Will Hydrocodone Help With Methadone Withdrawals?
Question by James T: Will hydrocodone help with Methadone withdrawals?
Ok i must add this also. I KNOW methadone is to get off of opoids. The issue is te withdrawals from the methadone is 10 times worse than that of hydrocodone to me. Ive tried to get off of methadone 3 times and every time a couple of days in i sweat and soak everything i touch or lay on. I DO NOT have those withdrawals from hydrocodone. Im ready to leave everything alone. WILL THE HYDROCODONE HELP WITH THE METHADONE WITHDRAWAL?
Best answer:
Answer by Sparrow
No. In fact, it will make them worse- so please spare yourself that.
Methadone has a component to it that is similar to Narcan- it is used in treatment of oipiate addiction for many reasons; the fact that it blocks opiate receptors is one of them.
The long and short of it is that our bodies produce endorphins- natural pain killers- in small amounts, as needed. Opiates- drugs derived from the poppy plant- (heroin, vicodin, Darvon, oxycontin, morphine, dilaudid, etc.)- when taken, cause an influx of these endorphins. When a person takes opiates on a regular basis, the human body, which is extremely adept at conserving it’s natural resources- recognizes that the person is providing them with more than enough synthetic endorphins through opiates- and the body stops producing it’s small amounts. So when an opiate addict suddenly stops using opiates, the body goes into an endorphin-deficiency, causing the person to become very ill.
Methadone is an opioid- a synthetic version of opiates. We don’t entirely understand the pharmacology of it, but we do know it binds to the same receptors I the brain that opiates do- thereby easing withdrawal. That said, it also creates a block of sorts to those receptors, which makes taking natural opiates both dangerous & ineffective. Dangerous b/c you can overdose easily without ever realizing you took too much, b/c you can’t feel the effects that we, as addicts, have come to use as a compass for our tolerance. Additionally, taking those opiates can sometimes make you sicker- exacerbating the withdrawal.
Suboxone does the same thing- which is why when a patient switches from suboxone to methadone, or vice versa, they must wait 4 or more days for the half life of their doses to leave the body, otherwise one med will interact with the other & bring on severe withdrawal like symptoms.
Methadone withdrawal is a thousand times harder than heroin, & should be monitored. It is not life threatening, unless you have a pre-existing condition that exacerbates it; but there is a process for a reason- if you hope to stay sober then the process needs to be followed. Opiate addiction has the lowest log term success rate for sobriety. Methadone has the highest success rate among all the opiate addiction treatments out there; but that success rate takes a dive dramatically when it’s not done the way it should be- as in less than 1% chance he will stay sober for a period of 6 months if you try to do this yourself.
I won’t lecture you- you don’t need that, I know. The best I can do is this:
I am the admin for a group I started on FB, relative ot MMT support. This is the group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=106559159942&ref=ts
I wrote a discussion board thread about detoxing for another client; it’s pretty long, but if you want the info, you can find it here:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=106559159942&v=app_2373072738&ref=ts#!/topic.php?uid=106559159942&topic=15212
(If you have trouble accessing those links, drop me an email & I’ll copy and paste the thread into a reply).
You can also email me ([email protected]) , and I can send you a list of other OTC & herbal remedies that will at least minimize the withdrawal symptoms, if you aren’t able to get back to your program. It’s hard, no way around it, but there are some things you can do to ease the road; I just don’t have the room on yahoo here to write them all.
There’s also some excellent resources online, which are a fount of information- they’re where I go when I don’t know the answers 😉
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