait 30 minutes. This is typically long enough to discern either success or failure. If you feel a small sense of relief or little noticeable change, you take another small piece. You repeat this process several times until you've taken the proper amount of Buprenorphine to relieve your withdrawal.

If you take your tiny piece of Buprenorphine and feel a rising sense of discomfort, you then wait several hours before repeating the process. If you have any questions, let me know.

It's advised that you have some way of handling the 3 day period of abstinence. It's pretty hard for a lot of people to actually complete it. I'm not sure what you would use for comfort though there are medications like Clonidine (Catapres), Pregabalin (Lyrica), Gabapentin (Neurontin) and for me, Cannabis is great. Use whatever you need, within reason, to remain comfortable up to the point of induction. If you need any support, let me know, I'm happy to help.

 

[trevic]

So the nausea in the end was caused by the gbl I was doing. It didn’t even occur to me it could be that cause I was only doing very low doses for anxiety (like .5 ml). I was doing that pretty much every day though and when I stopped the nausea resolved thank god.

…. I am just coming off a week long binge of gbl (100ml in 5 days). I actually had not full blown withdrawal, but I was extremely anxious for a couple of days and my heart rate is still elevated (80-90 pulse). Got some nausea while doing it but had some cyclizine and thank god it hasn’t persisted for a bit like last time.

I’ve been admitted to detox. They’re gonna move me onto buvidal though they haven’t really told me the whole process of that. They haven’t really told me much at all really. They’re gonna wean me off pregabs too.

I asked about the low heart rate and they were like yeah you could arrest with that heart rate but ecg is fine and my heart sounds fine. They didn’t seem too concerned.

Quick question though, they are convinced that the pregabs I have been doing are fake but I’m not so sure. I get them blistered, check to pictures online of what they’re supposed to look like, and multiple ones off different vendors (brought on markets) gave me consistent results and the same high.

I used to get high off 450mg. I’d cut a capsule open and add half since they’re 300’s. My last dose though was 9300 in multiple large doses across the day. That’s the highest I’ve done. A bit ago I went over 5000 which shocked me and it’s just gone up from there. I’ve got to the point where I’m just bullet proof with them, my tolerance is huge. They were just like no one can do that much though, if you did you’d be dead. Is that true? Anyone else done doses that high? That’s regularly using for a few months? They were also talking about deaths from people just doing pregabs and pregab overdose being so dangerous. I’m not saying it’s not dangerous, but I thought od if your not combining, if it’s actually pregab, was relatively less dangerous.

I’m hoping to go to rehab, but I’ll have to come off maintaince first so…. I dunno what’s gonna happen now really. I’m just doing what they tell me…