Observations of a Methadone Naive User

[D-Stabilized]

First a minimum of background info: I'm a long-time chronic pain patient who until recently was on opioids for 25+ years. Since moving to the Nazi state of Massachusetts 9 months ago I have been unable to find suitable pain management and have not had a regular script for pain meds in that whole time. Before then I was most recently on oral liquid morphine concentrate and dilaudid tablets. 2400 mgs. of MS/month and 360 mgs. of dilaudid/month. Now I insanely have to try to manage my pain with whatever pills I can pick up off the street (at exorbitant prices, of course). Until yesterday I hadn't had anything in my system for over two weeks. Having said that, I have found in the past that my rather hefty tolerance does not go down very much even when abstaining for longer periods. I rarely bang anymore but I can still handle 16-20 mg. of IV dilaudid with no problems.

Methadone was about the only opioid that I had not tried yet. I figured it would be a good time to check out its effects since I'd not had any kind of pain meds in about 18 days and even then it was just a small handful of percs over a three day period. I have taken three 30 mg. doses since yesterday, each about 12 hours apart - my first ever methadone. Here are my impressions. No revelations here for anyone who has experience with it but maybe it will help those seeking info on it, be it for pain management or recreation (I don't know about the drug maintenance part).

Yes, it does take a good while to kick in. For me initial onset was about 90 minutes with full effect not reached until 3+ hours.

Compared with the other painkillers that I'm used to the effects lasted a good long while - 8 to 10 hours, maybe more and the peak effects that I got after about 3 hours lasted nearly the full 8-10+ hours without much fading until near the very end. Kinda like a NiCad battery.

It seems to be better than average for control of severe gastrointestinal pain. 30 mgs. po gave me about the same analgesia as 120 mg. po morphine or 16 mg. po dilaudid and lasted three times as long. Methadone's oral bioavailability does indeed seem to be quite high. There's probably not much point in any other route of administration but if I was already throwing up or something, I'd plug it rather than snort it but that's just me. It just doesn't seem worth it to even consider shooting it although I know there are a few on here who would disagree.

There's no real rush or significant euphoria but I got a nice, long-lasting body high with no noticeable sedation. In fact, I had a little more energy than usual. This wasn't any surprise though as the ONLY painkiller (I don't do dope) to ever sedate me was when I was wearing three 100 mcg. fentanyl patches at a time and occassionally sucking on a 800 mcg. fentanyl lollipop (only time I've been 100% pain-free too, but it was just way too much to function normally).

My GI disorder entails a ton of nausea in addition to the pain. I'm lucky that opioids don't really make me sick like they do to some people and methadone was no exception. It caused no additional stomach problems for me. Appetite was normal but then again I smoke a good bit of bud too. ;)

Usually after a large dose of morphine or dilaudid I would get a massive headache that nothing would touch - especially more opioids. I did get a headache 2 out of 3 times on the methadone but it was fairly mild in comparison to a good post-dilaudid headache.

I thought that I saw in another thread that methadone doesn't cause a histamine reaction like most other opiates because of its composition. I guess my body doesn't know this because it makes me itch like a mother, though not quite as bad a morphine.

IN SUMMARY, this drug seems to be well suited for what I need - primary pain control. If I can ever get scripted for it (good luck in this state), it should be a cheap and effective way to control my pain. Luckily I don't have to take it every day so the risk of physical dependence should be mitigated to a degree though I'm not really worried about that anyway. I've been heavily dependent plenty of times and lived through it. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't going to miss the rush and warm euphoria of dilaudid but I'll probably stand a much better chance of suppressing my recreational appetite for painkillers when using a drug that doesn't get you blitzed. It really has limited recreational value in my opinion.

