Methadone Side Effects

[Griffin (OP)]

Yes I would absolutely want to know what you did and your diet plan. I have lost 40 lbs from my highest weight sense the end of March. I am down to 185 and have maintained that weight for the last month without diet and exercise. So I think once I get on a healthy regimen again and stick to it I will be able to drop weight quickly.

I was always around 135 my whole life and being on 280 mgs of methadone destroyed my metabolism and made me crave nothing but sweets. I was impulsively eating to fill the void of not using by giving me something to do to not be bored and I was getting some pleasure from eating. I think now that I have an understanding of all that and am on a lower dose that with diet and exercise I will be back to my normal size in no time.

Like you said looking and feeling fit does loads for your self confidence and I hope it can help me land a girl. The only thing besides the weight that I get self conscious about now that my armpit sweating has completely gone away sense being on opiates is that I have a lazy eye. If I am tired or have been staring at something to long my left eye goes its own direction usually way to the left and makes me very cock eyed and I look like crazy eyes on Mr. Deeds.

Unfortunately for me there is no cure for it and my eye sight and depth perception will always be bad. I haven't worn glasses sense I was 10. They helped a little but I got made fun of a lot for having glasses, they gave me headaches, I never liked wearing them and could never do contacts due to a phobia of touching my eye or seeing people touch theirs. I might try glasses out again if eye doctors are free with medicaid or if my uncle could help me for free next time I see him.

My uncle is a multi-millionaire eye surgeon in Miami whose very well known in the medical community mostly for his help during the Haiti earthquake and his book where he completely restored someones eye back to 20/20 vision after it had been destroyed by battery acid. If there is ever a cure or anything that can fix the problem I am sure he will be the first person to let me know and get it fixed for me.



Griffin

[CHEF]

I'm not a Dr. or Dietician Just an ex Bodybuilder who Looked Pretty Dam Good in His Prime. Like You I Got Fat By Eating Junk. I Eat This Exact Diet And Have Lost More Than 80lbs.

- The key to success with this diet is prep. Make all meals in bulk so you can just open a tubbaware and scoop out the meal, it makes life so much easier. I prefer glass tubs but plastic will do. Don't make the meals for more than 3 days ahead, after 3 days the meals get funky.

- Stop drinking all sodas, fruit drinks, orange juices, apple juices ect. You now drink water. If you must have something with taste drink coconut water. No ketchup/ bbq sauces/ Mayo Etc.

- On Friday I Have a Big Slice of Cake

 Supplements- 1 Multivitamin, Fish oil, 1 Calcium, 1 Probiotics

Meat Toppings- Peppers, Salsa, Avocado, Onions - I use different spices but we'll keep it simple 4 u
 
MEAL 1 - 3 Whole Eggs + Spinach or Broccoli (Salsa is Good Also)
              1 Cup of Oatmeal (Not Instant) + 1 Cup of Blueberries
              1 Cup of Coconut water
              1 Cup of Black Coffee (A Splash of Vanilla Almond Milk is Ok)
 
MEAL 2 - 7oz. of Skinless Chicken or Steak or Turkey or Tuna 
              1 Cup White or Brown Rice or 1 Medium Baked Potato (Molly Mcbutter is Good)
              1 Cup of Any Vegetable (Molly Mcbutter is your friend)
              1 Banana + 1/4 Cup Chopped Walnuts
              1 Cup Black Coffee

MEAL 3 - 1/2 Chicken or Turkey or Tuna Whole Wheat Sandwich (Mustard is Ok)
              Meat Topping Are Ok, I like Avocado

MEAL 4 - 7oz. of Skinless Chicken or Steak or Turkey
              2 Cups Whole Wheat Pasta + 1 Cup Low Sugar Tomato Sauce
              1 Cup vegetables
              1 Banana + 1/4 Cup Walnuts
              1 Diet Soda
              1 Cup Black Coffee

MEAL 5 - 1 Quest Protein Bar - Must Be Quest, Most Protein Bars Have Sugar or 3 Whole Eggs

[Griffin (OP)]

I will definitely try some of it and change some things. I don't like some of the stuff on there like coffee and am going to see what my wallet allows as I am very poor right now due to my legal issues and life's bills. I may make some changes to it and try to stick with to the core as much as possible. I always only drink water and cut out all fast food when I started dieting and exercising a bit in May.

