Opioids Oxycodone/ Methadone together for pain relief??

[JamesB1985]

My girlfriend gets oxycodone and methadone from her dr. for pain. She says this is like an oxymoron because methadone is a blocker like suboxone. That they shouldn't be taken together...

I told her methadone is a great pain killer, strong and long lasting. And oxycodone is for her breakthrough pain, while the methadone will last all day for pain relief.

Is she right? Should these two med's be prescribed together for pain relief purposes??

 

[My3sons]

I would think it would depend a lot on each drug mg amount. I am on mmt and believe only higher doses are blocking. An oxycodone would not do diddly for me.

 

[Keif' Richards]

No, she's not correct. Methadone is a perfectly acceptable medication to be used for usually more severe pain conditions. Methadone does indeed have the ability to block other Opioids, but this generally does not occur until higher dose echelons are reached. A commonly stated number is 80mg to start getting the true blocking effect from Methadone, but like everything, some will require less and some more.

For those in pain management, the more common dose would be around 30mg per day (I'm not saying it doesn't go higher), a significant difference. You and your girl can consider Methadone to be in the same league in terms of its use, as other extended-release Opioid medications like MsContin, OxyContin etc. It's intended to give you a good background of pain control, while you can use the short-acting Opioids to address the breakthrough pain.

 

[CBDizzle]

As Keif Richards said, at around 70-80mg's of methadone will block an oxycodone dose (IMO, anything from 30mg's to even 120mg's gets blocked).
I am Rx'd a fairly high dose of methadone for chronic pain and the oxycodone 30mg for breakthrough. IME, if I take the methadone first I go into a precipitated withdrawal like syndrome (I know, cuz I've taken suboxone within just a few hours of a large dose of morphine!). This might just be me? I don't know, but if your girlfriend is going off something she read, then whatever... But, if she is going off her own personal experience with the medication, then there is definately something there. She may want to try taking her oxycodone doses in the morning and follow with the methadone once the oxycodone has started to wear off and her pain demands it... Just my 2 cents, good luck Broski..

 

[Ignio]

In my case, methadone is without doubt the best pain killer I can get. Not I get methadone as an addict and as substitution, but I startet with strong opiats and opioids due to a serious injury. The best combination by far for me was methadone and oxycodone. I get 40 mg oxycodone and 200 mg time-released oxycodone plus an addition 50 mg instant release oxycodone I could take if needed. Before they started me on methadone I tried several other combinations, but methadone was by far the best. Before methadone I was not functional due to the pain, after I started on methadone I was able to get back to work and before my computer an entire day. Before that I couldn't sit upright for more than a few hours.

I have seen several cases where methadone turned out the be "the rescue" for pain patients. In my country methadone has a very bad reputation as most people think that methadone can be used for one thing only - the treatment of heroin addicts. They don't know that it is actually an excellent opioid pain killer. I think a lot of people think it is like Disulfiram that only can be used for one thing, hindiring addicts (in this case alcoholics) from drinking. Thus it some pain patients doesn't advertise their use of methadone but say they get morphine or something. It is a shame that it suffer from that reputation. But I am getting off topic now.

My point is that methadone is a good pain killer. How big the dose have to get before it starts to block I don't know. Currently I get 60 mg methadone each day and oxycodone works fine for me.

 

[JamesB1985]

Thanks people! I'm going to let her know what yall said.