tapering off methadone

[anemay]

Has anyone on here tapered themself off methadone and lived to tell me some stuff about it?

[scarlett_nothing]

oh yeah, i took clonidine for the skin chills/creeps (it also seemed to help me to sleep for an hour here and there), baclofen for leg cramps- also makes you a bit drowsy, and works on gaba in the brain somehow, which is meant to help. anything that will mildly depress the central nervous system, and peripheral, is a help- because it kind of goes mental for a while! I didnt do it c/t....
valium is meant to be ok also, relaxes muscles and helps anxiety, but i stayed away from it as benzo's scare me, and are too addictive.
phenergan- contribute to drowsiness, stopped the nose running and sneezes to a degree.
other than that, spending hours on here reading other peoples posts! it helped to know there were others doing it and surviving- made me feel more capable of it myself.

[scarlett_nothing]

i totally agree with everything kim715 has said. Taking it moment by moment, Absolutely... If i'd thought about it further than getting through each moment as they occurred, i think i would have cracked. There were times when i looked ahead, and everything, the future, just seemed filled with bleakness and pain, like it was never going to go away and i'd be trapped there forever. times i felt i'd rather die than go through another day of nasty moments. But my body kept breathing, and i somehow it out the other side.
The greatest thing is that once you are off it, you can be sure that the nasty feelings Will end eventually. i just kept saying to myself, oh well, this time next month i might feel good. When i tapered, i felt awful a lot anyway, and from 15mg down, mostly my dose didnt work at all, maybe for an hour or two straight after i took it. When i look back at living like that, being ON methadone, paying for it, but being so sick most of the time anyway and too scared to stop taking it, oh man..... it makes me sad. i spent 6 months like that because i was too scared to stop taking it, and all i could see ahead were day after day of pain.
I worried and fretted so much about what it would be like to stop, but funnily, when i finally did, it just seemed easier- like a weight off my shoulders. I knew i'd get real sick, but at least there would be an end to it.

You have done it really fast. I think at this point, you would be feeling pretty awful, and my opinion is that tapering further is just prolonging the pain. It will still hurt anyway whether it's from 20mg or 2mg. Maybe better for you to just the bullet and do it? Since you are withdrawing for most of the day anyway...  I don't know, but however you do it, we will be here to support you through it.

What amino acids did you try? I didn't take them at all at first, so i dont really know if i'd have started feeling better anyway without them. maybe i would have, but now that i've got them, i'm taking them! And i'm hoping the 5htp will help me sleep better (got it today). i tried tyrosine at first, to get some energy happening, but that gave me such bad anxiety i had to cut it out. like my brain was on fire!

[kim715]

Well I'm glad you're not scared to talk about it anymore.Many people here have experienced a lot of the same things you have.They may not have gone on methadone,but they can relate to addiction and what it does to ourselves as well as our loved ones.A lot of us are surprised that we're still here to talk about it after some of the things we've done or been involved in because of addiction.Reading about it is great.Knowledge is power.Seems like the way you are feeling right now physically and mentally[anxiety and depression are part of w/d] is normal for what your body is going through.As I said that was a fast taper,but you did it so far,so congrats and be proud of yourself...Keep posting hon....we're here for you...All the best...Kim

[anemay]

Thanks that made me feel better. I just got out of hot hot tub and took my trazadone so i feel better from that as well. I actually don't think i've had it that bad yet, i expected much worse on this part of it. In the morning when I wake up it is bad until I drink my tiny little dose, then i sleep like a baby for two hrs then it goes downhill from there, trying to do small stuff around the house but i have to sit down about every 10 - 30 minutes, making dinner for my hubby at about 2 cuz i cant at 7 when he gets home. Nothing tastes good, my insides feel like they are shaking. Can't sleep, headaches and cold and hot chills. When i was on 150 tho i sweated grossly constantly, and i did get hi from it. I would nod off every time i sat down, even in the car.  i was definetly not myself my hubby has said "My wife is back" already . During the drop from 90 to 45 week i cried for about 24hrs straight. Everything i saw and thought about was sad. I haven't felt any emotions in 5 years, well i used for several before the methadone so i guess its been about 20 years, i had two years clean in there at one point. I am an alcohlic, pillhead, X-freak, coke head. thank god I didn't ever try heroin, or I would probably be dead already. I should probably be dead already I used to forget how many oxy 80's i took and take a couple more on top of drinking and lots of coke. I had several accidents in my car, all luckily very minor, mostly hitting parked cars, curbs, signs, mailboxes, etc. I truly believe methadone saved my life, i never used anything stronger than a valium three times in five years on it. It feels good to let it out, I have actully been reading stuff on here for awhile, scared to say anything. Thanks.

