SWIM Methadone 15 yrs - Diazepam 8 yrs. Very Poorly & Lost - Moving to new UK county.

[roseenglish]

SWIM has been taking methadone for 15 yrs. ( Swim hasnt taken street drugs for 15 years ) Swim is on 30mls a day from 50lms swim reduced this about 6 mths ago.
It got complicated for swim so excuse me if the story comes out in the incorrect dates and order.

Swim "chose" to go on meth. At the time swim thought it was a free way to get high.
Swim stopped taking street drugs but tried to get off just 10mls of meth 14 yrs ago. Got into 7 days and gave up believing it was just easier to keep taking it and it was causing swim any noticable damage.
Swim was able to work, socialise, do healthy activities.

Then 8 yrs ago swim developed depression.
Not knowing the symptoms or understanding what was wrong with swim , swim went to the doctors who "kindly" put swim on 2 benzos.
Zolpidem ( not classed as a benzo but trust swim...it acts on the same brain receptors and for all intents and purposes it is )
This was a sleeping aid and the "kind" doc also put swim on Diazepam.
(taken as required)

Swim took both of these pills for 8 mths in the evening to sleep.
Then swim went cold turkey off both...this is when swims life ended or at least the quality did,
swim had temporal lobe seizures..hour long deja vu experiences, restless legs, sweating, palputations, breathlessnes, very ill...crawling to work..snapping at people...swim thought swim was dying.

Swim rang cita who councel tranquilisor addicts and was told to cut to go back on the diazepam but to increase it to cover the zolpidem dose swim had cold turkey from.
swim went upto 30 mgs of diazepam and increased the methdone to 60mls

That was 8 yrs ago and it did very little to help.

The cold turkey from the zolpidem was the cause of the sudden health issues..had swim known that then..swim would of done things differently.

for 18 mths swim was very VERY poorly..the temporal lobe seizures continued...bout once evry 2 mths...and altho swim was reducing the diazepam in 1mg cuts there was no pattern to the withdrawal symptoms...they would appear for no reason at all often.

swim now knows this was the cold turkey from Zolpidem.

Things got more stable but swim was stil poorly.

Swim was told to reduce the diazepam b4 the methadone and not to do them both together.
So swim stuck to 50mls of meth all that time and continued to reduce the diazepam...had to leave swims job..

long story short swim is on 30mls of methadone and 12.5mgs of diazepam.

During all of this time, swim developed systemic candida ( too much bad bacteria in the body brought on by sugar, stress, anti biotics and anything that would reduce someones immune system )

swim knows both drugs play a part in this.

swim hoped swim could get rid of the candida which made swim feel even iller.. many toxins in the blood from the bacteria...multiple alergies to yeast, sugar of any kind, lactose, mushrooms, vinigar, wheat ,
swim has been eating the same food for 3 yrs now.
porridige with rice milk for breakfast, jacket potatoe with salad and prawns or cottage cheese, and organic meat and vegies for dinner.
No coffee ot tea no sugar no deserts or choclate, no alcohol...

swim got help with the candida from a nutritionist and was taking alot of expensive vitamins and enzymes. The helped in some ways esp with the drugs as swim noticed if swim did a reduction swim did not notice it...were as before it was be hard for a week or 2 .

but swim didnt feel swim should be reducing the drugs AND dealing with the candida at the same time. Killing candida bacteria puts a lot of stress on the liver and body as the dead bacteria is released into the blood stream causing terrible poisoning type symptoms.

But the candida WAS dying..no more oral thrush...or headaches...sore throats ...
But the "die off" from killing candida is worse than the candida.
I will move forward..
12 mths swim was on the candida diet ( and still is more or less ) taking all these vitamins..and swim was so terribly poorly..swim realised that the drugs were causing candida and as long as swim took these drugs candida would never die..not completly.
It DID die to some point as around 7 mths ago swim stopped the vitamins...tired of banging head against wall and not seeming to get better.
Within 3 weeks the die off liften and swim was "almost" swims old self..this lasted 3 mths then candida came back with a vengance.
Of course the vitamins werent there to keep it at bay and so its back

So what has swim learnt?

Swim learnt that vitamins DO make a huge difference when reducing drugs.

That swim needs to tackle the drugs to be fully recovered from secondary health issues.

But swim is still lost and confused.

Swim is lucky swim works hard and makes good money so can afford private consultation but who can advise about systemic candida AND 2 prescription drug addiction/tolerance.

Swim has been advised to swap methadone for some pill. Swim sees little point in this.

