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Opioids switching from Percs to Methadone, how much would be "safe"?

buttershots21

buttershots21

Bluelighter
Joined
Feb 2, 2011
Messages
161
Location
Michigan
Since I need pain relief, I decided to use methadone instead of Subs. I currently take 40mg of Percs 3 times a day, and I'm getting some 10 mg methadones. I know this crap is very easy to od on due to it's looong half life and I've only taken 10mg at a time before, once a day, and only once, so I've never had to worry about it building up in my system. 10mg was good at holding my pain at bay along with everything else. Since I'll be taking it for a couple weeks proly, should I split it up into 5mg doses twice a day? or 10 mg once a day? I don't fully understand how the half life thing works, all I know is I don't want to wake up dead:(
 
Do you mean 40mg total throughout the day, or 120mg a day?

Comparison charts have 2.5mg of methadone = 5mg of oxycodone when using the methadone for acute pain. For chronic use it says 1.35mg methadone = 5mg oxycodone.

I would play it safe and take 10mg of methadone and see how it works. If you were using 40mg of oxycodone 3x a day then you are going to need more than 10mg of methadone to give you adequate pain relief. If you were taking 120mg of oxy, you may need up to 20mg of methadone 3x daily, but don't start at that dose. 10 or 15mg 3x daily should work, so try to get by on as little as possible if you plan on getting off of it. What is your plan for after the few weeks of taking methadone?

Also, suboxone can help with pain, so you may want to give it a try before deciding on methadone.
 
I take 120mg throughout the whole day. My plan? I have dug myself a hole that I'm trying to get out of. My GP has been prescribing me Percs and Morphine, but I have my first appt at a pain clinic coming up. So my stupid addicted arse couldn't regulate my meds, and I ended up eating more than I should. Got to take my meds in with me to this appointment. I'm trying to use the methadone, so I can get some Percs and save those for show at the appointment. And hope they don't spring a test on me for my first visit, before they've prescribed me anything themselves. God I hate addiction, especially since I take them for pain and the Dr doesn't script me enough to actually take care of my problem, so i have to take more than prescribed to kill the pain, which makes me run out early, which makes me have to seek on the street, it's a vicious circle.
 
I would do 2.5mg dosing increments, redosing absolutely no more frequently than 8 hours apart, ZERO exceptions.

Methadone is potent as fuck, I don't care what any conversion chart says, it feels to me like it's much stronger than 2x oxycodone's potency. Closer to 3-4x IME.

One of the scariest experiences I've ever had was taking 10mg methadone with a tolerance of 40mg oxycodone.

The extremely long half life can be very overwhelming to those who are not used to it.
 
tricomb said:
I would do 2.5mg dosing increments, redosing absolutely no more frequently than 8 hours apart, ZERO exceptions.

Methadone is potent as fuck, I don't care what any conversion chart says, it feels to me like it's much stronger than 2x oxycodone's potency. Closer to 3-4x IME.

One of the scariest experiences I've ever had was taking 10mg methadone with a tolerance of 40mg oxycodone.



The extremely long half life can be very overwhelming to those who are not used to it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I hear ya. I took a 10 mg methadone before my love affair with Percs, and I was dosing around 40mg of hydro at a time. It took a couple hours to kick in, but thank god I was at work for an 8 hour shift and didn't take more. It started slowly kicking in after 2 hours, and kept creeping, getting stronger, and stronger, until about hour 4 when it really hit me. Then it kept hitting me, and by hour 6 I thought I might have been in some trouble. But I just stayed calm, and after that it didn't get any worse, but it lasted forever. I'm more worried about it building up in my system, as I've never been a daily user of methadone, just once in a blue moon, and only one dose.

I think I'll start with 5mg in the morning, and 5mg at night, then try to get by with just 5mg once a day so it doesn't build up in my system too much. If that doesn't work, then the 5mg twice a day, but no more than that, no matter how crappy I feel. I'm not getting another monkey on my back. The one I got is quite enough. And as soon as I get my appointment to the Pain Clinic over with, I hope I won't have to resort to this crap ever again.
 
I hope this question doesn't violate the rules, I'm looking more for experiences.. For my first appointment at the clinic, is it likely that they will spring a test on me? So far, I've met with the psychiatrist and this is my first appointment with the pain Dr, who are all anesthesiologists btw. Idk if that would make a difference. All the pain meds I've been Rxed have been given to me by my GP, and she gives random tests.
 
