Methadone Detox / Taper Regimen

[Chip (OP)]

back up to 20 mg. now. the Morphine supplements have been dropped; no more 60-120 mg MS-Contin, weekly.

will drop back to 17.5 mg. Methadone in 1-2 weeks.

it's taking FORVEVER but, as we like to tell you, it only gets harder the more you do it. my last taper was a breeze compared to this time.

mental state could be better, too. MILD temp. fluctuations and SOME sleep deprivation are the main two annoying w/d symptoms.

Nicotine also stopped (to route more funds into meth  .

[nick]

So just to clarify things, you're treating your drug problem by kicking your stable dose of MMT and nicotine and then investing the savings in crystal meth?

Makes perfect sense.

[Chip (OP)]

that's one way of looking at it but stopping smoking is smart and I know that my own endorohins will keep me comfortable and stress free.

well, it's still an admirable goal, on paper.

Do-able, I feel - at least one the habits at a time.

[Opus]

I've dropped 20mg in the last month, and going down 10 more tomorrow. My counselor thinks I'm nuts, but I just can't tolerate what this crap is doing to me anymore.

With my history of severe clinical insomnia, the inevitable sleep problems are really fucking with me too. Yesterday I started saving a little bit of my dose to drink at night, so basically splitting, and it seemed to work last night, but I took a mg of xanax yesterday afternoon, so that might have had something to do with it, guess I'll find out.

I'm so over this garbage, just sick of it. Not only are my T levels ridiculously low (but already climbing since I've started cutting), but the side effects (the sweating especially) have just totally fucked up my life.

One of my biggest complaints about my klinik experience, is their reluctance to let me split dose (without a peak and trough, but I'm REALLY hard to get blood out of, last time I was in the hospital it took 12 hours and 5 nurses before they got anything from me, it's really no joke). I truly believe I've been WAY over-medicated, simply because I haven't been allowed to split my dose. I peaked at 110mg, but only because I have a fast metabolism, and that's a number that started to hold me a full day.

Methadone stopped me from hammering my femoral, which is a really good thing, I was starting to experience a lot of pain in that area and I was starting to really fear DVT. So there was definitely some good in it. I was also running a lot of risks copping where I was, small scene & bad area, I'll leave it at that. Luckily I never got in any real trouble down there, but some close calls for sure.

Anyway, I'm tapering too. Going down another 10 to 80mg tomorrow, so I got a ways to go.. Plan is to get back on suboxone, and then taper off that. I think I've got it out of my system this time tho, I miss being clean, I just don't want this life anymore.

Don't mean to hi-jack Chipper, this just seemed like a good place to blab about my situation. I just hope I can manage the insomnia, it's already a huge problem in this noisy ass apartment I live in, truly can't fucking wait to GTFO this place, and OFF this CRAP for good. Yuck.

[Chip (OP)]

thanks for the support Opus (because it helped); i want out too. Methadone has become a therapy now and tapering seems like the logical thing to do.

yeah, i want to cut the clinic out of my life and abstain from opiates aside from the random "chip" (God's habit).

can't be done, you say ? fuck it, i'm setting ma sights on it, regardless.

[Chip (OP)]

So just to clarify things, you're treating your drug problem by kicking your stable dose of MMT and nicotine and then investing the savings in crystal meth?

Makes perfect sense.

i was just thinking about this classic that @nick posted again after deciding to go up a bit and park myself for now ... it worked as i am stable and content ... why rock the boat at this point (?!).

this thread may never end at this rate so i will bow out indefintely.

[dizzle]

I'm curious to a lot of people that get this mindset of "I need to get clean" or "I want to be free from this stuff"


If you can get on pickups, and run the splits yourself, and dose WHAT you what. And it keeps you from copping and all the BS that comes with that, WHERE IS THE PROBLEM?


Now, Opus posted about some serious side effects that I understand, and to that I would say, get on splits, lower your dose, do what you need to get rid of the major side effects.

P.S.- IMO, the sweating indicates fucked up hormonal changes, sweating/hot flashes ARE NOT CAUSED by methadone, sweating and hot flashes are caused by the rapid major changes in estrogen/testosterone, and if you're having those, SOMETHING is incorrect with your dosing. It sounds to me like Opus is a lot like me with this stuff.

I was in the same boat, I went up until my dose held me for 24-30 hours, and leveled off at 170mg, well, at this level I got hella side effects, gynomastoma, Hot flashes, I NEVER wanted to fuck my totally hot girlfriend, so I didn't need a T test to tell me my hormones were fucked. I got on splits, I started lowering my dose, over about 3 weeks I dropped to 80mg, it wasn't really hard since I was splitting my shit myself, I would just wait till I starting feeling a little sick, and take about 20-30mgs, every time I started to get that "legs super antsy" feeling, I'd sip about 20-30mg, and wait it out. 

I leveled off at 80 or so, and lost 95% of the side effects. The only thing I still seem to have is occasional sweating, so I still think I need to drop it a little more, but the gyno went away my nipples and chest looks like a normal man's again, the hot flashes are gone, I can bone my GF again. AND, I'm stable on my done, I'm not out copping and dealing with all the BS that comes with that.

For me, I'd like to hear from people that get into the mindset of "I need to be totally clean"  or " I want to be off this methadone"

I just don't get that, I know for me, if I try to be totally clean I'll end up in the same place that starts with the occasional bag of dope, and leads to the pit of despair where everything and everyone I love is lost, and I'm left with NOTHING.

Why fix what's not broken? IDK, I'd like to hear from some of you....