p.s. Although I have no intention of banging any of this methadone, I did a little experiment. I attempted to prepare a shot just as I would do with dilaudid pills. The 10 mg. tablets (Roxanne brand) are quite a bit larger than a dilaudid tablet so I experimented with just one. Crushed it to a super-fine powder and mixed with 2 ml. of water. It seemed to be mixing fairly well but not as well as the low-residue dilaudid which is a dream to prepare. Applied a bit of heat and viola! - instant toothpaste. Looks like it has some sort of anti-abuse matrix or something. I could be wrong. Don't worry, it wasn't wasted. I swallowed it like I had intended to do in the first place. ;)

p.p.s. For the uninitiated - Please heed the advice of those on this board with more methadone experience than me. This stuff takes a long time to come on so be patient and don't overdo it by taking additional doses because you don't feel it after 1 hour. And because of its long half life and elimination time, it can build up in your system when taken regularly. Booze and benzos are particularly dangerous in combination with methadone for the reasons stated above so please be safe!

IF YOU"RE LOOKING FOR A REALLY GOOD OPIATE BUZZ, this is not the drug for you. When taken sensibly it can be very effective for pain control and apparently for maintenance as well but it IS a full mu agonist and as such carries the same dangers and possible side effects as any other strong opioid analgesic.

D-Stabilized
--
If you have chronic pain, don't move to Massachusetts. If you already live there, move somewhere else.

[SeVeN]

Pretty good info, and definately be safe. Oh and I know u said u wouldn't shoot it but if u drew it up in a shot u must have been thinking about it in one way or another. Definately don't. No point.

[Duckfeet]

I kind of agree: methadone is a good, longlasting, effective pain med, and it's usually available generic, so it's cheaper, by far, than most other pain meds...and compassionate docs, will often perscribe to patients they know aren't abusing it, *and* who aren't likely to mix it with benzos or alcohol, immoderately...

The saddest--for me--result of our cruel drug war's final gasp, (which is the crackdown on doctors by the usually impotent and ineffective DEA) is that I know several people in severe chronic pain, veterans, who have to use the free methadone clinic, and pretend to be longterm heroin addicts so they can get on methadone maintenance, strictly for pain...guys my age--fifties--or older, obviously barely able to walk, having to shuffle in the line w/the junkies--like me--since they cannot get enough methadone from the veteran's adminstration, and now, this sickness has come full circle, where when I was young, addicts would pretend to be in chronic pain, to get their needed pills from doctors, and now this miserable circumstance...all because of unconstitutional and repressive laws which come from deep within our american puritan psyche, which enjoyed burning witches at the stake....fuck...

Makes me ashamed of my counry's meanspirited treatment of it's citizens, both opiate addicts like me, and people in chronic pain...all of us now thrown together out of desperation...I've spent a lifetime in this shitstorm, from vials of pure white heroin in Tua Thien province in S. Vietnam in 1971, to prison in California in 1975, to the southlands and all over this coldblooded country, always afraid of the knock on the door, and way too used to jails from Boston to Los Angeles...it won't change...if I hadn't inherited my mother's delusional optimism about the future, I'd have checked out many years ago...like my alcoholic father did....

[D-Stabilized]

Pretty good info, and definately be safe. Oh and I know u said u wouldn't shoot it but if u drew it up in a shot u must have been thinking about it in one way or another. Definately don't. No point.

I knew it would look that way but I honestly just wanted to see how it dissolves in an injectable amount of water. I don't even have a rig in the house at the moment. The only things that I've injected more than once are dilaudid and morphine and that was mainly due to their pitiful oral bioavailabilty (although the IV dilaudid rush really does kick ass). I don't even care to shoot oxy because it's absorbed so well in the gut or rectum. So sure, I was thinking ABOUT it but not thinking about DOING it, if that makes any sense.

D-Stabilized
--
Tramadol is a "powerful and addictive narcotic for severe pain" - from the mouth of my EX-pain doctor at New England Pain Associates in Worcester, MA.

