Normal With Methadone ?
Question by : Normal with methadone ?
My husband has been on methadone for almost 2 years, so he could stop abusing prescription pain pills, and I have noticed a big change in him. He gets extremely agitated over small stuff, he throws temper tantrums and breaks things if he can’t figure it out, he can’t hold his eyes open while riding in a car, he sweats when it’s 65 degrees. I don’t know what his dose is, he doesn’t like me to be involved with that. Has anyone had these same issues while taking methadone? Or know someone who has? Is it even the methadone making him act like this?
Best answer:
Answer by Ben Anwyl
Hi, how are you doing?
I have been in the same situation and can relate to some/all of the experiences you are having. Some I would class as minor but others are worrying. Lets start off with the least worrying things worse. Methadone, similar to morphine will raise your body temperature. It is normally not much to worry about but you should be aware. This can be followed by sweating which is your body trying to cool yourself down.You could also try paractemaol which will lower body temperature. I went through months of torture my first summer on methadone, waking up feeling like I could not breathe due to being too hot. A cold bath or shower will also help.
The driving is a biggy. In the UK he may well have his driving licence taken away from him if the dvla knew he was on methadone. In some cases, people are given yearly licences and have to take medicals. The closing of the eyes is called gouging. It is normally a nice realm, somewhere between being awake and half asleep and can often cause wakeful dreams. Doing it whilst driving however is dangerous to your husband, your family, and anybody else who he goes past in the car. Think about this carefully. How will you and your husband feel if he kills someone because he was on drugs. The agitation is caused by not being able to think as productively as he used to, along with possible self worth issues due to the fact he is addicted to drugs. It is also quite sedating so he may be grumpy due to being tired.
I do not know what his dose is, although I would not imagine it to be excessively high. He has however at the start most probably had his methadone upped in an attempt to get a ‘high’; for a while. By now, he should at least have tried to reduce, that is of course if he wants to. Some people are content with stopping on the methadone programe for a long period however.
There is no easy answer for you, particuarly as he wont talk to you. Why is he like thiswith you? Is he embarassed, have you been a little judgemental in the past? It will be easier for both of you if he can trust you enough to talk about what is going on.
There is a relatively new medication call suboxone on the market which governements are now recommending for opiate withdrawal. It is less sedating and when it comes to reduction, people have reported less severe side effects.
But in answer to your question, the methadone could well be the instigator for all those problems you have said
Answer by Ziggi
Some of the issues your husband has are common side effects from methadone and some are not. The sweating is very common. It’s not at all caused by a raise in body temp as the other person claimed. Methadone does not raise your body temperature. A methadone patient has the same body temp as everyone else. It has to do with a release of histamines. Unfortunately there isn’t much you can do about the sweating other than manage it. For a lot of people it gets better in time.
Falling asleep when sitting down for a while is also not uncommon. It can be caused by two different things – too high of a dose or two low of a dose. The reason falling asleep, or nodding, is caused by too low of a dose is because the dose doesn’t last for 24 hours like it’s supposed to. As a result the person gets mild withdrawal symptoms at night and don’t get proper sleep. This causes the person to be tired during the day and when they add the methadone on to that they tend to nod during the day. This can easily be solved by increasing the dose. If it’s caused by being over medicated reducing the dose will of course help. If your husband functions well during the day otherwise I would not think he’s over medicated though.
The tantrums and agitation is NOT a side effect of methadone at all. In fact it would be the opposite. Methadone would make you calmer if it does anything to your mood at all. I’ve been on methadone for eight years and know hundreds of methadone patients and I also read a lot about it and I have never heard of methadone causing aggression or anger. The only thing I can think of that could cause the kind of problems your husband has is being under medicated. If he goes into withdrawal every night and doesn’t get proper sleep it would make sense that he gets angry easily as anyone would if they don’t get enough sleep. It’s also entirely possible that the anger is completely unrelated to methadone.
Does your hubby get takehome doses? If so, his dose should be on the label. If he doesn’t get takehome doses I would start wondering why. After 2 years he should not have to go to the clinic more than once a week or less. If he doesn’t get takehomes it’s quite possibly because he’s still using drugs and some drugs could cause agitation.
If I were you I’d talk to your hubby and tell him that he may want to consider raising his dose. Too low doses is a big problem at a lot of clinics because the staff have the outdated ideas the lower is better. There are many studies that show that this is not the case. In fact lower doses often cause a host of problems including continued drug use. But sadly some clinics still ignore that. Dosing is difficult though because it’s highly individual. Some people do well on as little as 40mg while others need 400mg. The average dose is between 80-120mg. Lower than 80mg is usually too low. But since some people need much higher doses your husband may still be under medicated even if he’s on an average dose. I have an acquaintance who was on 160mg for a long time and she was always tired, falling asleep whenever she sat down and never feeling good. She thought that she was on a proper dose since 160mg is higher than average. But after realizing that she was probably under medicated she got several increases. She is now on 220mg and is doing great. She finally has normal energy.
Some people can also benefit from a split dose where they take part of the dose in the morning and the rest 12 hours later. Most people take 60-70% in the morning and the rest in the evening. Splitting it 50/50 is usually not a good idea since the morning dose would be too low. A split dose can help people who get very tired from their dose and those who go into withdrawal before the 24 hour mark. Not all clinics allow split dosing but some do. If the clinic doesn’t allow it but you have at least 6 takehomes a week you can split the dose yourself at home. An increase and split dosing could be the key for your husband.
If you want more info or advice you can ask for help at this forum which is for methadone patients and those around them: http://atwatchdog.lefora.com/forum/category/main-forum/
Health News – Long Use Of Methadon 1/3 — Everyday 1.30 PM IST www.amritatv.com/health Date – 19-08-2012.
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