Opioids The last 5 mg (methadone)

[Princess_Poppy]

Hi all. Haven't been on in a while. Would have posted in the Methadone megathread, but was having trouble finding it. You can move it after I get some responses. When I got on MMT I didn't allow my dose to get to high. I stopped at 50 and after a couple of months, I went ahead and started dropping. I am now at 15mg, and am dropping every two weeks if everything goes well. I have used multiple times during my treatment but never developed a "duel habit". I asked my doctor (at the clinic) what to expect when I finally dropped off and his response was something like, "well I have seen very few people do it, but what you feel will probably be more psychological" paws, etc. I have rarely experienced anything intolerable when dropping my dose. I want to know if it will be different when I come off the last 5. Just wanted to hear others experiences. Don't really want any advice about the chipping, just wanted to include it to paint an accurate picture of my state of recovery. Thanks.

 

[OntarioGuy]

I actually find its easy to drop from 200 mg's to 100 mg's but very hard to drop from 10 mg's to 5 mg's.ymmv,but this has been my experience and many of my friends too

 

[gibby_420]

I've come down from 180 mg's to 11mg's in the last 18 months. I didn't start having any problems until I was at about 20mg's.

From what I've heard, the last 10mg's are the worst to deal with.

 

[F.U.B.A.R.]

The first time I got on methadone I started at 40mg until stabilised then dropped 2mg per month. At first the drops were not noticeable, but as soon as I got below 10mg I felt every fucking one. Nothing too bad, just a bit of depression, aching limbs and a couple of bad nights sleep each month. However, coming off the last 2mg was a nightmare. I kept trying but just couldn't do it. What really helped me come off it was MDMA. This was around the time the first batch of Mitsubishis hit the streets and I found that every time I did a few pills I 'forgot' I was addicted and felt absolutely no WD symptoms for up to a week after rolling. Maybe at this level the addiction was more psychological anyway, but the MDMA left me wrapped in a bubble of residual empathy for up to a weeks after. A few sessions like this and I just stopped doing the methadone. Unfortunately, this didn't last and I eventually got another heroin habit, then back on the methadone. But I came off it the second time with the help of amphetamines. Now I'm not advocating you use my methods, but yes, the jumping off the last few mg of methadone can be difficult, but is largely all in the mind. You just got to find something else to take your mind off it while your body sorts itself out.

 

[Chevelle]

The thing about methadone is that it reacts so different with everyone so each person has their own personal tolerances and intolerances to it (or the lack of it). It’s a long acting drug and stays in your body for a while. Even after you stop taking methadone it can stay in your body for up to 6 months (and you can even feel like crap for 6 months too) but I believe this is more likely for people who have been taking high doses for long periods of time. And when I say it stays in your body I don't mean in the way that it will keep you feeling alright once you stop, it will just take a while to leave your system completely.

When you're on a high dose and going down you will barely feel it, if at all, even if you are going down the maximum amount per week (or in your case every two weeks)….so it can make dropping methadone seem like a piece of cake. I went down 5mg a week before and it was alright but I was at a higher dose. Right now I am being tapered off until I get to nothing and I was completely ok with my dose dropping every week until I got too low. My magic number is 18.

The reason you feel so crappy when tapering off is because your losing the opiates from the methadone that your body stopped naturally producing when you started taking it so if you get to a dose that you just can't handle try sticking with it and wait a little longer before you go down again. Doing this will help give your body a chance to start creating all of the stuff methadone was doing for it and you will start to feel normal. If you can do this until you can get completely off of it than I would recommend it. The more gradual the better because the lower the dose the more you feel the pain.

Everyone has their own threshold though so there's really no way to know until you hit it and there’s really no way to know how crappy you’ll feel once you’re off of it. I do hear that as a general tapering methadone withdrawal thing goes that most people usually don't get past 20mg with out feeling the hurt, and I mean really feeling the hurt. That's the thing about methadone...it's so different for everyone but if you're tapering at a slow pace and you've already made it to 15mg than you should be fine once you finally get off of it, especially if you’re tapering every two weeks.

Also there are a lot of vitamins and herbal supplements out there that are specifically created for methadone use and withdrawal. If you don’t want to do the vitamins once you get off of the methadone you could always do your own thing: a lot of advil, water, immodium or pepto, etc….or you could combine that with the vitamins. Choice is yours.

 

[toolfan420]

Yea in my experience dropping off that last bit is harder than the rest. It won't be too terrible, just not quite as easy. What you have on your side though is the dose you were on and the length you were on it so you should be fine. Good luck!

