Opioids Methadone

[LimbSpeedDick]

Everything possible info about methadone maintenance treatment is welxome welcome because I was put on maintenance because positive thc-a... WTF!?!????!

 

[negrogesic]

I have no idea what you mean, unfortunately...

 

[LimbSpeedDick]

I have no idea what you mean, unfortunately...

I mean that I Am going to start a methadone maintenance treatment, you know..... Because of my "drug" problem (THC-A +), so I seek advice on how it starts. First dosage mg etc.... Been on temgesic for 20 years now.

 

[JessFR]

What kinda idiot doctors do you have that would put you on methadone for help with a cannabinoid problem. Is what really what you're saying is happening?

You're just gonna end up even worse off than you started.

 

[LimbSpeedDick]

What kinda idiot doctors do you have that would put you on methadone for help with a cannabinoid problem. Is what really what you're saying is happening?

You're just gonna end up even worse off than you started.

Yes, EVERY SINGLE WORD IS TRUE!!! I Have got ANYKIND of substance abuse.. But because my best friend allmost got killed because some fucking a-pvp fiend by a baseball bar... So I smoked some weed to calm my mind when my friend was on hospital... Because I COULD NOT DRINK ALCOHOL, cos of my past life alcohol addiction, I can't drink it cos my adhd and a HC version of it.... So Too impulsive behaviour... But my doctor put me to give a piss, so I faster than a lightning told her that there sees thc or thc-a +, because im allways been honest to them about my situation, so because I didnt give the urine sample cos fysical reasons.... So I told that I go straight away to the blood test but it wasnt a choice to her... So I still refuse to that urine sample and thats the reason, why the doctor put me on maintenance... I choose methadone, just because THEN ILL got at least my pains medicated.... So Yeah... Cannabis is the reason to this.... My life was on track,first time since 2001.... Well... Conclusion :at least I have lived normal humans life for 4 years... Ill got my meds in place and worked, 7 different meds and everyone was by the Red triangle, and 3 of my meds were on Red script... Temgesic, Vyvanse and dexedrine IR 10mg....

 

[JessFR]

I'm not clear on why you are compelled to take methadone, or get a drug test?

Regardless though, I'm not a doctor but I don't have to be a doctor to know giving someone methadone for cannabis is completely idiotic.

 

[Branggen]

You need to take your drug test, lots of docs will give you opiates regardless of cannabis without having to do the methadone thing. If you arent already taking opiates around the clock, 100% refuse it

 

[LimbSpeedDick]

You need to take your drug test, lots of docs will give you opiates regardless of cannabis without having to do the methadone thing. If you arent already taking opiates around the clock, 100% refuse it

I am taking opioids daily because my pain control from my first hip surgery, prescription since I was 21 years. Now im 40. And before this episode, they put half year ago to take down my temgesic medication. So because of use of cannabis, I åwas put to maintenance treatment.. Fuck yeah.... Finnish doctors piss in their own bowl of cereals for this med Policy.

 

[Branggen]

I am taking opioids daily because my pain control from my first hip surgery, prescription since I was 21 years. Now im 40. And before this episode, they put half year ago to take down my temgesic medication. So because of use of cannabis, I åwas put to maintenance treatment.. Fuck yeah.... Finnish doctors piss in their own bowl of cereals for this med Policy.

Damn are all the doctors like that in finland? I suppose if you can only get the opiates you need through methadone you should be able to eventually get carries but that sounds pretty shitty

 

[kaosisallwesee]

I see, so you were on opioids for pain management, then tested positive for THC and they decided to switch your pain meds to methadone maintenance? That's a bit harsh, assuming you're abusing your meds/going to abuse them just because you smoke weed... I thought the UK was draconian with its healthcare. Is cannabis use illegal in Finland, as in the actual being high/testing positive part? Like in the UK using drugs isn't illegal, but possession is so testing positive on a drug test isn't an offence. I'd argue against it. The UK seems a lot softer than I thought after reading your experience. I've always been open with my doctors about cannabis, and never been denied meds or even been told I shouldn't use it. One older pain management specialist actually unofficially told me that if it allows me to do low impact exercise and live a normal life it's a far less risky short term treatment than the opioids my GP had been prescribing for years and years in his opinion.
I would question the situation, providing they can't then deny you all treatment (your usual meds OR methadone, leaving you with nothing). But remember, thats likely to be on your medical record for like. Would being labelled as a drug addict affect anything in your life or future? Some jobs in the UK request access to medical history etc... Make sure you're not screwing yourself in the long term. Receiving pain medication for a legitimate condition(s) is one thing and somewhat accepted, but receiving pain medication to manage a drug addiction not so much.