[D-Stabilized]

The saddest--for me--result of our cruel drug war's final gasp, (which is the crackdown on doctors by the usually impotent and ineffective DEA) is that I know several people in severe chronic pain, veterans, who have to use the free methadone clinic, and pretend to be longterm heroin addicts so they can get on methadone maintenance, strictly for pain...guys my age--fifties--or older, obviously barely able to walk, having to shuffle in the line w/the junkies--like me--since they cannot get enough methadone from the veteran's adminstration, and now, this sickness has come full circle, where when I was young, addicts would pretend to be in chronic pain, to get their needed pills from doctors, and now this miserable circumstance...all because of unconstitutional and repressive laws which come from deep within our american puritan psyche, which enjoyed burning witches at the stake....fuck...

Makes me ashamed of my counry's meanspirited treatment of it's citizens, both opiate addicts like me, and people in chronic pain...all of us now thrown together out of desperation...I've spent a lifetime in this shitstorm, from vials of pure white heroin in Tua Thien province in S. Vietnam in 1971, to prison in California in 1975, to the southlands and all over this coldblooded country, always afraid of the knock on the door, and way too used to jails from Boston to Los Angeles...it won't change...if I hadn't inherited my mother's delusional optimism about the future, I'd have checked out many years ago...like my alcoholic father did....

Right on, brother. And there's no worse place than Massachusetts. I've actually considered going to the 'done clinic myself (if we even have them around here) - just to get my pain controlled. I've never even done heroin! Despite 33 years of medical history with 3 major surgeries and the documented fact that I had been on regular pain meds from one pain clinic or another for over 20 years, not a single doctor (out of 3 primaries, 3 GI docs, and 2 pain docs so far) will prescribe any opiate for my chronic pain. My most recent ex-pain doctor told me that tramadol (fucking tramadol fer crissakes) was a "very powerful and highly addictive narcotic for severe pain" and wouldn't even prescribe that. No kidding, instead of letting me take a relatively safe and cheap 8 mg. dilaudid tablet for my pain, which works pretty well, he wants me to take 2,400 mgs. of expensive Neurontin per day which makes me feel like a friggin' zombie and doesn't do anything for my pain. Ever read the monograph for Neurontin? Its got a laundry list of potentially serious side effects that'll knock your eyeballs out.

I had NO such problems obtaining needed pain medication in Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina. Still, I feel that doctors everywhere are increasingly bending to the will of the Federal and State governments and their ill-conceived war on drugs. All they have accomplished in my case is to turn me INTO a criminal by forcing me to buy illicitly diverted prescription drugs off the street at insane prices and even then I get much worse pain management than if things were being done correctly in the first place. And like you said, I always have the spectre of arrest hanging over me. While the science of pain management has progress substantially in my lifetime, the politics of pain management have regressed to the point where your veteran friends have to pretend to be heroin addicts just to try to relieve real physical pain. Yikes!

And to add insult to injury, the street price of prescription drugs in a given area is directly proportional to doctors refusal to prescribe legitimately. The few 10 mg. 'dones that I picked up the other day were $15/ea. and I had to haggle him down from $20! Twelve measly pills (4 doses) for $180 - ouch!

I'm still trying to work within the shitty system, though. There are only two pain clinics in the area and no pain docs in private practice that I can find. One clinic is in Worcester, MA about 20 minutes away and the other is in Marlborough, MA, a good bit further. I've been to both without acceptable results. I don't want to have to go to Boston every month since I basically get around by city bus and don't have a good way to get there. Anybody in the central Mass. area know of any other pain clinics/pain doctors?

D-Stabilized

[Duckfeet]

Yes: I sure wish I saw more hope on the horizon for us...I always figured when young--in the south, where all the old people could get dilaudids easy enough, that if I lived thru my crazy life, and made it to getting older, that then at least I could get dilaudids myself...

But unfortunately, the widespread use of oxycontin and a few other drugs, changed everything...now docs themselves live in fear, and compensate for their new restrictions by being hypersuscpicious of people, combined w/natural tendency not to endanger their medical license...

