how fast is safe to reduce off 11ml methadone (was on 80ml, but been rducing for 1 1/2years)?

[chrisross]

hey people, i was on 80ml methadone 3 years ago, and have been reducing for the last year and half, i was on 14ml last week and have been droping around 4 ml a week, but when  i dropped it to 9ml 3 days ago, ive had hardly any sleep and been having that awful restlessness and wierd kind of arousal that cant be satisfied, so ive put it back up to 11ml and feel fine in the a.m.when i take my dose, but am struggling from midnight til the next morning, so anyone have any advice? am i reducing too quickly, or will i just have to put up with these symptoms?? any help would be great thankyou

[vicki595]

Right Mark!  2 mg is a lot at this stage so I hope the clinic advises...

[gnarly_1]

its all about % OF DOSE IN THE LOWER DOSES IT where not aloud to discus taper plans in the open forum but your going weay way to fast the last 20 mg will take as long as it did from 60 to 20 you need to go in baby steps or your going to feel like a truck hit you ask you key worker or nurce and listen to what they say im going out on a linb here but 2mg is to much
work with that and see if it goes better for you the days of the big drops are over again its a % thing good luck and God bless......Gnarly

[vicki595]

I really don't want to disrespect but that's not entirely true about the half life. All drugs are different in the way they break down, also.  If a half life is 4 hours, it means that 50% of the drug has been eliminated from the body BUT it doesn't mean that the half that's left is at all half of the original dose. It's there in the body but rendered useless and ineffective be cause it's structure has changed chemically. Half life continues until only metabolized molecules are left in the body.  This is the reason why drugs are prescribed according to every 12,8,4 hours etc...and not according to their half life. With tapering,it's not the amount of hours you wait between doses but the amount of drug you've decreased by.  Again,I don't want to start an argument or debate here. I just think sometimes info is not accurate...Be that as it may...we don't and shouldn't even be talking about this. It's not the function of this forum.  Call the prescribing physician is always the right thing to do ...

[Oxy480Jim]

You should stay on a reduced dose long enough for your body to adjust to it. When you taper too fast it's easy to go to far if you don't wait out the half life of methadone. I'm not sure, but I think Methadones half life is 36 or 37 hours, which means when you take your 11mg dose, 5.5 mg remain after 36 or 37 hours. so if you are taking your daily dose, every 24 hours, you then have 16.5 mg in your system for a while till the rest of the other dose wears off. it's kinds complicated to figure out, but you are always expelling and adding, so what is constantly in your system is actually higher than what you are taking.

When you reduce your dose, you need to wait at least a week or even longer  to stabilize on that dose. Now that you are getting down to lower doses, I'd taper in smaller increments as well, and allow enough time to get used to it.

There are things you can do to help feel a little better, taking vitamins, eating foods that promote healing and growing the body's natural production of endorphins and dopamine and other body chemistry that controls how you feel.