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Methadone help?????

I started out on vicoden a couple of years ago, kicked that habit and went through hellish withdrawel symptoms. Finally got back to myself after a month or so. Stayed off all meds except lexapro for a few months. Now its the Methadone. I havent been taking it for very long but I still think its been long enough where I'm going to go through withdrawels. I take 2 pills a day. one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I want to stop taking it. Its causing me to gain weight and be constipated. Has anyone came down from methadone? or have any suggestions for me???
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Avatar universal
I was taking 10pills/10mg a day for almost 2 years, I had used the methadone to stop taking other opiates mainly Oxy's, and a bad cocaine habit. I was getting all my methadone without a prescription, so the daily grind was so stressful it made me want to get help. I found an addiction specialist to weened me down from 100mg to 30mg and then I switched over to suboxone. I was on suboxone for 4 months then off, with little to no withdrawl effects. Sounds like your taking probably 20mg a day, unless the are 5mg pills, but either way if you cant stop by yourself then suboxone is an option. Since you are on a low dose you may be able to stop, if you could  get your doctor to prescribe like valium, xanax or something to relax you. Another med that helped me alot was using clonidine, I also have high blood pressure, but they are also used to relax you. If you are able, take some valium for a couple of weeks with some clonidine and it should help with the withdrawls. If that isnt an option and you cant stop then I would have suggest looking into suboxone. Now it worked wonders for me, but some people dont like it, which of whom mostly the stories Ive heard is from people who took it for a long time. The lower the starting effective dose the better, I was taking 3 methadone pills 10mg each per day, then you have to wait for 48hrs for the methadone to be out of your system and you can take the suboxone and for me that was the hardest part was the 2 days of not having my methadone.  It was hard for me to get out of bed in the morning without taking it,waiting for awhile then I'd be able to get up and go. If you do decide on suboxone, try to start as low as possible where you feel ok, and just taper your dose either according to the doctors recommedations, or if you can begin tapering yourself. I was always preparing myself for the next doc visit, so I would start taking less, so that when I got the new script id already been taking the dose for a week or so. It really worked miracles for me, but I was on a much higher dose of methadone and I took it all at one time, which is basicly how you would if you went to a methadone clinic. But I was amazed to find a doctor who would prescribe it out of his office for the purpose of detox, I dont believe they are supposed to,and my bottle always said some in the morning and then next dose in the evening, I found it worked much better if you just dosed once daily with your methadone. Once again though, try and see if you can get off it with other means, then if those dont work I would seriously consider suboxone, but it's a debatable topic, but at your dose it is perfect to switch over and much easier withdrawls than the methadone. Keep posting and get as many opinions as possible, if you need to you can send me a privatemessage with any help I could offer. Ive been through chronic pain, opiate addiction, cocaine addiction and marijuana. If you do have pain and need relief, I use a compounded pharmaceutical gel called KGCL, ask your doctors about it, it really helped me with my pain.Goodluck, like I said if you need anything let us know, or PM me and Id be honored to try and help....It feels good that something positive can come out of my addictions and experiences so keep on posting. You can do it!!!!
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Avatar universal
I agree with the above 2 posters the answer to how long and how much is important to know in order to give you the most accurate answer to your question.I went cold turkey off of 25 mgs of methadone about 51/2 months ago,after being on it for a year.The first 3 weeks were really rough for me,week 4 I could function and by week 6 things were starting to get back to normal.You can get off of methadone and lead a happy life without it.Theres a few of us here who can testify to that.
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Avatar universal
How long is not that long? & whats your dose? These two things can make a difference in how bad or how not so bad it may be. I have detoxed off methadone along with a few others on the forum, I also know of a few people outside of the forum who have had success, basically all of or most of the people who I know of who have detoxed off methadone seem to have almost all the same symtoms, & the length of time appears to also be the same with everyone, 3 to 4 weeks, then it just keeps getting better & better.
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Avatar universal
How long have you been taking it? 2 pills at what dose?
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