Agonizing over whether I should do the meth program, advice please

[moonshyne777]

I have been addicted to oxys for a couple years now. I snort about 100 mgs a day and really, really want off these things. I have been looking into the meth program and went two days ago to register for it. There is about a month long waiting list so in the meantime I'm trying to get peoples experiences with it. There are a lot that say its the best thing they ever did and there are a lot that say its even harder to come off of then the oxys. Very mixed reviews to say the least. I have a condition called spinal stenosis and two young children that keep me very busy. I tried cold turkey last May and lasted about 2 months but my back pain was overwhelming and I crumbled and went back on the oxys. I hate the grip these things have on me. I wake up and the first thing I do is snort a 20 and 5 minutes later another half of a 20. By the end of the day I snort about 5 20's.

I hate myself for letting myself get this way. I have been blessed with two beautiful kids and they deserve a mother free of this pill addiction. I'm also worried about what these things are doing to my insides. I'm not eating right, I barely eat all day and then eat at night. I am almost always constipated and a couple times recently have had quite a bit of blood when I was finally able to go. I'm scared that I have done some major damage to my insides but too scared to tell the doctor about it. Anyone else have this happen while using? Anyways if you can give me some insight as to your experiences with the meth program I'd really appreciate it. The reason why I'm considering meth is because at least I will continue to get some pain relief (I've read that meth is helpful as an analgesic) and avoid the horrible withdrawals of going CT. Please help me. I am determined to get off these things but I know from past experience that going CT isnt a good idea for me because I really do have a lot of pain and need SOMETHING for pain. At least if I do the meth I will get some pain relief and it will be regulated and I wont be snorting pills, running around wasting money and panicking when I run out and I might finally start taking care of myself properly and eating properly. I barely eat all day and eat unhealthy foods at night.

I feel like I'm slowly killing myself and I probably am. The worst part is I should know better. I lost my mom a few years ago. She was only 47 years old and her liver gave out after years of abusing booze and morphine. I dont drink but I take enough pills to make up for it. I NEVER want my precious angels to endure what i did with losing my mom so early in life. They dont deserve that pain, no one does. Thanks in advance for your help and guidance. This forum was invaluable to me when I went CT. It was the reason I made it 2 months. If not for the horrible pain of spinal stenosis I may have never went back on the pills but I did.

[itsmeagainmargaret]

Why do drs. invent this stuff/It seems pain meds of this type do more harm than good.Go to NA &AA ,these programs will be you with sober people and give you a chance to meet new friends.Find a good church,get on your knees and pray for GOD to deliver you from this evil.

[leeisgettingclean]

Now, to answer your question, methadone is only going to make your prob worse. If you can not handle getting off the oxy there is NO way in He!! you are going to be able to handle the meth w/ds. Honey meth w/ds are BY FAR worse than your 100mg a day oxy habit, they last a VERY much longer time---i am talking months. We just had a member taper down from like 120mg of meth all the way to 40 over like a years time, when you jumped from that 40mg she ended up in ICU for 3 weeks, I am not trying to scare you and i am sure hers had alot to do with underlying medical conditions but i am just trying to point out some facts to you. You say its a month waiting list? you can c/t the oxy and within 2 weeks you will feel 100% better, so why not do that? have you tried other methods? like cold turkey? taper? rapid detox? clonodine? i mean you have other options besides a much stronger drug! The thing is at some point you are going to have to quit the methadone aswell, thats going to be when you wish you had never meet that doctor at the clinic, they will tell you what you need to hear, they will make it sound like a "mirical" drug, honey we all know there is NO "mirical" drug. Just consider your options and i do not think it will be hard for a rational person as yourself to come to the rite decision. I mean here are the options IMO.
1) quit cold turkey, have about 3 days of he!! after day 3 you will start to improve graetly and after about 6 days you will be seeing tha light at the end of tunnel.

2) Start a taper, First thing you stop snorting them. Next, you play around a lil  and figure out what is the lowest poss dose you can take and still be comfortable enough to funtion, say you find out that you can take 60mg and still funtion without feeling to bad(remember there is NO pain free detox) after you find your lowiest workable dose take it for about 6 or 7 days, and from there on drop it by like 5 mg every 6 or 7 days and if you hit a rough spot just idle at that dose untill it becomes somewhat comfortable. Once you get down to 5 to 10mg i would suggest you take it in parts--i would take part in morning and part at night(lack of sleep is a major issue for many and was  the reason i relasped several times. After you get to the point of only havin a small peice left, take it for about 5 days and then start takin denadryll or something to help with sleep. I would also suggest takin a OTC pain med with your dose so you feel more relief

3) rapid detox--i dont know anything about this so if it interest you, yu can always google it.

4) Go to your doctor and tell him what you are doing and i am sure he//she will give you advise and meds to make you more comfortable, they will almost always give you a blood pressure med called clonodine and it helps alot, it helps keep you a lil calm plus helps with sleep.

whatever you decide you need to check out the 'Thomas recipe" and the" amino acid protacol" they call both be found on this page at top right hand side under "health pages".