[Illadelph215]

Wow this thread hit home to me. My DOC is suboxone, not methadone though. I'm not prescribed as it is easily available to me. I have been on and off it for about 2 years. The most I ever took in a day is only 4mg though and 2mg split twice in a day is perfect for me. I tapered off at the end of the year eventually getting to .25 every 24 hours. I successfully quit with the help of a huge kpin script and was clean for two months. Then one night a month ago, after my DUI, I did way to much blow and ended up copping H to come down off of in the morning. Which led to a 4 day binge and then boom I was back on subs. I consider myself sober on subs because I don't get high with the low dose I take, I just feel normal. I'm currently stuck at 1mg a day and am s scared to death to fully taper off as I lost my benzo connect, I work third shift and sleep is already a killer and I have had a great workout routine which wil get fucked up. Buttt I will soon have probation and drug tests and I don't have a script for subs so I know I have to fully get off which is scary. I don't notice any bad side effects while taking such a low dose and I think it's for me as it makes me feel "right". But I don't like being dependent on it and fear withdrawal so idk, that thought sucks. I know this is about methadone but if anyone has any advice/tips I'd appreciate it and vise versa.

[Roman Totale]

Well @dizzle, first of all I'm not sure how the system works in Australia/for chipper.  I (think I) know they dispense it at drugstores and not exclusively clinics, but I don't know if they can get a week or a month at a time ever.  And obviously, from the posts here, chipper wouldn't be giving clean urine every time, if they asked for it.

So there's a certain amount of special hassle involved with methadone maintenance (here or in Aus), and there's a certain amount of hassle involved with any kind of maintenance that often feels like a ball and chain, where you can't do anything or go anywhere without thinking about your opiate maintenance first and foremost.  "Courtesy" dosing arrangements when you travel, abstaining from even marijuana a lot of places, waiting on line every time you come for your dose, pointless counseling (if you have a shitty counselor or it's not right for you), etc.  Not to mention side-effects.  Some of them, like QT intervals, are well-studied, but I don't think there's been a lot of interest in seeing how people's mental health fares over years on maintenance versus tapering off versus "active addiction."

Even with the freest suboxone hand at your disposal, or maintaining on seeds, you've always got to be thinking "Do I have enough for the weekend?", "Can I take this through airport security?", "What if I get in a car accident and they charge me with DUI for the maintenance opiates in my system?".  And when you aren't getting high -- aren't getting any special pleasure out of it -- it starts to seem pointless and you think "I might as well just quit, it'll be the same but without the hassle."

But fundamentally you're right in a lot of cases.  First of all, a street opiate addiction is generally a LOT more of a "hassle" than dosing methadone or suboxone, and a lot more expensive.  So if getting off maintenance just puts your back on your DOC, stuck in the same addiction cycle and losing all the nice things you accumulated during a long period of stability, it's a tragic mistake to "get clean."

It's also just not the same to be on low-dose no euphoria opiate maintenance vs. zero opiates in the brain life.  A bit of "you don't know what til it's gone" -- those formerly content opiate receptors become confused, lonely, and scared, and so do you.  But, perhaps depending on how heavily you used and how early you started, they'll regroup and maybe life will become similar to what is was like on maintenance, minus the hassle.  But obviously getting out of the environment where you first started abusing an opiate to the point where you needed maintenance in the first place seems crucial.  We all know "willpower" isn't going to put you on the straight and narrow with no changes in your material conditions of life.

I don't know.  I'm not clean or "substance-free" and likely never will be, and don't really care if I die having filled some kind of prescription every few weeks of my life since age 22.  But I do understand how corrosive that feeling of dependency can be, and it is really a question of whether the alternative will be better or worse.

[Chip (OP)]

re. not giving clean urines: my doctor knows that i flirt with a little meth and perhaps the odd single med dose Morphine tablet mostly once a week. my usage is no big deal, it doesn't affect my stability nor do i present poorly.

my doctor is practical and i can really respect a man that doesn't punish me needlessly.

despite the cost and logistics, i feel comforted by the program.

for now.

[Guts]

I've said it before and I'll say it again and again because it's been a miracle for me: men on methadone *need* testosterone replacement therapy. I'm on a cycle (500 MG a week vs 200) right now. Getting my second round of kenalog injections behind my nips in a couple days... been hitting the gym. Will post the pics I promised and I know everyone has been waiting for in like... a month.

[Chip (OP)]

i finally got back to this old thread - i have now dropped to 15 mg but it may not be of much interest to anybody but what the hell ... i have been dropping 2.5 mg. a week and using meth sparingly to make it painless.

i know, i'll get a bigger meth habit but it's too late anyway and at least that's not so hard to go without, physically.

[smalls]

I for one like the updates. Reading the older posts, you were down to 17.5 a year ago nearly to the day. Are you still trying to get down to nothing?

[theSWPK]

Good job getting down to a low dose, man. That's an admirable feat.

Do you get takehomes? If so are you doing volumetric dosing with an oral syringe or the like to drop slowly? That was the easiest way I had ever done it. 2.5mg a week.

Have you considered stopping methadone and taking a shorter acting opioid like hydro/oxy or even morphine, and then once adjusted, taper on that? I know it would probably be costly to keep buying pills.

Anyways, good job Chipper, I'd say I was proud of you, but that just sounds weird hah.

[Chip (OP)]

Yeah, I get take homes and I measure with some old barrels that I still have from my IV days.

I am on a slightly higher dose at the clinic and been able to stash the small difference for when I hit 5 mg. because that's when I will leave the clinic and drop down to 0 myself.

I can't find a reliable source for a short acting replacement and this will be my 5th taper so I know the drill and prefer the long lasting nature of Methadone.

But thanks for your thoughts.

[Chip (OP)]

Sitting on 12.5 mg and no hassle ... will try 10 mg in a few days.

Getting my passport ready for when I am no longer dependant.

With 300 mg stashed away, I can detox myself and save on clinic fees.