 

[sekio]

why on earth would a physician switch someone from buprenorphine to methadone? from partial agonist to full agonist? because you're smoking weed?

methadone is arguably stronger and more abusable than buprenorphine...

none of this makes any sense

 

[jamesBrown]

Well, since you seem to have no choice but to get on methadone, I would recommend keeping your dose as low as possible. Getting off of methadone is a bitch and a half. But the lower your dose the easier it will be when you eventually taper off.

 

[Wishdoctor79]

why on earth would a physician switch someone from buprenorphine to methadone? from partial agonist to full agonist? because you're smoking weed?

methadone is arguably stronger and more abusable than buprenorphine...

none of this makes any sense

This actually happens all the time everywhere. Methadone clinics are full of people who were kicked out of their pain management clinic because of a "dirty" UA which in this case was cannabis related. There was a guy at our methadone clinic discharged from pain management because he went and got a medical marijuana card based on a PTSD diagnosis, which in my state is the only real easy way to get MMJ.

Doctors like having control of their patients and they might look the other way for some of their patients and let them stay while for others they're just looking for an excuse to get rid of them.

 

[sekio]

I count my lucky stars to live in a country with legalized cannabis. The methadone clinics here don't even test for THC.

 

[Wishdoctor79]

This methadone clinic in the US didn't test for cannabis, though they could choose to do so if they wished. Some test, others don't, and DEA which licenses MMT clinics under federal law doesn't care one way or the other about whether MMT clinics should be testing for cannabis. The methadone clinic where we met didn't test for cannabis and they didn't care about him having a MMJ card based on a PTSD diagnosis.

It was his pain management doctor who kicked him out of pain management because of him testing positive for cannabis and then telling them it was legal because of his MMJ card. They told him that the PTSD diagnosis indicated mental instability and that's why they chose to discharge him as a patient with 30 days notice.

He got injured working as a cameraman in Iraq getting shrapnel in his spine from a roadside bomb, months in a hospital. Real bad genuine pain that nobody could see as malingering. The problem with using MMT for pain management purposes is the once-daily dosing and the analgesia wears off usually around 6 hours. So one way to deal with that is to buy takehome bottles from other patients and other than that follow all the rules so you can earn the takehomes and after a year be going in weekly and getting 6 takehomes which you can dole out in the privacy of your home. There were quite a few people there who did that. Make it through that first year with good behavior and clean UAs.

This friend of mine didn't earn the takehomes and he tried increasing his dose to make the analgesia last longer but he was so doped up sometimes he slept late and missed clinic because he was taking benzos to sleep.

So the end result was he got into the cannabis, growing it and selling it to dispensaries and he eats a lot of ibuprofen and other NSAIDs and last i herad he wasn't taking any opiates.

My advice to the unfortunate person being given MMT instead of Temgesic, well, keep your dose at the absolute minimum. 30 mg a day can be hard to quit, but 20 mg might be just waht you need to be healthy and happy. Many people at low doses of methadone <40 mg find that it's a great antidepressant and antianxiety medication. So use the system and find yourself a counselor in the clinic you can talk to. Make the best of it.

I've just recently started taking methadone on my own, first day was 30 mg, which was plenty, and so my plan is to take no more than 20 mg a day, motivated mostly by some recurrent foot pain from long long ago. In the guidance for ankle tendinitis for posterior tibaliis, the tendon that keeps the arches of your feet from collapsing they list depression as a possible cause of flat feet and fallen arches. I believe it's accurate. After taking 5 mg of methadone I have more of a spring in my step.

 

[Wishdoctor79]

FYI, there was a recent thread about MMT but it got shut down completely.

Opioids - A question about methadone.

I'm a big fan of methadone maintenance and the clinic system in the US where you start with observed dosing at the clinic six days a week and after every 90 days of good behavior and clean UAs you move up the takehome schedule and after two years a goodie-two-shoes can be going in every four...

www.bluelight.org

If anyone wants to have a civil discussion about MMT, I'd be interested in contributing and will pay close attention to any specific guidance given there by mods. Telling me how to do a better job of making friends here it seemed best to just ignore, and ditto for the speculation on the motivation behind my posts. Platitudes might be popular in schools nowadays but i've been out of school for a long time.

That locked thread would have been a logical place to have the OP's recent question from Finland, because I wrote a lot there about my experience on MMT in the US.

Because that thread was locked, it means people are prohibited from replying to what I wrote there, which is unfortunate, because there's a lot of information there that was highly regarded by several people giving upvotes.