Just a fucked up deal all around...sorry you're going thru a tough time up there...and, if worse does come to worse, and you decide to go the clinic route, they are either in the yellow pages, or call any treatment center: they always know...

Best wishes...

[stephenISall]

wow that is a horrible situation that you're in. id suggest going to a methadone clinic. since you found out how good methadone works for pain and you payed through the nose for it on the street, going to a clinic would be cheaper and alot safer. and if you find a GOOD clinic, you'll have it made in the shade. a couple people at my clinic go there and havent ever used heroin just like you. they are pain patients and got hooked on their pain meds etc etc. one of them was RX'd methadone for pain but he was taking too much and the dr wouldnt script him 150mgs a day for obvious reasons. so.. that is my suggestion. originally when i first started giong to a methadone clinic a couple years ago it was because i had a really bad pharmaceutical addiction because of legit pain and my script would NEVER last more than 10 days no matter how many pills i had. so the rest of the month i was buying opiates off the street and that can be mighty expensive like you have found out.

ive found that nothing works quite like methadone for pain. its unique in its effects and works very well usually. obviously everyone is different and some people just dont like it because of side effects like DF. me personally , i dont get ANY constipation at all. at first id get a HUGE motivational boost and felt confident and energetic and happy. but after taking it for a couple months now i start to get tired and have to take a nap everyday. everyone is different. i think you should check out the clinics in your area because that way you could get it EVERY day for a cheap price.

and yeah, it can be a pain in the ass at first to go there EVERY FUCKING DAY and go through the bullshit but just look at the alternative. that guy wanted 20 for 10mg of methadone?? thats fucking insane. average price is .50 a mg. i used to get 300mgs for $100 all day long when i was buying it on the street. so.. just think of it like that. thats my suggestion. hope this helps:rolleyes:

[reddragon3668]

Chronic pain patients having to use a 'done clinic to get adequate treatment is absolutely horrible. Not only that, but its impractical for allot of patients. I know that you do what you have too sometimes but it would be damn near impossible for me to get up every morning and go stand in a line to get my meds. If I could get up and do all that in the morning I could go to work. My back and leg pain would just nearly make that option damn near impossible.

To the OP, your information is good. The evils of methadone have been hailed on this board allot, especially of late due to losing one of our beloved members due to a methadone overdose. He was an addict and chronic pain patient, a balancing act many of us perform around here with varying degrees of success.

I was on done for six years for chronic back and nerve pain. After a while, I learned to despise it. I didn't have insurance during the time and it was the only thing I could afford. However, since coming off of methadone and giving everything from Fent to Morphine to Opana, etc, a try, I have to say that methadone overall was/is the best thing I've ever taken for chronic pain, considering its benefit to liability profile (for me). I don't have gastro problems like you, but its really good for nerve pain/neuropathy. Its long half life makes it a viable alternative to the more expensive extended release meds out there like Oxycontin and Opana, etc.

Chasing a high with done can be lethal. Its great for what its designed for as well as a maintenance drug for many, but given its atypical action compared to other drugs in its class can make it very dangerous for naive and uneducated users. Its potential for harm can even bite veteran users in the ass if their not careful. Another negative is the never ending withdrawals it can produce. Duck said a long time ago that the severity of withdrawals from 'done was not as bad as something like Heroin or Morphine, etc. I did not agree with him at the time, but I later found out he was right. The severity of 'done withdrawals is only found in its longevity; they last forever. Consequently, I would not consider taking 'done unless it was prescribed from a fairly secure source. It would just suck to become dependent upon it and then all of a sudden have your connect dry up. I mean, us junkies have to contend with that regardless, but done is a different animal and not something I'd want to mess around with unless I was reasonably sure I could maintain my dependency.