 

[MK3Y2K]

i have been on methadone for years. i have only been below 50 mg for the last year. i went down 5 mg every month. i tried every 2 weeks but its was fucking hell. dont push yourself to go down, you will end up going right back up. i could not go down past 10 mg. i was haveing tremors and cold sweats at the least. i was luckey if i didnt throw up my dose before i got home. i would get take homes and wake up early and dose then get about another hour of sleep till it hits. i also find the liquid to be way to short lasting. i hope my experience helps. you have a great support online here at BL. its not eazy, but neither is a dope habbit. good luck buddy.

 

[Princess_Poppy]

When you're on a high dose and going down you will barely feel it, if at all, even if you are going down the maximum amount per week (or in your case every two weeks)….so it can make dropping methadone seem like a piece of cake. I went down 5mg a week before and it was alright but I was at a higher dose. Right now I am being tapered off until I get to nothing and I was completely ok with my dose dropping every week until I got too low. My magic number is 18.

This particular piece of advice was interesting to me. When I started this thread I had just gone down to 15 mg. These past 2 weeks have been very different from the couple of months preceding it. You see, when I went from 30 to 25 I think that is when I hit the "too low" point... it was the first time I found myself actually going to bed sick on methadone. It lasted about a week I think, to the point that I really thought about going back up. After the very bad week, and until I went down to 15, I have woken up sick. Someone else I think mentioned going to dose and then going back to sleep to wait for it to kick in. It has been like that. My dose BARELY BARELY held me. SO, the weird thing is, now at 15 I can wait into the mid afternoon. I have been tempted to just see what happens if I don't take it, but I know that is not the way to do it. I am hoping I experienced the worse a few drops ago, and coming off can't hurt worse than that did. I will find out soon I suppose.

Thank you all for your advice. The attitude at the clinic makes it seem like it is near impossible to get off. I would rather the doctor keep his statistics to himself! "90% of people do not beat this" etc... I drop to 10 Tuesday!

 

[method own girl]

I will be completely honest, those last 20-30 mgs are brutal! I got as far as about 9 mgs and said no more!! I was in a constant state of misery. no sleep, horrid aches, vomiting, all the fun stuff! I changed my ideas about methadone and decided that for me I was OK with being on it for the rest of my life if it keeps me functioning. it's been 18 years now and I still feel getting off methadone is just not that important.

 

[XxxshortyxxX]

I know this is an old thread, but im new here and this is why i joined. Methadone withdrawl was hell for me. I taperd down to 2mg and couldnt take it anymore. I was in hell untill i discovered kratom. It really is a wonderful plant. Not only did it stop my wd but it kills the pain that started me to take opiates in the first place. To anyone trying to get off methadone, taper as far as you can and jump. Dont look back. It IS WORTH IT, and YOU CAN DO IT. I used all natural supplements and kratom and it really wasnt that bad. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[kingofcompton]

I did it a few months ago, went from 10mg, down 2 mg a week, and dropped off at 2mg. 10 to 0 feels basically the same. About 4 days after your last dose, you'll start to feel more like shit, and that will last about a week. Then really slowly you'll start to get better. The worst part, other than that 4-11 day period, is this strange feeling that your mind/body is just working at 50%. Its hard to describe but 2-4 weeks after that last dose I felt mentally slow, not sedated, but just that my engine wasn't running basically. It will come VERY SLOWLY back to you. If I had a job that required stress tolerance, higher functioning, etc., I think it would have been extremely difficult to function day to day. I hate to sound bleak, but honestly, if you have life circumstances that require more than 50% of you, don't taper off yet.

 

[XxxshortyxxX]

Did you use kratom? That "slow" feeling is depressing and had me craving opiates hard on day 5. Thats when I tried kratom. Within about a half hour I began to feel better. I felt normal again. I dont know how much it would help in the first few days, as your tolerance may be high but after a few days clean it worked great for me. Killed my cravings.

 

[brutus]

I know this is an old thread, but im new here and this is why i joined. Methadone withdrawl was hell for me. I taperd down to 2mg and couldnt take it anymore. I was in hell untill i discovered kratom. It really is a wonderful plant. Not only did it stop my wd but it kills the pain that started me to take opiates in the first place. To anyone trying to get off methadone, taper as far as you can and jump. Dont look back. It IS WORTH IT, and YOU CAN DO IT. I used all natural supplements and kratom and it really wasnt that bad. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

There's no point in bumping an old thread like this with needless information.