Opioids Rapid taper off methadone / Need Advice please ?

[bfisher]

Hey,

about 3.5 years ago i was stabbed and being mr. tough guy/idiot at the time i didnt go to the hospital til the next day - Very long story short i got a bone infection in my arm (Osteomialitus) and had to go on 24/7 home care for 60days with anti biotics. I was prescribed Oxycontin for the intense pain, it was my first experience with opiates. At first i was prescribed oxycodone 5/325 1-2 tabs / 4-6 hours, and pretty quickly went up to 20mg oxycontin 2x daily, then to 4x daily, then to 40mg 4x daily, by the time i finished 60days of home care/anti biotic treatment i was removing the wax coating and crushing/swallowing or snorting the oxycontin tabs, and though i finished the anti biotics i was still in pain (Now i realize that 90% of it was probably made up in my head) so my doctor kept rx'ing me the oxycontin. After another 2-3 months i was crushing/snorting 4-6 80mg oxycontin as soon as id wake up, then 3-6 more 80mg crushed and snorted mid day, followed by 3-5 80mg crushed/snorted before bed. I decided that it had gotten way out of control and made the decision to put a stop to it, but that only lasted 48hours... I hadnt gone more than 6hours without an oxy dose for almost 6months and got a real quick wakeup call/eye opening realization that i had gotten myself into an addiction that was FAR more serious than i thought. I went to the methadone clinic and signed up, it took me 2weeks to get on the program/get my 1st dose and my doctor had stopped writing me oxy prescriptions so i went to him and spilled my gutts, told him the truth about everything and that it was going to take me 2weeks to get on the MMT, lucky enough for me he helped me out and aggree'd to write me scripts until the day i got on methadone, but obviously couldnt write me a prescription for 15x80mg oxycontin daily. We worked together and found the lowest amount needed for me to avoid withdrawl symptoms which was somewhere around 4-6 x 40mg daily.

So i started MMT about 3years ago at 30mg and raised my dose by 10-15mg weekly until i was stable which was 100mg. I stopped taking all drugs and worked my way from level 0 to level 6 Carries and obtained my 6 carry home bottles so i only had to dose once a week at the clinic when i left my urine sample and for the rest of the week had my take home carries n was able to dose at home. Approx. 4months ago i decided to start tapering with the goal of getting off the methadone completely. I dropped my dose from 100mg by 10mg every week and successfully got down to 40mg, and then slowed the taper to 5mg/weekly until i got to 25mg. A week later i threw out my back and was in extremeeeee pain and unfortunately had to raise my dose back up to 80 for pain management. 8weeks ago i started a rapid taper of 10mg/weekly until i got to 30mg, then slowed it to 4mg/week for 3weeks, and then started dropping 4mg bi-weekly from 18mg. Im at 12mg now and at the point where i can only drop 2 or 2.5mg followed by waiting two or three weeks of letting my body adjust to the drop in dose or i will get w/d symptoms. i dropped 3mg after being at 12 for 3weeks yesterday so im not dosing 9mg daily...

Ive had alot of people tell me very discouraging things at my clinic such as nobody will ever get off methadone, its for life, etc etc. I know thats all BS and for them it may be true due to the fact that they dont want to get off of it, but i do...

Has anyone been in my shoes at all ? Can i get some feed back of what the withdrawl feels like when u get down to the 4-5-6mg range and lower ? Anyone here that has actually successfully tapered all the way off methadone and stayed off of it ? any advice would be appreciated very much...

i DO take 2mg clonazepam 3x daily by prescription, so i will have those to help me... but i know in opiate withdrawl ur going to feel sick regardless of wat ur taking if it isnt an opiate...


*ANY* feed back is appreciated.

 

[T. Calderone]

I never went to methadone clinic but was prescribed them for nighttime use because the short acting oxys didn't last. That was only 10 mg though. Somebody in another thread (Insomnia) had suggestions how to taper from methadone here in OD.

So you get take home methadone and they are changing your dose up and down. Or you are doing it yourself? Don't listen to other clients telling you that you're on it for life. Take advice from the doctor or counselor at the clinic.

 

[bfisher]

its my choice when i want to lower my dose, im doing it.

 

[jeng1128]

So are you on 45 or are you dosing at 9mgs? Bc in my post you stated you were on 45. One of my best friends tapered off methadone sucessfully. She said the worst part wasnt when she got to zero but when she got below 10.

 

[thelung]

If you're that low, just decrease one mg every few days until your done. you dont need to wait to adjust at that low amount - the point is to get yourself off the 'done (congrats on that, good choice) so you gotta expect some discomfort while youre doing it. i'm in your same shoes. I'm only in the very early beginning of my taper. i've dropped 10% so far (from 80mg to 72mg) and i don't notice a difference yet. I'm sure I will when i get down in the 30's 20's 10's and beyond.... Good luck! stick with it! don't give up! the grass IS greener on the other side

 

[chrisalt]

Dude you are going to feel worse coming of 6 mgs of clonazepam a day then the methadone sorry to say. With opiates its just extreme discomfort. With Benzos if you dont taper is EXTREME discomfort followed by grand mal seizures.

Benzos are the drugs people have a hard time with due to physical reasons and mental reasons. Id know im addicted to benzos (for the 3rd time) and the last time i cold turkeyed 4 mgs a day for 2 years i thought i was gonna seize and die for 1 month.

stable urself on the methadone and Get off the benzos first man.

 

[BlueHues]

I was on 95 mgs for about 2 1/2 years...I did 1 mg a day the last 75-80 mgs and took breaks here and there....I got to zero and stayed off opiates for three years...The first week really sucked but it could have been much worse...After 3 weeks I was getting 4-6 hours of off and on sleep, followed by a few months of diahrrea, anxiety and aches but it was manageable....

I'd wait until after the methadone to taper off the benzos...Some people psych themselves out, but when I was getting off of it, I had a couple friends who went through reassuring me it wouldn't be that bad...If you go to NA, it helps, there's plenty of people that will share their experiences with it and enocourage you...You need support at the end from people who have been there.

 

[T. Calderone]

I've gone cold turkey off opiates so many times and also tried to taper but that was from oxy. I got there eventually to where I didn't want anymore of it. Benzos were a different story. It was like opiate withdrawal magnified and took much longer to feel halfway healthy again. My sister kept telling me to go to the hospital for fear of seizures. I toughed it out at home but felt deathly sick and never want to go through that again.

 

[bfisher]

As long as ur not thinking 'Im going to be sick' in ur head, u can taper down pretty damn quick without feeling anything until the 35-50mg mark, its dif for everyone but u can go 10mg a week every week like i did until u hit a point where u start to notice something, then u need to slow it down. From what ive heard, the hardest part of detoxing from methadone even if ur down to .5mg n then detox is that its half life is so long so the w/d symptoms last MUCH longer than they would if u were detoxing off H, with H itd be shorter but Much more hard on ur body, juice is long n jus shitty from what i hear... But ive read studdies (they can be found on youtube) done by doctors that specialize in weaning people off suboxone/methadone and what they do is taper ur dose til ur low as u can go and then u stop drinking and when ur in full w/d (day 3 1/2 - 4) they give you small ammounts of MScountin to take the edge off, and because mscontin's half life is so much shorger n short compared to most of the other narcotic pain killers u dont have to worry about ur body w/diing from it.. they dose u with ms contin on the days during ur meth detox that are REALLY bad, just enuf to get u through it... almost like what they did with Subutex when it 1st came out. in theory it works

 

[Tommyboy]

The worst thing you can do is expect it to be bad. If you accept that you can't keep taking it and that you have to get off of it, then it will be a lot easier on you.