Good luck on finding a compassionate competent doctor in your area. The lack of consistency in the PM specialty is always a looming liability for CP patients. It can greatly limit our geographical mobility. You can't up and move somewhere without taking into consideration the quality of that area's PM resources. My PM needs have spanned only two states and thankfully, for the most part, I've gotten compassionate care in both places. But, there are so many like you that are in states where rules and regulations, cooperation with the DEA and such limits patients' access to quality care. It shouldn't be that way in a civilized country. Pain patients having to resort to illegal sources to either supplement their medicine regimen or depend altogether on these illegal sources for adequate pain control is a quagmire that no one in the 21st century should have to endure.

Sorry for the prolonged rant here. I just get riled up when I hear of someone in your dilemma. And, it scares the hell out of me too cause I know that my security as a CP patient is no stronger than my last appointment or the next stupid law or regulation prescribed by an idiotic legislature or administration. I could walk in to my clinic next month to find that my doctor has died, moved, ect, forcing me to see another physician whose approach to quality PM is completely different. I might get an idiot who thinks a tens unit is so much better and desirable than 180mg of Opana every day... god forbid!

[Badly Drawn Girl]

My experience is very similar to yours. Chronic pain person, ended up having to rely on street drugs. Methadone was the last thing I tried and it wins hands down when it comes to managing my pain. I finally wised up and went to a methadone clinic. I'm paying $300 a month and it would cost me $3000 on the street. And I'm still going up in my dose so the savings is substantial. Methadone is the only drug I've found that lasts for any length of time in my system. I have a ridiculously fast metabolism which is why I could pop pills around the clock with no ill effects. I've nodded out only a handful of times in 10 years of using. Opiates act like stimulates for me. I certainly wouldn't chose methadone for recreational use. I do get a long lasting buzz, but it sort of like a warmth throughout my body. It's not euphoric.

Another positive is that I have no depression on it. When I was taking Oxys, because I would feel great, and then crappy, and then great and then crappy over and over throughout the day, my mind was shot. I felt bipolar, like I was cycling through emotions because the pain was so crippling. The methadone keeps me at a good level for most of the day and as a result I don't have that mood swing shit happening.

My only problem is that my dose wears off in 12 hours, leaving me quite sick in the evenings. I'm being asked to up my dose a couple of more times and then they will give me a trough and measure the amount of 'done in my blood. I really need to split dose.

I made the decision to skip the pain doc routine and head straight for the methadone clinic due to my experience with pain docs. I was sick and tired of being lectured, under medicated, ignored, and dealing with the fear of being dropped. I knew that going through a clinic would mean I wouldn't have to worry about being kicked out without a good reason, that I could easily up my dose without jumping through a bunch of hoops or allowing a doctor to just arbitrarily decide on my dose, and I knew it would be very hard to even get a pain doctor to give me methadone in the first place. I was worried that I wouldn't be accepted into the clinic, because they are not there to be a substitute for pain clinics, but I share many of the same characteristics with someone who uses recreationaly. I know some people have had different experiences but I had no problem getting accepted into the clinic. Yes it's a hassle to get there every day but it's just become my daily routine.

[Duckfeet]

Boy, this thread has some *excellent* posts in it...this is an ongoing dilemma--chronic pain patients and "plain" addicts like me, all thrown together due to insane and repressive legal system we are stuck with...

And of course, when we talk about methadone, sometimes it's hard to remember that we take it for different reasons, and there are *many* different views of it...I always had the oldtime junky view, that methadone sucked, but that when you got old and yer veins were shot, and you weren't dead...well, u trotted over to the free county methadone clinic, and do the deal...

A lot has changed since then, including me: I now realize that *many* have told me that for long-acting pain, methadone is a damned good drug, and cheap...but many also *like* the buzz that short acting opys include w/the pain relief, so it gets all confused...and I myself had always screamed bloody murder when I had to get on methadone..."not yet!, not yet!" ...but when I took it as it was intended, it actually got me out of the tar-heroin hell I was in, and once I got stable, I slowly detoxed, and have felt hardly any withdrawals at all...but I'm also oldschool on that one, that methadone detox....isn't near as bad as heroin or even dilaudids: just *lasts* longer....