I don't want to say my sugar cravings are so intense that I have to have an orange but I feel like if I don't eat an orange to fill that sugar rush than I wont eat anything that day and get very sick from not eating. I have switched all sugar junk food that I used to eat to fill the cravings with fruit and that had helped with the sugar cravings and my overall health. So I may add a bit more fruit to the diet and I have been taking multi-vitamins every day and have been trying to save up so that I can buy probiotics and whey protein. Does anyone know if I can get my doctor to prescribe probiotics so that I only have to pay $1 for them through my medicaid?

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this but wanted to ask have the organic bananas tasted funny these last 2 months or is that me? I don't know if they are out of season but to me they taste off. I only buy them at safe way so that could be it as well. I am going to start going to the farmers market for my fruits and veggies as I have never bought anything from a farmers market and would like to stop shopping as much as I can at large supermarkets but at the same time I am poor and can't afford a lot of the smaller ones and was hoping farmers markets would fill the gap and make me feel good about who I am spending my money with.

I have my first meeting to start supervised probation again now with a private company on the 17th. I will learn how many UAs per month and what classes I have to complete and when I have to start and finish them they usually run between $20-$45 each. I think I will have to take 9 months of them once per week. A girl who got a DUI at my work 2 years ago told me I may have to take an extra 3 months of "therapy" on top of the classes like she did.

The original county that accepted me said that my charges were to petty for them to supervise me at the state level and my former P.O. who I had a wonderful repore with because I got everything completed as soon as I could, and never missed, or did anything wrong said this would be best for me and it is the same price. I'll have to start again on random UAs after 6 weeks of only having to take a free one from the clinic once a month. They are now $12 each instead of $10 like they were the last two years. They want to start me on 3-5 UAs a month even though I haven't had a dirty one in 2 years and was taking only 2 after I got these new charges.

 I am paying 2 different fines to different counties for probation currently. One to the county where I got the DUI. My fines are $4000 but I am currently fighting to get them lowered by $2000, and they wont let me off probation until they are paid in full. The second I'm paying is to the county where I got my first offense in 2013 and I have less than 500 to pay to them. Now I will have to pay $50 month to the private company supervising me at the same time as the other two. On top of rent, my phone bill, car insurance, my breathalyzer, gas and everything else that comes with everyday living I have little money for my groceries.

I am going to re-apply for food stamps because they denied me because they based my income off the last company I worked for(I now make exactly half of what I did). My rent is $75 more per month and I have to drive farther every day for the clinic and my job than I did from moving and getting a new job because I lost my job that I loved and house when I got arrested.

 Hopefully I make it through these next months and find a new job and get approved for my financial aid for school and tough it out and find the light on the other side.


Griffin

[CHEF]

like I stated, that's my diet, it works for me. The dollar store near me has vitamins. I don't eat dairy so that's why I need calcium and probiotics, just eat cultured yogurt for probiotics. Rice and chicken is about as cheap as it gets. Wish u luck. 

[Griffin (OP)]

Thanks for all the info and everything and I will let you know how it works for me. I appreciate all the help.


Griffin

[Opus]

Down 30mg in the last two months (from 110), and then splitting at 80mg to 40 in the am and 40 in the evening; I feel like a different person.

Nick said in another thread "MMT is what you make it" - it's more than that, it's not solely up to the patient in most cases, MMT is about how well the situation is monitored and how well the patient is medicated according to the individual's needs, and we're all different. If I'd been allowed to split earlier during this attempt at MMT, I wouldn't have had to go up to 110mg (at 1x/day) and I probably wouldn't have wound up in such rough shape. T levels on the floor made mine a really shitty world there for awhile, especially over this summer (I now understand what many women deal with in menopause: HORRIBLE fucking existence), but a week after I split, after coming down 25%: like a light-switch I feel halfway to human again. I can sleep better, I can feel the T levels rising - I'm sure it's still low but def. better, it's not 500 fucking degrees all the time; there is hope again. I almost got supplemental T last week, at this point I'm glad I didn't. At times I would have welcomed a T supplement pretty much regardless, but at this point I go so many things going haywire, I just want to remove everything and try normal again. Fuck all this noise, it's been a ride.