Lastly... swim wants to move to south wales in the UK...but doesnt want to goto the Drug services to get swims prescription...swim has been collecting the methadine script once a fortinght for 9 yrs. Swim isnt a stree drug user and doesnt want to be treat like one or even been put in the same pigeon hole as them.

How can swim find a doctor that will prescribe methadone ( maintenance) script whilst swim continues to reduce?

swims ex partner left swim in Dec 08 and now swim wants to start swims life with another person but would need to move.
swim feels trapped to swims doctor for fear or loosing swims methadone prescription.

Any advise?

swim knows doctors cannot give out names of other doctors who will prescribe...so how does one locate these doctors? They are so few and far between these days.

Swim can go private if needed.
Would that help?

Thank you

[roseenglish]

Thanks for the help guys! "swim" is touched!

[Lisa J]

Doctors are fully aware that it is not possible to do supervised daily pickup if you are working, most would continue your present prescribing with your stable history. If SWIY did encounter a problem a private prescription from a private GP would be the answer. Good luck and don't worry, stress will make SWIY'S problems worse.

[Dickon]

It may or not be true....

I was very touched by your story, and because of the Candida something I know nothing about am loathe to give any actual advice. But I do have experience in coming off long-term-opiates (8-9 years daily roughly, methadone at the end 200mg / day, and benzos (~30mg valium per day) - but I'd been using valium (also other benzo's but I'll stick with a vaium equivalent dose for simplicity) 200mg-400mg daily (up to 1000mg one day - i.e. 100 blue valiums) quit cold-turky after a couple of years, and had a fit, I'm not sure if that's the same as what you mean by temporal lobe seizure, but I guess it might be, then returned to 30-50mg daily. I did a 10 day detox of the benzos, and a 2 day detox of the methadone simultaneously in a rehab, which is I know crazy. I reduced the benzos gradually and the methadone went 200ml , 100ml , 0. The only medicine I received was clonidine which is a godsend for opiate addiction, but it was a struggle of Herculean proportian. One very scary thing I read was that a benzo detox done too quickly can permanently (or semi-permanently we're talking years) change brain function that cannot be reversed by restarting even at previous levels or higher. I can only say that I believe it is possible, I've seen long term benzo users quit, but it takes years, I just got very very lucky. I'd be tempted to agree with any medical professional who said knock the benzos on the head first, even if that means upping the methadone. Methadone is a bitch to quit, but it is not a particularly dangerous bitch to quit, benzos are. Please bear in mind this is not independent advice, simply if I were in your situation and a doctor made that suggestion, I'd be glad it was in line with my own intuition.

I'm in the UK and if this post is in any-ways still current would gladly help you out finding a doctor. It's very quick and easy in the UK to get a script, and I'm sure you'd be able to get a weekly script immediately or all but immediately. For a fortnightly one you might have to go private, but I'm not sure.

Positive vibes coming your way

D

[msmogadon]

Originally Posted by Lisa J

Doctors are fully aware that it is not possible to do supervised daily pickup if you are working, most would continue your present prescribing with your stable history. If SWIY did encounter a problem a private prescription from a private GP would be the answer. Good luck and don't worry, stress will make SWIY'S problems worse.

Hey SWILisa Just thought SWIM would mention that there are not actually that many private doctors willing to prescribe methadone as SWIM thought this would be the answer to her prayers, but as soon as the dreaded H word was mentioned SWIM was basically told to hit the road jack.
SWIY must just live in paradise compaired to where SWIM is at lol

[H4U2C]

NHS specialist substance misuse team based in north east london DO prescribe METHADONE on FORTNIGHTLY scripts....it is a BLUE script called:" FP10 MDA"

[Dickon]

^ ^ ^
The blue prescription is for 14 days methadone but the only purpose of a blue script over a green one is that the blue one allows the prescription to be picked up not all at once but on several occasions (usually daily or weekly. There are 14 little boxes for the pharmacist to fill in on one of these blue scripts.

e.g. Methadone Mixture 1mg/ml 1400 (fourteen hundred) ml, 100ml/day to be dispensed weekly on Fridays.

or ......to be dispensed daily supervised. (supervised meaning the pharmacist will watch you drink it).

[H4U2C]

Originally Posted by Dickon

^ ^ ^
The blue prescription is for 14 days methadone but the only purpose of a blue script over a green one is that the blue one allows the prescription to be picked up not all at once but on several occasions (usually daily or weekly. There are 14 little boxes for the pharmacist to fill in on one of these blue scripts.

e.g. Methadone Mixture 1mg/ml 1400 (fourteen hundred) ml, 100ml/day to be dispensed weekly on Fridays.

or ......to be dispensed daily supervised. (supervised meaning the pharmacist will watch you drink it).

Bang On