But again, more and more, I read of chronic pain people, who shouldn't have to be going thru the crap us junkies have been forced into...oh well, watcha gonna do...other than to support RonPaul as a presidential candidate, I don't know...

[stick+lick]

It's so bizarre how differently things effect different people! Methadone does absolutely NOTHING for my pain. I have chronic ACUTE pain, if that makes sense. Meaning: intense pain that comes and goes but that I have had FOREVER and will have until...well, I will have it for a long time. Too hard to explain, but trust me when I say it's sucks bad enough to send me home from work, to lay in bed for days, have people look at me with pity when I try to go anywhere when I am feeling this way and to make me cry out on more than one occasion.

BUT: methadone does JACK SHIT for the pain. In fact, I have been on maintenence for years now, and each day the only way I can tell my methadone is starting to work is a tremendous cramp in my neck and lower back that ALWAYS kicks in about an hour after I dose....and lasts about three hours. It's the weirdest thing: I have yet to find anyone else that experiences it. A lot of methadone patients have aches and pangs upon waking the first few months of treatment, but that is the result of the drug wearing OFF, not kicking IN.

Either way, I wouldn't dream in a million years of coming off....methadone is my lifeline. I haven't been this content or un-depressed since....well, since puberty. Most opioids make me CHASE, like a crack freak at 5am when their stash runs out....only it's like that all the time for me. Even when I am already high, I am seeking a HIGHER high. Just who I am....but methadone takes that feeling away. Stabilized.

I think the non-existent rush is probably what makes methadone so different. I read on a forum once that there is a difference between drug addicts who like to BE high and those that like to GET high and I am definately a GET HIGH addict. Thats why methadone works for me....other than these weird cramps I don't even notice I am on it anymore and even in the beginning when I did notice all I got out of it was a warm glow and a nap. I guess I am more about the extremes. Besides, I never liked SEDATION....GOOD opiates always made me want to DO something, not fall asleep.


There are many clinics in Mass. Don't go any futher North though....your dilemia will only get worse the further up NE you go.

[Consumed.]

Right on, brother. And there's no worse place than Massachusetts. I've actually considered going to the 'done clinic myself (if we even have them around here) - just to get my pain controlled. I've never even done heroin! Despite 33 years of medical history with 3 major surgeries and the documented fact that I had been on regular pain meds from one pain clinic or another for over 20 years, not a single doctor (out of 3 primaries, 3 GI docs, and 2 pain docs so far) will prescribe any opiate for my chronic pain. My most recent ex-pain doctor told me that tramadol (fucking tramadol fer crissakes) was a "very powerful and highly addictive narcotic for severe pain" and wouldn't even prescribe that. No kidding, instead of letting me take a relatively safe and cheap 8 mg. dilaudid tablet for my pain, which works pretty well, he wants me to take 2,400 mgs. of expensive Neurontin per day which makes me feel like a friggin' zombie and doesn't do anything for my pain. Ever read the monograph for Neurontin? Its got a laundry list of potentially serious side effects that'll knock your eyeballs out.

I had NO such problems obtaining needed pain medication in Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina. Still, I feel that doctors everywhere are increasingly bending to the will of the Federal and State governments and their ill-conceived war on drugs. All they have accomplished in my case is to turn me INTO a criminal by forcing me to buy illicitly diverted prescription drugs off the street at insane prices and even then I get much worse pain management than if things were being done correctly in the first place. And like you said, I always have the spectre of arrest hanging over me. While the science of pain management has progress substantially in my lifetime, the politics of pain management have regressed to the point where your veteran friends have to pretend to be heroin addicts just to try to relieve real physical pain. Yikes!

And to add insult to injury, the street price of prescription drugs in a given area is directly proportional to doctors refusal to prescribe legitimately. The few 10 mg. 'dones that I picked up the other day were $15/ea. and I had to haggle him down from $20! Twelve measly pills (4 doses) for $180 - ouch!

