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Severe methadone withdrawal and desperation

I personally have been prescribed methadone for over 12 years for a chronic pain condition and found it more effective than fentanyl, oxycodone or morphine but on the few times when I've tried to get to off by myself or had problems with pharmacies losing my script etc and had to stop cold turkey (I'm currently on 180mg but have been on more) I completely understand the pain you're going through. Plus even though I'm an emergency healthcare professional and am scripted for pain and have never been on illegal opiates the stigma around methadone is still there. Strangely even when I was on very high doses of fentanyl I felt able to tell co-workers what I was on but don't dare tell people I'm on methadone due to the stigma attached. And I'm talking about this other healthcare professionals who should understand (but dont). I never made it past day 6 or 7 so you're doing amazing!! When I stopped cold turkey I didn't use lope, benzos, pregabalin, tramadol or any of those things but if it happened today then I definitely would. You're doing everything right and even though I don't know you I'm immensely proud and feel a huge sense of admiration for what you have achieved. The paramedic in me worries about your cardiac issues but as long as you moniter it closely I'm sure you'll be fine. Keep going and let us know how you get on.

Oh just wanted to add...... Promethazine makes me feel terrible the next day too and seems to exacibate wds. The worst sleep med by far for making you feel worse in wds though is amyltriptaline so be a bit wary of that if you happen to be offered it to help you sleep. It definately does help you sleep but makes you feel TERRIBLE the next day!!
 
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Thank you. I've found more motivation in this site already than I have anywhere else in my life, so thanks for that, sincerely. 1 week clean and sober tomorrow (except for the mild doses of Tramadol I've been taking to take the edge off). Have a doctor's appt in the morning so we'll see how it goes. I'll keep you posted.
 
I think you're doing great :) I'm only on 23 mg of methadone, it wears off mostly in the evening and I feel like crap (tho I can sleep, kinda - I wake up a lot, but I get back to sleep)... I can't imagine going cold turkey off the amount you were on. You're strong, dude, for real. I hope your doctors appt goes well tomorrow.
 
Seriously, go get Tagamet or Cimetidine and Imodium or Loperamide.

Take 1000MG of cimetidine 1 hour before (at your level I'd say take 40 pills/80mg of Loperamide and if that doesn't help in a couple hours take 4 more pills and do this every couple hours till you feel better) I promise man it will help!!! It helps me with heroin withdrawals and it helps people with opioid addiction much more since Loperamide is an opioid that binds in the gut
 
Well done for getting down to 23mg...that's great.... I want to get off my pain dose but at 180-220mg I know its gonna be a looooong road ahead :-(

The OP is already taking loperamide BTW. Although from a physiological point of view taking an opioid (even a one with weak CNS binding affinity and very poor BBB crossover ability like loperamide) to help with wds is risky as it may just prolong things. After all if one was to simply take a large dose of methadone that would help the symptoms enormously but wouldn't be a good idea as the wds would simy start again when it wears off. I worry that when people rely too heavily on loperamide they are sometimes doing more harm than good. Yes it may make you feel better but it won't make the wds go over quicker (necessarily). Its certainly worth thinking about and debating........neversickagain - what are your thoughts on lope as a WD tool?
 
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Was on methadone for over 8 yrs. Recently got off and was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Bit I will tell u it is possible. I was not strong willed or strong minded enough but my husband was. He has been clean now for 11 months!
 
englandgz74 said:
Well done for getting down to 23mg...that's great.... I want to get off my pain dose but at 180-220mg I know its gonna be a looooong road ahead :-(

The OP is already taking loperamide BTW. Although from a physiological point of view taking an opioid (even a one with weak CNS binding affinity and very poor BBB crossover ability like loperamide) to help with wds is risky as it may just prolong things. After all if one was to simply take a large dose of methadone that would help the symptoms enormously but wouldn't be a good idea as the wds would simy start again when it wears off. I worry that when people rely too heavily on loperamide they are sometimes doing more harm than good. Yes it may make you feel better but it won't make the wds go over quicker (necessarily). Its certainly worth thinking about and debating........neversickagain - what are your thoughts on lope as a WD tool?
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Looeramide has a high binding affinity, AND It is Mu selective. Ironically, it's binding affinity is exactly the same as methadone's, and, if you go through the trouble for CNS effects, it feels like methadone more than any other opioid.
(Albeit with terrible CCB+ extra pyramidal side effects".)

and KRS, at you're doses, with cimetidine, there is plenty of lope floating in you're blood stream. It only poorly crosses the BBB, as England mentioned, but it does cross, eventually and I. Small amounts. Combine this with intense PNS stimulation(again, same binding affinity as methadone) and it is not surprising how much it helps WD.
Again, you can get full CNS effects off of it, but the side effects are asinine, and it just isn't fun. At all. I dare say deadly, because you don't know how much plasma levels are getting jacked up with that level of inhibition, not to mention it's (almost certainly) toxic metabolite.
 
