I’ve been on methadone for 18 years and I had tried everything and failed every time!
I and my drug workers were resigned to the fact that I would be on methadone for the rest of my life!
but i wasn’t ready to give up on myself!
i was stable on my dose and not using street drugs but i simply dare not try the reduction courses that my key workers wanted me to do as i had tried them before and failed every time.
in short, at that time i was in a fairly good place drug-wise and didn’t wanna screw it up BUT i did want to get free of the liquid handcuffs!
i forget the how and why but basically i took a 1 mil reduction and i was ok!
i didn’t rattle, i didn’t notice it at all!
so a month later i took another 1 mil reduction of my daily dose and again i didn’t feel it!
so i did it again the next month and didn’t feel any negative affects!
infact i actually started to feel better (turns out i was slightly over medicated) and i began take baths again and start looking after myself again and became more active.
so since then I’ve been going down by 1 mil a month I’ve felt no negative effects but lots of positive ones!
yes, its going to take several years to get free of the methadone but what’s several years against the rest of my life which could be 30 years?
please note the drug team doesn’t like my 1 mil a month taper! and they push me to go faster (which i did try one time and ended up having to go back up!)
I’ve told others how are in the same situation that I was about the super slow taper and they have had problems getting the drug team to let them do it! but those who have tried it have reported back similar success with it as I’ve had!
I’d just like to point out that the point of this thread isn’t a “look at me I’m doing well”
the point of this thread is to let people who have tried everything else know that there is a way to get free of methadone.
which is!
reduce your daily dose by just 1mil every 28 days.
so if you are on 100 mils daily you would reduce to 99mil daily and stay on that for 28 days then reduce to 98 daily and stay on that for 28 days then reduce to 97 mil for 28 days and so on!
Are you a dr? I just know when my dad was on methadone, 280 mg a day (which I know is almost unheard of at that dosage) it was strongly advised not to adjust any dosing on your own. I just don’t think it’s safe to be giving this advice, if you think it’s right for you and want to take the risk, that’s on you. I would advise people to work with trained professionals.
Wish you the best!
no, i am not a doctor but I have been in methadone for 18 years and have a lot of experience.
also, I am not telling people to adjust their dose on their own.
I’m telling people to ask their drug team to reduce them by 1 mil at a time!
see here is the thing!
drug teams are very resistant to small reductions because if you take lots of small reductions you can actually get free of methadone and they don’t want that!
they want to keep people on methadone for life, every patient cured is a client lost!
if I walk into my team and ask for a big reduction (that they know will relapse me) it gets done on the day!
if I walk in and ask for a big increase it gets done on the day! (I’ve actually done both of these several times over my 18 years)
but when I ask for a small reduction it takes them 6 to 8 weeks to do it! (they have been doing this to me for 3 years)
I’ve also had 2 former drug workers admit to me that the aim is to keep people on methadone indefinitely.
I’ve been telling people about the super small super slow taper for 3 years and everyone that’s tried it has had great success with it and yet the drug teams I’ve told it to don’t want to know about it!
I wholeheartedly agree that, at least in my experience as the caretaker for my dad in my adult years, is that yes, once you are on it they are not overly aggressive on getting you off of it. I do commend you for trying to get off this stuff. I also know there doesn’t seem to be a ton of knowledge out there on tapering off methadone, I know that because I can’t find it anywhere and plus my dads team of doctors at the end had us signing permission for my dad to be talked about and written about in the medical community in relation to this. How is works with no kidney function etc etc. so please know I am absolutely not discounting how hard what you are doing is, I just want you to be safe.