In over 3 years at that klinik, I've exchanged about 6 words with the doc there, and he's one of those docs who isn't interested in listening to people at all. None of the other professionals there seem to have ANY clue about the symptoms I've been bitching about for the last year ("oh that can be caused by a lot of things"), frankly it seems a little weird.

I don't think methadone is a horrible maintenance med, but I do think people should be monitored closely on it, we're not all wired the same, not even close.

[Griffin (OP)]

Which do you think helped more splitting your dose or the dose reduction or do you think its a combo of both? My doctor at the clinic definitely listens but he lets people go up as they please. They have to see him for every 20 mgs but all they have to say is its not lasting 24 hours or that its not helping with drug cravings. He told me that most people would be better off split dosing but due to regulations it is much harder to allow a patient to do that. They have to show in the peak and trough test that they are metabolizing it to fast as well as be at the clinic for more than 3 months and have clean UAs for them to be allowed the take home every day. No one who smokes weed can qualify for it.

I didn't ask my primary care doctor to check my testosterone levels yet but I think I should get it tested. Does anyone else have high blood pressure due to methadone? If I check my pulse and blood pressure within the first 5 hours after dosing they are both sky high. When I wasn't taking it my blood pressure was normal after 3 months but after I got back on it even though I had lost 40 lbs it has been really high. My doctor prescribed me systolic 10 mgs because its usually high.


Griffin

[Opus]

It's both. I was over-medicated, simply because they wouldn't let me split (until last week).

A peak and trough is exactly what they wanted, but your average Phleb. can't get blood out of me (once, let alone twice in one morning). I've had all types of self-proclaimed masters try and I'm truly just extremely difficult unless you want to try my neck, my groin or my feet, which most won't (and not that I really want them to).

Really it's kinda stupid to demand a P&T on someone who isn't even trying to go up in dose (and who winds up going UP in dose because they won't fucking split). IMO it's a waste of time & money. It took me way too much fucking effort to get this split, and it created a fuck-ton of misery, but at least I quit doing what I was doing and now I'm motivated to get off this garbage again, so there's that.

Whadda nightmare. Trying to live life castrated on the surface of the sun, I don't recommend it. If I was to stay on, I'd have needed T supplementation, that probably would have fixed a bunch of my symptoms, but that doesn't change the fact that I was needlessly over-medicated when all I needed, was a little less dope a little more often.

[Griffin (OP)]

I am glad that you finally got it. There are so many regulations that clinics have to follow that it borderlines on making it harder for people to actually get treatment. Is your plan to do a long taper and then jump off when you get low or move to another drug and then jump off from that? Hope everything goes wells and good luck with it.



Griffin

[Opus]

Thanks. I'm not sure what the long-term plan is, aside from being free of dependencies.

I'm actually considering trying Ibogaine again.

[monkawat]

Thanks. I'm not sure what the long-term plan is, aside from being free of dependencies.

I'm actually considering trying Ibogaine again.

What happened with the first go around chops?

[Opus]

Basically I wasn't able to hold down enough bark for long enough, even though it seemed like I was eating a lot of it. On the second attempt, I definitely started to feel it pretty good, but it just never evolved into a 36hr Iboga ride. My second attempt was something like 25G (known good) bark over maybe 6hrs, but the last few grams I ate too fast, and then puked it up.

Imagine taking some good quality potting soil, drying it out good, and eating an ounce of it when you're already getting dopesick. That's exactly what it was like. That shit's expensive too, I think I spent over 500 on two attempts, if not over 500 it was close.

I was also taking 4mg xnx a day at that point, and I'm pretty sure that got in the way.

If I do it again, I'll do it differently.. Like proper supervised and probably with the HCL so that dose can be controlled much better. I tried it in my shitty little apartment which probably wasn't the best idea anyway..