Could a mod please revisit that locked thread and consider moving this latest OP into that one after doing any necessary cleanup?

Sekio, you're a mod and you've posted here just now and you're catching my line of thought. I'm not here to find new friends, but rather to share some of what I've learned.

It's not like the OP has a doctor who switched him from Temgesic to methadone because of testing "dirty" for cannabis. More likely the OP was being treated by a general practitioner who can Rx Temgesic for pain as long as there's nothing suggesting any kind of "drug abuse" however it's locally defined. And the positive UA for cannabis changed the patient's status to be at least a presumed drug abuser. Anything suggesting illegal use of drugs could mean that a GP can no longer prescribe the Temgesic and patient is then referred to a specialist for drug abusers, which here means methadone maintenance. Now since Temgesic and Subutex are the same drug, differing only in strength, it'd make a lot more sense to send ptn to a clinic that could give Subutex or Suboxone with the counseling and regular UAs that go along with treatment for "substance abuse" but maybe they don't have Subutex or Suboxone there. Subutex would be way better than Suboxone, but given a choice between Suboxone and methadone i'd give the Suboxone at least a few weeks to see if it was even remotely helpful before going on MMT because once you're dependent on methadone you may want to stay on it for the rest of your life, it can be that good a drug, where I've felt that I was for the first time in my life was happy and healthy every single day. Thanks to daily methadone through the clinic system as a private self-pay clinic with staff who cared and counselors who were good at their job. So maybe this is what the OP needs. It's within the realm of possibility.

Doctors are controlled like everyone else by peer pressure and treatment standards. Doctors are forced to be agents of the state in enforcing laws on controlled substances.

There's a tremendous amount of stigma directed against methadone and the clinic system, in the US and I think that it's a deliberate campaign of disinformation and brainwashing. When I went on MMT for the second time in 2014 and stayed clean and in good standing getting 13 takehomes and going biweekly it was the first time in my life I didn't have terrible depression. MMT was a blessing for me and many people are ignorant of how beneficial it can be.

So that's why I hope that thread can be allowed to live again. Lay down any rules that need to be followed and if people violate the terms then sanction the individual, not the entire thread. Please.

 

[LimbSpeedDick]

why on earth would a physician switch someone from buprenorphine to methadone? from partial agonist to full agonist? because you're smoking weed?

methadone is arguably stronger and more abusable than buprenorphine...

none of this makes any sense

Yeah... Tell me about it but, if that's they fucking want to do... Then lets the all knowing young just got papers and she isnt even aaaaaa.... Whats the Word , Well the ones that handle those addict Patients.... Normal hospital doctor, those where you go if you have some accident happened, ER or something... And I even didnt give a positive test for thc... It went so that I refuse to go to take a urine drug test, but for fysical REALLY EXISTING problem I said that I wont anyone to put the fucking thing which is put deep on your Dick on the urine platter or whatever its called... Last 2 of my doctorS said to me that because of that reason, we wont take urine samples.... And they were both psychiatric speciality doctors.... NOT even simple psychiatrics

 

[HeadphonesandLSD]

why on earth would a physician switch someone from buprenorphine to methadone? from partial agonist to full agonist? because you're smoking weed?

methadone is arguably stronger and more abusable than buprenorphine...

none of this makes any sense

You would think that but they do this in America too. What the doctor is doing is washing their hands with the patient and sending them somewhere else so it's no longer their problem. I know of multiple people that were forced into a "pain clinic" setting that were only taking hydrocodone. So now they have two doctors; a GP that prescribes everything but opioids, and a "pain doctor" that just handles opioids. They get switched to ER/stronger opioids first then later down the road they switch you fully to methadone, bupe, or some other ER medication. All the while they take away your IR/"breakthrough" medication slowly.

 

[LimbSpeedDick]

You would think that but they do this in America too. What the doctor is doing is washing their hands with the patient and sending them somewhere else so it's no longer their problem. I know of multiple people that were forced into a "pain clinic" setting that were only taking hydrocodone. So now they have two doctors; a GP that prescribes everything but opioids, and a "pain doctor" that just handles opioids. They get switched to ER/stronger opioids first then later down the road they switch you fully to methadone, bupe, or some other ER medication. All the while they take away your IR/"breakthrough" medication slowly.

And fucking shit what the fuck iS happening here in Finland... Even CBD oil is illegal!!!!! WTF!!!!! But yeah if you just want to molest animals if you are a little bit of weird (in General by the way ), then move to Finland... Its at least legal....