Methadone Uses

Question by : Methadone withdrawals?
A guy friend of mine has been Methadone Free (YAY) for one year this month. He was on 180mg liquid for over five years and he quit cold turkey last July, went through the horrific physical and even worse the mental withdrawals of the drug. Since then, he has been drug free. No one told him to do it, he said he did it because he wanted to and he was tired of depending on a drug to determine what kind of day it was going to be. Anyway, it has been a year and the diarhea has not stopped. It isn’t ‘as bad’ as it was, but it is very much present as well as daily stomach cramps. Any ideas about the length of time this is supposed to continue? Seems like it would have all stopped. Oh, and for anyone who thinks it could be something else medical…he has had a colonoscopy and EGD, samples of this and that from his body, blood work and more blood work etc etc etc…The only thing that was out of the norm was a hernia which most of the world has. Any ideas from someone who has been there or knows someone who has been there? Just looking for some hope on this one. I have no idea how to help him and if the doc’s cant seem to stop the symptoms …what’s next? He didn’t want to go on suboxone in that he thought it was just another gateway to addiction.

Best answer:

Answer by Tilly Tom
im sorry to hear that he is struggling so much after all the effort it must have taken him to get off the methadone. sometimes it can take a long time for these sorts of drugs to fully leave your system although a year on still getting diarhea sounds a bit much. all i can suggest he does is to make sure he drinks lots of water and electrolyte solutions and maybe takes anti diarhea medication, not sure if the latter will help. its important that he keeps with it its not worth going back in to the addiction cycle just to stop the withdrawals especially if the other symptoms have subsided.

Answer by Lance e
Methadone, from my experience, a synthetic opioid, used to ease heroin and other opiate addicts from dealing with the withdrawal symptoms of opiates, can actually be harder to quit then the original drug of choice.

Many methadone users have worst withdrawals from methadone than they did before. The deal with methadone is that it is stays in one’s system longer than heroin, morphine, Oxycontin, Fentanyl( unless transdermal) so the opioid receptors have longer to bond with the opioid. Watching someone go through with WD of Methadone can be worst than watching a heroin addict WD.

Since it acts like this, the withdrawal symptoms can last longer than any other opiate, other than Suboxone( which I would NEVER suggest to anyone, nor Methadone either) it can last months, to a year. That is why with managed methadone treatment, they detox a patient to 1 to 2 mg a day. However, since he wanted to quit(kudos to him!!) he will have complications for awhile longer. Having his speak to a doctor would be a good thing, but, as a recovering addict myself, I would not take Suboxone, it is just subbing one drug for another.

Methadone, for those with real determination, may work for addicts trying to get their lives back together, but, to me, it is just high risk. My problem was, when I was getting off OC’s and Fentanyl, I liked the Done’ better, goes back and forth, why I say do not use the Suboxone. I wish him and you the best, and I hope he stays clean!!!

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