Posted by MB on July 19, 2001, at 20:13:58
In reply to Re: Ultram withdrawal! » MB, posted by Elizabeth on July 18, 2001, at 20:58:06
> > > It's not, as you say. But most people I've met who are on MMT are happy with it, even in the US where it's very restrictive (as you also say).
> >
> > I sure wasn't happy with it, but then my situation was weird. They started me on 20mg every day...after the third day it was supposed to keep me "well" until the next dose (I don't know why it was supposed to take three days, the nurse said something about "building up in the body," but I never completely understood).
>
> Steady-state serum levels, that's all. Methadone is very long-acting, so it doesn't take long to reach steady state (same with Prozac, for example).
So that's all it is? Just takes time to reach steady state? The way the nurse described it, I thought she was talking about "stacking" (is that the right term?)...you know, when it stores up (I don't know where) and is realeased slowly? Doesn't Xanax do that? Hell, I don't know really what I'm talking about, but that's what the nurse made it sound like.> > Anyway, I'd get deathly sick (withdrawal) every night, and each day until my next dose.
>
> Methadone is *supposed* to last a day or more, but for some people it doesn't. (The recommended dosing schedule for pain is every 4-6 hours. I never understood why it would be different.)
Right, supposedly a patient on MMT could miss a day and still come back "well" 48 hrs after their last dose. I see that far fetched.
> > They kept increasing the dose, saying that larger doses would take longer to clear, which makes sense, I guess. They eventually got me up to 210 mg/day, but I was still getting sick at night.
>
> You needed to take it in divided doses, twice a day perhaps. Getting you up to an unbelievably high dose was effective at enslaving you, though, wasn't it? (That was the original idea behind MMT.)
I tried so hard to get them to give me a divided dose, but they were fixed on the idea that I was a charlatan and that I wanted to sell my second dose once I got out of the clinic with it. I somewhat understand that they might be wary after working with junkies for years (who often *are* charlatans after having to survive on the streets).
> > By the time I was at 210mg/day, I needed someone to help me walk into the clinic.
>
> I couldn't imagine being able to get myself to a clinic in the morning if I were dependent on methadone to remain undepressed and it didn't last as long as it's "supposed" to.
It really was a nightmare. And as sick as I was getting staying on the *same* dose daily, there was no way I could handle one of their tapering schemes. It was the most trapped I've felt.
> > I don't know why I was metabolizing it so fast, but they said it happens with some people.
>
> Yet for some reason, they won't adapt the system to deal with it.
Nope.
> > I tried everything. I even started eating a box of OTC Tagamet before each dose because it was supposed to inhibit the enzyme that metabolized methadone.
>
> That's an old trick! I guess it didn't work, though. I'm not sure how much cimetidine you'd have to take.
It actually did help a little. It kept me well through the afternoon, at least. Night time and the next morning were still bad, though.
> > I finally had to be hospitalized where it was legal for my pdoc to prescribe methadone, then he prescribed a "split dose" and I was off of it and back on heroin in a couple weeks. What a relief!!!
>
> I guess you couldn't continue on MMT and use heroin as your nightly dose (because they test your urine for 6-monoacetylmorphine, presumably)? No way to win.
No, it would have taken a *lot* of heroin, at that point, to do anything. My opoid tolorance was so high. I remember eating a handful of seven Lorcet (10mg hydrocodone each) one night when I was hurting, and it didn't even take the edge off. I couldn't even tell that I had taken them. Now *that* was scary. Truthfully, I didn't want to do street drugs. I wanted to be legit. Actually, I lasted a month off of the methadone before turning back to illegal stuff. I *did* try...
> > And I must say that nobody in the clinic was glad to be chained to that clinic that treated people like animals.
>
> They're not people, they're drug addicts (that's the idea, anyway).
> > Maybe other clinics are different, but my whole experience to this day makes me enraged.
>
> Maybe; or maybe other people are just so fed up with life on dope that they're willing to put up with all the cr*p.
Yeah, a methadone clinic beats life on the streets hustling for a fix. I was never there, though. I was a nice upper middle class addict. Their cr*p wasn't worth it to me.
> > So, sorry for the rant. Peace :-)
>
> Always peace. It's just a rant, after all. < g >
>
> -elizabethHeh...cool.
poster:MB
thread:70206
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010714/msgs/70960.html