Can't sleep. One of those nights. I was doing okay but I woke up after about 2 hours of sleep and feel a little worse. I haven't taken a benzo or lope or anything else, though. As far as lope is concerned it can be more helpful, I think, when used in moderation but during the early stages of WD I think it's necessary to let your body do what it's supposed to do as far as expelling toxins that aren't supposed to be there, however uncomfortable. Once it becomes overkill then the lope should be utilized, but that's just my opinion/experience.
 
You need pregabalin and lofexidine/clonidine.

Seriously, if you can get hold of that combination you can deal with a very large proportion of wd symptoms. Don't ask me why but for some reason pregabalin almost completely holds off wd symptoms and when combined with something to dampen down the adrenaline being produced it will help you an incredible amount whilst still allowing the detox to take place.

Props to you for even being able to make it to a computer and post, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to leave the fetal position at that level of withdrawal.
 
I have to defer to Lorne when it comes to Lope as I don't know a great deal about its pharmacology other than its chemical structure is similar to fentanyl and it has high affinity for opioid receptors in the gut and a poor ability to cross the BBB (although this can be manipulated). I've never bothered with it mainly because its fucking rediculously expensive in UK pharmacies and only comes in packs of 6 pills. Hardly cost effective.

I think the OP said he was already on clonidine and with his insurance situation and living in the US.....I doubt he will be able to afford pregabalin. Also its weird how pregabalin helps some people massively (probably because it inhibits noradrenaline, glutamate and substance-p as well as being an NMDA agonist)....while for some people all it does is make them fall over. I fucking hate it and end up giving all my script for the 300mg caps away.....or returning them to the pharmacy unopened
 
Didn't sleep well. I got about an hour and 15 minutes of shallow sleep and was wide awake feeling rough. I didn't take a benzo or any other kind of sleep aid though. I am at one week clean today. I have a doctor's appt in a couple of hours but I am honestly dreading it. It's not for the withdraw symptoms as I seem to be managing them efficiently on my own. The appt is to address the issues with my back, which is why I started taking the methadone in the first place. I have a massive compression fracture at the base of my spine with bulging/displaced discs on either side. I am trying to learn new ways to manage pain and I don't want to go back to the painkillers. I don't typically have an addictive personality so taking hydrocodone or oxycodone for long periods of time and then stopping coldturkey does not and has not ever bothered me. The ultimate downside to that, though, is that I was taking such lethal doses of methadone (and I am a small guy; 5'7" 146 pounds) that in order to take the edge off of WDs when I tried to quit before, or to effectively manage the pain that I was feeling which made me want the painkillers in the first place, I was taking 5-8 of the 5/325 hydro/oxycodone pills at once. Anything less is just a waste of time. Is this normal?
 
Heychristina said:
Was on methadone for over 8 yrs. Recently got off and was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Bit I will tell u it is possible. I was not strong willed or strong minded enough but my husband was. He has been clean now for 11 months!
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I am happy to hear that you beat the devil off your back, and your husband as well. It is most definitely the most difficult thing that I have ever had to do in my life. I don't do well with pain anyway, and I have severe back injuries which I was managing (irresponsibly) with the high doses of methadone instead of getting it addressed due to the fact that I haven't had insurance for the last 9 years. I have, however, recently acquired insurance and the hardest part of all of this is not only getting out of the haze and back to reality with my sanity intact, but learning to manage the pain in a way that does not involve gobbling painkillers by the dozen. Stay sane.
 
Your a stronger man than me brother, and done' at that!! Fuck man, congrats!! Everyday is one day closer to freedom...
 
Thanks neversick. I don't feel terrible today but I am severely depressed. I didn't sleep very well at all last night.
 
Last night I had an issue with sleep, as I mentioned before. I slept, poorly, for about an hour and 40 minutes, and then a phone call woke me up, after which I was up for the rest of the night and all day today. I managed to catch another 2 hours of broken sleep but both during last night and today's attempts I kept waking up suddenly feeling very odd (It's the only word I can think to describe it) and the most notable symptom was a weird, almost nauseating taste that was radiating through my mouth. It got most severe right after waking, or when in waking sleep (I have sleep awareness and insomnia issues anyway). So basically, my initial hour or so of sleep is alright and then I wake up with that awful taste in my mouth and cannot go back to sleep. I also noticed that my RLS starts to come back during these instances. Any ideas?
 
Also...any thoughts on the use of marijuana at night to help me relax and to sleep? Once I start getting my natural energy back I plan to reset my exercise regimen to help with the reintroduction of natural dopamine (I think that's it), back to 10 sets of 10 pushups a day, the same with weighted crunches and pulls to get my muscle depth back.
 
Unfortunately, it was not me who beat this devil called methadone. It is my husband. Though I guess in some ways I did bcuz I am off of it and was ckean for a good 4 months. But the devil camw a knockin in the form of a sweet opiate...and I was too weak to say no. I used on occasion. ..and now am back to needing things to get thru my day. My husband is a wonderful man and def wants more for me/us hut does not down me bcyz he knows how difficult it is. He does however keep an eye on how much I intake. Some may say this may seem like this is giving me the ok...but any addict knows u cannot make some1 do something....they have to do it.
Anyway. U r doing wonderful! U have come a long way
Get a support system. It doesn't matter if its family, friend, groups, etc. It can really help some ppl.
 
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