Anyways I hope i was able to help you some. To just come straight out and answer your question, I think methadone is a horrible idea unless you have tried EVER other option several times and have meseribly failed each time. I have heard of people takin there own lifes because the w/ds were so long and intense that they could just no longer handle them. I am not knocking methadone because we have members here that i respect a great deal that have had success with methadone, but I think they will even come out and tell you that it was a nightmare to come off of.
   Good luck with what you decide, but please just try to go c/t first, i mean you have a month so play around with your other options and who knows you might find a taper or c/t works for you. I had a 150-200mg hydro a day habit of two years and i was able to go c/t, so it can be done and it is done every day. You will have plenty of suport here, just keep posting and keep us informed on your decesion. If you need any questions answered or just wanna talk send me a message. Good luck again, Lee

[bmdad]

From what I understand she is wanting off the oxy's but is also wanting something to control her pain. It seems like she knows she is abusing the oxys and is hoping that she can use methadone to control her pain while not having to take the oxy's or go through withdrawals. The way I took it is she wants to be able to find a pain medication that she can take without abusing.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[bmdad]

I agree with guv338 on tapering off the pills so you are pill free for a week or two so you can reevaluate your pain. That is one thing my doctor had me do every 6 months or so. I also have spinal stenosis which they say is severe. But I do know that it is not a constant pain. That is the only good thing about it. Sometimes it hurts like he!! and sometimes it is just uncomfortable and nothing that advil or tylenol cannot handle But your case may be different as we all have different pain threshholds. So just because my pain comes and goes does not mean yours does not. I would recommend trying to lay off the pills just to see how much pain you are really feeling. You may be surprised. I can't really comment on the methadone clinic as I have never been to one. I do know I have seen people saying the reason they decided to taper off was because of the price of it. It can be quire expensive. It is also very inconvenient because you have to go to the clinic every day in order to get your dose. You will also be given a urinalyses to make sure you don't have anything else in your system. So if you decide to go to the clinic, methadone will be the only medication you will be able to be on without getting kicked out of the program. Do you really want to drive to the clinic every morning? If you are not getting the proper pain relief from the medications you are currently on I think you should go and talk to your doctor about this. You are currently prescribed 20mg oxycontins and they go up to 80mg pills. The problem with opiates is we tend to build up a tolerance and continuously need more and more to get the pain relief we desire. So even one day down the road, the 80mg will no longer control your pain. The same goes for vicodin, morphine, fentynal, methadone, ect. Also, since health insurance does not cover a methadone clinic, you may be better off talking to your doctor and having him prescribed it if methadone is the route you want to take. There are so many different kinds of medications that you could try before methadone. Are you getting any nerve pain from your spinal stenosis? If so, you could try neurontin or lyrica. Cymbalta is another one that can help with pain. It is actually a antidepressant but has other off label uses. There are many nonnarcotic meds out there worth trying. Methadone is just so strong and once it gets a hold of you, you will not be the same person for a very long time. As Gnarly said, it took him 8 1/2 months to taper off of it and he still  felt the withdrawals.
I just say all this so you can be a little better informed. Everything I said here is just from reading other posts in the past as I have never been part of the clinic. Maybe it would be worth a shot to taper off the oxy's and see where you stand? I know I don't know you personally, but I do caer about you. I only want what is best for everyone on here because we are one big happy family that wold bend over backwards for one another. We are such a tight knit group and we care about each and every person on here. So please do as much research as possible. If you decide to go on methadone I don't want you to have any regrets. I do know how difficult it can be to live with chronic pain and at times we can get so desperate in trying to find a way to dull our pain. On the upper right hand side of the screen you will see where it says "recent activity". Right about that you will see a search box that says "search this community". Type in methadone" and it will bring up old posts about it. You could also type in "methadone for pain" and see what comes up. I would also go to the pain management forum and post a question asking if anyone else is on methadone for pain.  I'm sure you will run across a few that are on it for pain. with this being a substance abuse forum most people that are on methadone are on it trying to get off of their drug of choice. You could also search methadone in the box on the pain management forum to search older threads about it. Once you learn how to navigate this site you will realize the information on here is priceless. You will almost always find what you are looking for.
I know I couldn't be of much help but hopefully it helped you a little. If you need anything, please let me know!!!!!
Best of luck!

Brian

[avisg]

Methadone is the worst drug to come off of its like jumping from the frying pan into a great big fire .As for the kids if you were ever to get pulled over while under the influence of oxys yes cps sure would get involved does that mean they would take your kids not necessarily but they would step in and make sure you were getting the help you needed if you did not get off the drugs then that might be a different situation.
If you want to get clean first thing you need to do is stop snorting the pills 100mgs is not an overly high amount of oxy it is so doable to come off of can you taper down . CT would be about a week that would really be bad but then you would have you life back .If you go on methadone when you decided to get off of it unless you plan on doing staying on it for the rest of your life the wd you will go threw will make oxy wd look like a picnic. I would put methadone into search this community and read alot of threads ..Research research research.......

Many of us have chronic pain there many many of us suffering from chronic pain and yes at fist it is worse but most of us have found out after awhile that we had less pain of the meds then we did on them but it does not happen over night you body will want its fix so a first the pain will seen worse .It will get better .....

[bmdad]

Just wondering if any doctors have recommended surgery for your spinal stenosis? I am 33 and have already had one back surgery for a herniated disc. I saw I neurologist a few weeks ago and he said I am too young for another surgery as of now. I do know someone that had surgery for spinal stenosis and is now doing wonderful. I'm sure you know what spinal stenosis is, it is narrowing of the spinal canal which in turn puts pressure on the nerves. When performing surgery they go in there with what looks like a small burr grinder. They hollow out the canal to keep it from pressing on the nerves. I have heard that they have great success with this surgery nowadays. I'm thinking it is gonna have to be my next step!
If you do end up trying methadone just be very careful. It has a very long half life so if you took say 20mg today, tomorrow you would still have around 10 mg or so in your system so you may not need the prescribed dose the next day. You may be able to get by taking it every other day.
So, are you wanting to get on methadone to control your pain or are you wanting on it to useit as a tool for detox? One thing I would do for sure asap is start by taking your oxy's by swallowing them whole. Snorting makes them even harder to come off of because snorting is a addiction in its own. You really need to try and get away from it. It ultimately comes down to your decision but I know for a fact that it will make things easier in the long run. You may just be surprised on how much the oxy's actually control your pain over a extended period of time. It is also a habit that is tough to break.
Brian