I hate the anxiety I get with dosing of methadone, but I, like you, have had to supplement my scripts with methadone as well, because methadone is the cheapest opiate available to me. :(
 
my cousin has od'd on methadone twice in 24 hrs mind you shes dumb as fuck, got pumped and reccesitated or however and then went and popped more and ended up right back, but did she stop.................hell no.. natural selection when your that dumb and just plain beligerent with it.. its fine start with like 10-15 mg max and eat somethin before take it early and DONT REDOSE you wont even need to tho cuz percs dont touch dones
 
regain your control or they will drop you.. they can tell when you run out and a high isnt worth pain and misery let alone withdrawl
 
Do not take 15mg your first time. Either 2.5mg or 5mg. No need to be reckless, best not chance anything and live to see another day. No point in taking a higher dose if you can get by on less.
 
true but 10 at least he takes percs so really its just the same as 120mg of oxy.. i must have the most natural high tolerance ever
 
^The first time I took methadone, I had basically no tolerance to opiates. I was using suboxone a couple times a month, and hadn't used it in days when I first got a hold of some liquid methadone. I took a rediculously high dosage, I'm not going to even say because I feel like it would be counter productive on a harm reduction forum to mention it, but I'm very, very lucky to be alive. My reasons for doing so were like others have posted, methadone takes a long time to kick in.. I waited two hours and didnt feel much, so I downed the whole thing.. be careful with this stuff. I'm on 30mg for heroin addiction right now, and it suits me fine.
 
That's what gets me, is the taking it every day thing, and it accumulating in your body until one day, you just drop even though you've just taken the same dose you've always taken. I wouldn't take any more than 10mg in a 24 hour period, maybe every other day? Just want to be safe:)
 
Generally speaking methadone is dosed daily.. the halflife is longer but I have found that the desireable affects seem to only last 12-24 hours, but some of the side effects (such as cns depression) will be present even after the feeling has worn off.. so it is something to be careful with.

If I was you, I would dose 5mg in the monring 5mg at night not exceeding 10mg every 24 hours. Perosnally I think you'll be fine dosing daily.
 
Swain said:
Generally speaking methadone is dosed daily.. the halflife is longer but I have found that the desireable affects seem to only last 12-24 hours, but some of the side effects (such as cns depression) will be present even after the feeling has worn off.. so it is something to be careful with.

If I was you, I would dose 5mg in the monring 5mg at night not exceeding 10mg every 24 hours. Perosnally I think you'll be fine dosing daily.
Click to expand...

This is pretty much perfect advice. Basically try to space out the doses as much as you can and take the bare minimum you need to counter your pain.
 
I think methadone works best dosed 2x daily. Even though it boasts a very long half-life, I remember being on the methadone clinic at 80mg (before I siwtched to 12mg bupe and tapered down), and I would dose about 7am. I felt good all day..normal, talkative, happy etc.. 12 hours later by 7pm I felt that those effects had diminished. I was being held ok, not sick, but I had no desire to socialize liek I did during the day, like to go hang with friends. I basically got in the grind of dosing at the meth clinic about 7, working 8-4pm, comign home and smoking weed till like 10pm then going to sleep. By the time I would wake up I WOULD be in the very beginning of withdrawals.. my body temp was a bit fucked, and while I wouldn't consider my level or withdrawals even moderate, it was enoguh to make me feel 'off.' There was no fuckign way in HELL I would miss my methadone clinic dosing for even a single day. Even though you don't peak withdrawals for a few days with meth, it still is unpleasant after you pass 24 hours.

Anyway, I have started to go off topic, the poitn I wanted to make was this. The fact that I felt very diminished effects by 12 hours and for lack of better words, 'off' after 24 hours, resulted in me wanting to switch back to buprenorphine where I would have freedom to split-dose (amoung other things).

If I could ahve slit dosed my methadone I would have found it to be a good maintanence tool. But since I could not, between that and the whoel clinic grind, and seeing all the lifers dosing like people in wheel chairs 80+ years old blind still having to dose EVERY day at teh window because they are failing drug tests, I just wanted to get out of that place. Switching directly to bupe from 80mg meth to 12mg bupe was a sinch compared to the way people make it sound. I used dope for 4 days after my last methadone dose, then on the 5th day I waited nearly 36 hours with the help of 500mg ketamine to get me throgh the last 12 hours (which works WONDERS i could not beleive it).

ANyway so you got to read that whole long essay all for me to say you should split dose your methadone instead of dosing it daily. lol.
 
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