[ptbell]

The Dr at my clinic I have seen one time for a whopping 90 seconds. He is a greedy ass hat, who is a Dr. at three different clinics that I know of. So most complaints about side effects go through the nurses. Some have been helpful others have not. The low T goes out of control if your using opiates along with the methadone, for me that was the case. I have heard from a pharmaceutical rep. that there is no maximum dosage with methadone, she even stated that she knew of a patient on a dose of 1,100mg daily. I'm not sure I believe that, but I guess you could possibly increase your dose by 50mg a month over a period of two years. But I doubt it, her business is selling pharmaceuticals, so as she says no drugs have side effects, but we all know that's bullshit. Any way there is a thought that you can only absorb so much of any drug over a 24 hr period, some are easily absorbed some not so much. The idea I've come across is that the body can on average only absorb 60 to 80 mg at a time, the rest is flushed through the system. For me I was at 130 and lowered fairly quickly  I had to stop at 68mg that was when I started getting really sick. The thing I found was I really had not withdrawal symptoms till that level, so it was in my mind that I needed that much, I went up because I could. I don't know about all the other side effects, but I found a treatment for sweating, that works for me and afew fellow patients. Cinnamon in 1,000mg capsules, sold with the vitamins, seems to keep the nuisance sweating down. I hope someone reads that and tries it out, because I looked online for years for that issue ,and found nothing. Till I ran into a woman a GNC who gave me that tip

[Griffin (OP)]

I will try the cinnamon capsules out and post if they work or help at all for me thanks for the tip. The highest I have seen was there was one guy at my clinic at the mid 400 range and I thought I was the highest in the clinic when I was on 280 but there were quite a bit of people in the 220+ range. I am much more comfortable at 60, the weight gain isn't as bad I have lost 50 lbs sense march when I got arrested and stopped methadone for a bit and then got back on. I have only lost 15 lbs sense getting back on methadone but it is a lot better than gaining weight.

I started june 30th but I still get a little bit of a glow feeling around the 3 hour mark. I didn't have that at all when I was on a high dose I didn't feel anything after 3 weeks. I don't know if I would call it a glow necessarily but I have more energy and can hold a conversation with out getting bored of the other person. I was worried that this dose would stop working over time sense I had such a high tolerance before I started MMT in 2013. I was on 280 mgs until march or this year and only had almost 4 months of no opiates.

When I first started MMT and was going up on my dose I wasn't able to go 24 hours with out feeling some type of withdrawal till I was on 180. Maybe my body just got kind of used to it and my tolerance dropped and has stayed low from my short absence. I don't know why but I like it and I'm happy and comfortable where I am at. I don't plan on doing any tapering or anything until I am off probation but we will see if I want to when that time arrives.

[Opus]

I tried cinnamon and it did seem to help for awhile, but it also seemed like the anti-sweating effects varied from source to source, and even between different bottles from the same source. Seems to me cinnamon can probably help some people, but for me it definitely wasn't a cure-all. I even tried going to this rad herb shop in Berkeley and getting some super high quality wicked fukn tasty cinnamon and it did fuck all for my sweating issues, overall I had the best results from some Safeway top-shelf brand.

I've come to realize that although everyone hates the sweating, it's not the same experience for everybody. Two people might be complaining of sweating problems, but they're probably dealing with very different degrees of suffering (lolpun). As it's gotten better for me (as I've come down in dose), I realize that the problem I had 2mos ago is pretty different than what I experience now. Right now it's annoying, but before it was straight debilitating as well as a bit humiliating when around other people with rivers of sweat dripping off my face. But if you've never experienced sweating that bad from just walking a block in 70 degree heat, it's impossible to realize what it's like. It's a really tough problem to relay across to people. Just horrible.

The idea I've come across is that the body can on average only absorb 60 to 80 mg at a time, the rest is flushed through the system. For me I was at 130 and lowered fairly quickly  I had to stop at 68mg that was when I started getting really sick. The thing I found was I really had not withdrawal symptoms till that level

We're all different, different metabolisms, BMI, tolerance, etc. My first few cuts from 110 were 10mg drops and I felt that shit *immediately* - I expected it to take a couple days but nope, I felt it that. fucking. day. and I'd be rough for about 3-4 days and then level off a bit, but still feeling it two weeks later; from a %10 cut. The first one wasn't too bad, but the next two (10mg) were pretty rough. Splitting saved my ass cos by the time I was down 30, I wasn't sleeping at all.

If you can knock big chunks off your dose without feeling it, I'd guess you're over-medicated..

[Chip]

Chops, have you managed to lose your long standing benzo habit ?

I imagine the xanax mitigated the effect of the ibogaine in a significant manner.

ibogaine fascinates me.