[kim715]

Don't be scared,I know easier said then done right now.Just like with a lot of things though the more you work yourself up mentally about it the worse you're going to make it .When you're going through something like this you take it minute by minute,second by second if you need to and you deal with it as it comes.Don't stress over whether in the next hour it's going to get better or worse,just live in that moment.You do what you can and what you need to do to get you through right now.You have done an extremely fast taper,so I'm guessing you're really feeling it already,but you're doing it ,right? I know you feel horrible and I know you're scared.I felt the same way,but I made it through,and trust me I wasn't tough about it at all,it wasn't a pretty sight,so if i did it you can do it too.I'm here to help you anytime and so are a lot of other people.You're not alone.You'll find a lot of comfort and support here so keep posting.You can do this.

[anemay]

thanks for your answer. I have been on it for 5 yrs at 150 down fom 150 to 110 in the past few weeks before the last time i picked up my dose. I picked up 2 weeks of 90 that they made me sign an ama to go down to, was gonna go inpatient that didn't work out. So after i got dosed i dropped down to 45 for 5 days then 30 for 5 days, i'm on 2nd day after dropping to 20. I feel like ****, I tried the thomas stuff, gave me horrible gas and bloating, headaches. taken none of that stuff in two days and have no more of that. My plan from here was to stay on 20 for 3 more days, then 10 for 5 days, 5 for 5 days, then off. I was hoping i wouldn't feel that bad at the end but now i'm starting to get scared of going off completely

[kim715]

I was on methadone for a little over a year.I tried to taper twice,but was not successful,and went back up both times.The third time I got down to 25mgs and went cold turkey off of it.I am now just a few days away from being clean from it for 8 months.If you're going to taper the best way to do it to minimize any w/d is to do it very slow and allow a few days in between to allow your body to adjust to the new dose.Methadone has a long half life,up to 36 hours,so you normally won't feel the decrease immediately.Most recommend to decrease in 2 mg intervals.Methadone is an extremely strong drug.One mg.of methadone is = to 3 mgs of morphine.Depending on what dose you're on now,and the length of time you've been on methadone,a lot of doctors and people who have been on it find little to no difference in the w/ds and the length of time to go through them when going cold turkey off of 30mgs.or tapering down to nothing.Of course thats a personal choice.Some describe tapering as prolonging the agony.The normal recovery time from the w/ds themselves last anywhere from 3-6 weeks depending on the individual.Of course the first few weeks are the roughest. There is an article in the health pages written by a doctor who treats people coming off of methadone,it's very informative,and written in plain english so it's easy to understand{no doctor talk}. The doctor who wrote it is a recovering addict himself.{18 years active in his addiction}..There is also the thomas' recipe and as scarlett_nothing already mentioned to you the amino acid protocol.I hope this answered some questions for you.If I can be of any help at all feel free to pm me anytime..There are a number of people who have come off of methadone and lived to tell about it,and who are more grateful every day to be free of it and have their life back.You can do it too and theres plenty of us here willing to help see you through.All the best...Kim

[scarlett_nothing]

yes, i just recently did just that! and i lived. i'm now at day 53 no methadone, for the first time in 8-9 years. i tapered, slowly sometimes, quick other times, down to 5mgs (highest i was at 120mgs) and stopped. It has been hard- besides the normal opiate withdrawal stuff that lasted a few weeks and was quite horrible, there was the crushing fatigue that seemed to just last forever, and aching legs. but I'm feeling so much better now at day 53, i look back on those weeks and think "thank god they are over!". I don't think i'm quite 100% yet, but definitely 80% better than i was.

everyone who has done it recommends amino acids, and i put it off for the first month, skeptical, but finally got round to buying them about ten days ago, and soon after that i started to feel much better.

it's pretty hard to make the final step, no-one looks forward to weeks of feeling yuck, but i'm so glad i did. if you want more specifics, about what its like, just ask and i or someone else on here will answer.