I'm still trying to work within the shitty system, though. There are only two pain clinics in the area and no pain docs in private practice that I can find. One clinic is in Worcester, MA about 20 minutes away and the other is in Marlborough, MA, a good bit further. I've been to both without acceptable results. I don't want to have to go to Boston every month since I basically get around by city bus and don't have a good way to get there. Anybody in the central Mass. area know of any other pain clinics/pain doctors?

D-Stabilized


Yeah you think thats bad with neurontin in MA? With my severed left femoral nerve they prescribed me 4800 hundred fucking milligrams of neurontin. Those big fucking horse pills telling me its for nerve pain. Ha I know what you mean exactly didnt do shit. Im sorry i cant even get started again about MA. Im glad to be back in NY. FYI i ended up having to go to a done clinic in MA while I was there too..+http://forum.opiophile.org/images/icons/icon8.gif

[D-Stabilized]

[snip]
I have chronic ACUTE pain, if that makes sense. Meaning: intense pain that comes and goes but that I have had FOREVER and will have until...well, I will have it for a long time. Too hard to explain, but trust me when I say it's sucks bad enough to send me home from work, to lay in bed for days, have people look at me with pity when I try to go anywhere when I am feeling this way and to make me cry out on more than one occasion.[snip]

There are many clinics in Mass. Don't go any futher North though....your dilemia will only get worse the further up NE you go.

No need to explain to me. My pain is also "chronically acute". Massive attacks of level 9-10 abdominal pain with periods of sometimes days in between with little or no symptoms.

I don't know about you but for me this is an additional hurdle to proper pain control and one that I've never seen discussed before. If I can generalize for a moment doctors tend to understand chronic pain from say, a back injury or something - especially when they can see it with their own eyes on a CT or MRI etc. They also understand acute pain such as that caused by a physical injury or surgery. And again it's usually something tangible that they can get their heads around.

But severe pain that doesn't manifest itself all of the time? That confounds them. And if they can't visualize it with some sort of diagnostics, then you're in for a real uphill battle.

Unlike you, for me methadone does just exactly what I need, no more and no less. I actually like the fact that I don't get particularly high. Don't get me wrong - I absolutely LOVE the feeling of a good strong opioid like dilaudid or fentanyl but it sure is hard for me to keep things in check. When my wife was living, she kept me reined in for the most part but after she died I was going through way too much pain medication. Methadone practically eliminates the pain for me and leaves me contented enough not to be constantly wanting more. And it lasts a long friggin' time. And it's cheap. And the side effect are negligible. And it give me enough energy to function. And it allows me to sleep at night. And. And. And.

Too bad I can't seem to find a doctor with enough intestinal fortitude and compassion to prescribe it (or anything else) to me. grrrrr...

Oh, and thanks for the tip about other pain clinics and to avoid venturing north. I can't really find anything else in the immediate Worcester area so I've been thinking about checking out northern Connecticut and northern Rhode Island since they're both closer than driving to Boston.

D-Stabilized

[stick+lick]

But severe pain that doesn't manifest itself all of the time? That confounds them. And if they can't visualize it with some sort of diagnostics, then you're in for a real uphill battle.

