Hello and thanks

I am new to this site and I look forward to having a group of people that I can share my experiences with, without shame. It is a wonderful service that you are providing and I thank you for the time and energy you have put into this site. I know I will have a lot of questions going forward but I also hope that at some point I can provide someone else with information or advice that might help them. Thank you again for welcoming me and I look forward to many great days ahead.
Marva

Marva1971 we are so glad to have you join our little group! Thanks for the compliments too about the hard work we put into the forum. I am very proud of our family of ppl and our forum and it is so nice to hear that you will feel comfortable here.

Be sure to join us if you can during our ONLINE LIVE CHAT session. It is set up for Feb 28th at 8PM central time. We will all try to sign on to the chat feature of the forum so we can all talk to each other in real time. Our last session was a success and we had a great time getting to know each other and talking. So if you can, be sure to join us.

If you feel comfortable telling us a little about your experience w/methadone and MMT, please do. Things like how long have you been in treatment and where you attend your clinic, has methadone helped you or are you still having trouble.......those are all things that we like to hear about other ppl's experiences with so feel free to share.

Take care and in closing please know that we are here for you! If you need something please let me know. My name is RuthAnn and I moderate for the group along with Dee and you can contact either one of us through the private message feature in the forum. If you need someone to talk to or you just have a question, please don't hesitate to let us know.

RuthAnn

Hi and thanks littlegirl for the kind words. I am new to the methadone community and so my experiences are limited but my questions are endless!! ha ha I have been on opiates for 2 plus years for pain management for some chronic conditions. In the last few months I became dependent on the medications and was taking in excess of 120 mg of Perocets in a day. Of course I had also become very tolerant of the med and like so many before me I found that taking it became an endless cycle of withdrawal, new prescriptions, running low etc.

I decided that last month would be the end of this self imposed hell. I went to my pain doc and told him the truth. I was of course scared to death that he might cut me off cold turkey and I knew that if that happened the chances of me surviving intact would be very low. But at the same time I could not go on living like I was and I had to find an alternative.

Well thank God, my doc is a great guy and he was very understanding. He told me about methadone and in his opinion it was the best option for me. I have only been on the medication for a week and I am unsure at this point how I feel about it. Of course I love not having to worry about where my next pill is coming from and I am thankful that the withdrawals are behind me.

He started me at a very low dose of 10mg 3x's a day. At this point it is not fully addressing my pain issues but it has been a great help regarding my dependency. I will follow up with him next month and then we can review my dosage and reevaluate my treatment.

I do think that if it has not aleviated my pain at this point it may not, therefore a bit higher dose might be in order. How long does it take for the methadone to be at its optimum level? What would be a reasonable dose, in your opinion?

I dont care about getting "High" and I dont want to be too drugged, you know, drowsy, lethargic, nauseated etc. I am a single mom with 3 young kids and I have to be functional at all levels. Thank you for your time and I look forward to talking to yall. God bless.

That is what we are here for to support each other and to share information so you ask away!

One thing to keep in mind, I am not discounting your medical condition that causes you pain, but after we become addited to opiates we also can start experiencing neuropathic pain, which can make whatever pain you already have even worse. Sometimes people find that when they are off all opiates for an extended period of time, that the pain is not near as bad anymore and can be managed with other treatments. So it may take your body a while to adjust so that you can tell what is pain that can be managed and what is pain from your opiate addiction.

It is a fine line to be able to find relief from your pain properly and treating an opiate addiction but it CAN be done. It sounds like your pain mgt doc is caring and understanding so hopefully he can find a proper treatment that addresses both issues so that you are not in pain, but you also maintain your sobriety.

There are several other members who are also pain management pts (the owner is one) so it can be achieved.

I wanted to ask, is the pain mgt doc the doc who has you on the methadone or are you going to a methadone clinic? If you are doing it through you pain doc, consider yourself lucky! Methadone clinics are expensive and actual methadone is cheap medication. I had a doc that started me out on methadone to detox me and he would give me a script for it to take to the pharmacy. Two weeks worth of methadone cost me like $14.00 and then I paid $50 to see the doctor on those visits. A methadone clinic charges anwhere from $10 - $20 A DAY.

As far as what is an optimal dose, it really varies with each person. I know some ppl who take 30mg one time a day and that is fine for them, I know some ppl who take 260mg once a day and I know some who take "split" doses (one in the AM and one in the PM or like you 3 times a day) I personally am on 130mg but I have been on methadone for almost 10 yrs now. I started out around 65-70mg a day when I first started. It really has to be what you are comfortable at. When you are no longer having withdrawal symptoms and you no longer "crave" then you have reached an optimal dose.

Also keep in mind, you prob won't get "pain relief" from your methadone dose, it is going to help your addiction and not so much your pain. It might provide some minimal relief but if you are basing your "optimal" dose on whether the methadone relieves your pain or makes a big difference in your pain level or not, you probably won't ever find a dose that does that. You will prob have to take other pain relief measures in addition to the methadone treatment.

Course I don't have alot of experience with methadone along with pain mgt so I could be wrong on that, so if any of you guys out there on pain mgt, please give us your input!

Feel free also to email me if you like, my personal email is boandtrent@cebridge.net
If you ever just need to talk or you have some questions or something that you may not want to post online, shoot me an email.

Take care!
RuthAnn

Hey and thanks again for the info. I do get my methadone from a pain management doctor. He sees me every 30 days and writes the script. I was so happy to find out that the methadone is affordable. I have medicare, but sometimes the co-pays are ridiculous. The total for 90 10mg tabs was just 9.00 That was a relief. At first he suggested I take Oxy-ms?? I dont know what that is exactly but he said it was expensive. He also mentioned Morphine pills, but I have had that before and I hate the lethargy and nausea and it makes me really irritable. I have noticed my aches and pains have increased since taking the methadone and I dont know if that is due to the dose too low or because when I was on the Percocets I was always SO SO SO medicated nothing hurt. I don't miss those days. Thank God. Again, thanks for your time and information. This site is a blessing for those of us in need and I know the Lord will bless you in return.