Should I be worried - methadone dose question

[vdv2006]

Hi, I'm new to the forums and have a quick question about the methadone dose I took today. I have a tolerance to other opiates (15mg oxycodone instant-release doesn't affect me much at this point, and there are days where I can go through 200mg of oxymorphone administered intra-nasally).

I've read that methadone is difficult to find the right dose and the affects can take a while to take affect. Today was the first time I tried it. I started safely with 5mg about 11 hrs ago, and felt nothing, so after 1.5 hrs I took 5 mg more. Then I added 10mg every few hrs after than until I reached a total of 40mg, with the final 10mg being taken about 4.5 hrs ago.

Shoudl I be worried about the cumulative affect of that much methadone if I've felt practically nothing? Am I worrying for no reason that I could have trouble breathing once I go to sleep? At the moment it seems as though my tolerance to other opiates makes the 40mg I took orally, spread out among all those hours (and never feeling much of anything), means that I have nothing to worry about. But I also know that even though over 4 hrs has passed since the last dose, methadone keeps working for up to 12 hrs.

So basically - should I be worried at all? I don't think I should but part of me wants to feel better that I have nothing to be concerned about.

 

[onetwonine]

40 mg should be a pretty hefty dose for someone with low tolerance.

If you are feeling okay physically after 4 hours, it shouldn't be anything to worry about.

For the future though, methadone takes a fairly long time to hit properly, usually about 3-4 hours for it to fully peak in my experience. I would strongly suggest you don't redose going forward, at the very least until a few hours after your first dose has had a chance to kick in.

Edit: shit, i misread (and totally missed) the part where you said you blow 200mg of oxymorphone in a day, and thought your opioid experience was limited to 15mg doses of oxy.

You should be totally fine.

 

[vdv2006]

Thanks for the reply. I was obviously fine. 200mg oxymorphone is not a typical dose, but there are times where over the course of a week, everyday I'll go through 80-120mg oxymorphone, and my tolerance has been getting bigger this past week, and during this past weekend I didn't pay attention to how much I was going through each day. I used about 200mg (maybe a little more) each day on Friday-Sunday.

I knew 40mg methadone was probably fine but just needed some reassurance. Today I bumped it to about 80mg and still didn't feel much of anything. Maybe because I spread that 80mg out over the course of the day, in combination with my tolerance getting too high lately. Either way, thanks for the help.