Unlike you, for me methadone does just exactly what I need, no more and no less. I actually like the fact that I don't get particularly high. Don't get me wrong - I absolutely LOVE the feeling of a good strong opioid like dilaudid or fentanyl but it sure is hard for me to keep things in check. When my wife was living, she kept me reined in for the most part but after she died I was going through way too much pain medication. Methadone practically eliminates the pain for me and leaves me contented enough not to be constantly wanting more. And it lasts a long friggin' time. And it's cheap. And the side effect are negligible. And it give me enough energy to function. And it allows me to sleep at night. And. And. And.Sounds like methadone was made for you...and me. LOL. It works great for my addiction, just sucks for my pain. ALTHOUGH-I had surgery while on MMT and I have to say the only post surgery pain relief I got was after taking my dose. So it's not that it doesn't work AT ALL for pain, it just causes some pain too? I am making NO sense now! They sent me home after the sugery with 600mg ibup and 10mg percs....I was on well over 200mg of methadone at the time....I mean COME ON people! It was just laparoscopy though, so the pain was very manageable.
The thing that really sucks is that it's impossible to get a doctor to understand PAIN if you aren't IN PAIN when you see them.....and your right, if they can't see it, your just a druggie with a habit to feed. I have had this pain for so long its a part of who I am......and so are doctors who trivalize it. It gets to the point that you start to doubt yourself! But I think I am pretty honest (and you appear to be too D-stablized) about my opiate addiction. I know pain relief and getting high and pain medications are all so intertwined in my sick brain that I would be completely capable of talking myself into being in pain--but my addiction is being fed right now, I have no reason to lie......but doctors still don't listen to me. I bet there are people reading this right now who are thinking to themselves "she's just a junkie with a hardon for pain meds--she doesn't REALLy have anything wrong with her".... doctors can see my problem. I have a pelvis full of scar tissue to "prove" my pain....but they don't see that when they look at me: they see the large dose of methadone.\

I use Ketorlac for my pain now...a very dangerous drug. It KILLS ME that my doctor would give me all the little ampules/needles of this drug I wanted....even though its so dangerous you can only use it for five days at a time or risk stomach bleeds and a bunch of other crap. BUT he wouldn't even give me VICODIN for my pain....I am on a huge dose of methadone, like vicodin would even phase me? Does he honestly believe it's better that I be DEAD from my pain reliever, than addicted? I am already addicted for god sake...it's obviously NOT a concern for me anymore!

Thank god the Ketorlac works pretty well most of the time--but it makes me really pukey the next day. I am not gonna lie and say I don't wish I could still get high once in a while--I just know it's completely NOT possible so why on earth would I lie to a doctor to get pain meds? I just want them to find something that will take the pain away and doesn't have DEATH as a side effect!

[D-Stabilized]

Ketorlac, eh? It took me 15 minutes just to read the side effects, interactions and contraindications! Nasty stuff.

I can't take any NSAIDs because of my GI history (3 major surgeries and history of ulcers as well as constant nausea and frequent vomiting) but even if I could, I think I'd stay clear of that stuff.

Funny how different our bodies are. Methadone doesn't work for you but NSAIDs do (at least this one). The exact opposite is true for me.

D-Stabilized

[Duckfeet]

I've been trying to sort this shit out for 35 years, and I still haven't got a clue...I never much liked the 'nod' part of opiate addiction, and always wanted to *do* something too...but I also kind of like the happy buzz I get, having a few beers in a bar, while on opiates, all that...I seem a lot more loveable when I'm on dope haha...

But methadone is strange, and people are all over the place with it...I actually forgot whether or not it worked on my pain, really, since as soon as I start doing opiates for real, my "pain" becomes just another tool in my aresenal...whether to hustle docs *or* to convince myself I really *do* need a lot of dialaudids...for the pain, of course...haha...

Like I had posted elsewhere: methadone worked good for me, because I *don't* like it: get all constipated, lethargic, and eat nothing but donuts in the morning and ice cream at night...sucks...but it's *just* good enough to keep me from kicking, and since I still haven't been totally convinced about the EDS deal, it only made me cheerful about an hr after dosing, to about dark...so once I got stable, and out of the scene, I slowly detoxed...and was pretty o.k. again, once I got down to 10mg...and so far, going into week 3, PAWs or whatever they call it, seems to have missed my parade...I know, I know: wait'll *next* week: then you'll be sorry! Haha....

Fuck if I know...but mdone's usually the only game in town, unless you miraculously can find a hard-opiate slinging doc...and they are a dying breed, believe me...right when I was looking forward to getting old, too, they pull the dilaudid blanket out from underneath me...I swear, life just can be dreary at times....but do I complain!?? :)