Does methadone hold you long enough?

[gezza26]

Hi All,

SWIM's having a few troubles with sub's and doesn't feel anywhere near strong enough to detox completely. He has a very fast metabolism and fears if he switches to methadone, his morning dose wouldn't hold him long enough

SWIM believes he would only get a single dose, no takehomes unless he went to the pharmacy twice a day. Does any SWIY find themselves in withdrawals right before they get there dose? If not how long can they hold out without their dose? Thankyou

Gezza

[drug-bot]

swims on 85mg now and it holds him all day. he started out on 50mg and that held him all day for awhile then every few months he'd go up 5-10mg when he felt his body adjusted and needed more.

swims been told by some people who've been on methadone for alot longer (years)than him that they did the samething (keep on uping there dose every few months) until they reached a level where they where comfortable and were stabilized on that dose for years.

even if after the first dose or 2 you still have some withdawl symptoms wait about 4-5 days before uping your dose, remember-

The long halflife of methadone means that it layers in the body. When dosing once per day, half the dose from the previous day is still in the body when dosing on the current day. Similarly, 1/4 of the dose from two days before is still present; and 1/8 from the day before that; and 1/16 and 1/32 and 1/64 and so on.

http://www.heroinhelper.com/sick/met...x_part_1.shtml

[msmogadon]

SWIM has done meth a few methadone detoxes lately and was also worried about the same thing.
SWIM found that the first dose did not last until the next day but after the 2nd day it had accumulated in her body and felt fine thereafter - even though she was coming down 5mls every 2 days (until reaching about 10mls and then it wasn't so nice for her anymore)

[Junkiebaddypowder]

when swim went to the clinic swim was told that the methadone was supposed to last anywhere between 24 to 36 hours.... but then again swims doctor also told swim that swims controlled release morphine would last 12 hours... swim noticed that it lasts no where near that... especially the longer swim takes it...


when swim started 4 years ago the ms lasted about 11 or 12... over the years swim has noticed that it lasts a little less every so often... not sure if methadone is the same way but swim sure as hell hopes not


good luck....

oh swim has heard from several people that the methadone worked so much better than the sub once their dose was stablized

[moda00]

Methadone has worked really well for swim in overcoming her addiction but she did find that a dose did not hold her for 24 hours. It is supposed to hold for at least 24, especially once an adequate dose is built up in the bloodstream, but some people metabolize it more rapidly. However, unless you have specific reason to believe this is the case, in all likelihood once a day dosing will be adequate as long as swiy works up to an adequate dose. If he has symptoms of withdrawal, the first course of action is to increase to dose until one feels stable and withdrawals are gone, but for a small number of people this doesn't work, at which point they can do a blood test (peak and trough) to determine if one is metabolizing it too quickly, and then do a split (every 12 hours) dose.

Swim found out that she had this issue because as her dose was increasing, she got up too high in that it would cause nausea and drowsiness during the day, but she would still get sick at night. Once the dose is getting too high (not meaning a set dose or quantitative measure of "too high" but rather assessed on an individual basis- a dose is too high if it is resulting in intoxication, opiate effects, and negative side effects) it is usually at that time that one needs to look into splitting. Hope this helps!!

[oggy]

Methadone was torture when SWIM had to take it once a day in the chemist but after about 3 months or so he got to take it home. Every 12 hours worked much better. He wouldn't get intoxicated taking it this way but once a day he would feel stoned for a few hours then suffer, was just as bad as being addicted to heroin. Well maybe not you have more control with heroin.

[Lisa J]

SWIM had the same problem, even when she found a dose that held her during the day she would start clucking late at night which meant she was continuing to use a little before bed. SWIM'S drug worker told her that some people need the dose split and to talk to the GP about it, he was really good and put her on daily take home for a week and weekly take home after that. If SWIM hadn't been told about splitting the dose she thinks she would have ended up overdosing in an effort to stop the early hours rattle. She was already really nodding bad during the day and wonders how much more her body would have took of weekly increases that were never going to work until the dose was split. The GP felt part of the problem was SWIM'S then 24 years of opiate use, he said her body was too good at dealing with it, and also probably the reason why SWIM'S heroin habit got so out of hand so quickly.