Methadone Vs Suboxone

I was wondering if I could get some feedback on the difference between methadone & suboxone? My 25 year old son recently switched from suboxone to methadone due to severe and frequent migraines from the suboxone. He has been in treatment in Minnesota since mid-July- we live in Florida - and this is the first time methadone has been suggested. My son had basically been in some type of treatment(detox,inpatient,halfway) since March in Florida but after several relapses made the decision that he had to change pretty much everything.
I am hoping to learn from the wonderful community on these boards about methadone. My son definitely is struggling with cravings and after several relapses in a short period of time he was deemed a "chronic relapser". His drug of choice are primarily opiates.
Neither one of the treatment centers he was in in Florida suggested a methadone or suboxone maintenance program lasting longer than his actual time in treatment, which lasted between 30-4o days. From what I have read about both suboxone & methadone my son will have to taper off of these too. Is one harder to taper off of? I know that if my son needs methadone maintenance to achieve some long term sober time than this is what's meant to be for now. It just seem like another thing to worry about! One last question- my son wants to do the 12 Step program. If he is on a methadone maintenance program will AA/NA consider him sober?
Hi I will try and answer what I can but mainly I can just tell about my time with both these medications.

I was on Suboxone for awhile...maybe 3 years.I was going to a Dr who clearly wasnt a addiction Dr (though he says he is)I will admit being an addict maybe I wasnt really ready to try and get help.
With the Sub beings I didnt need to go everyday I became quite good at misusing and abusing it.(An addict forever wants that high)So therefore Sub was NOT a good medication for ME.

Now for the "tricky"part.Because even now 3 years (almost)later,I STILL do not know what got me to the point of WANTING RECOVERY,I mean I honestly dont know Why that time,all I do and did know is that I was done.One more run with ANY drug nd in my heart I feel I will not make it back.
So I dont know your son so I will believe he wants recovery too.

Once I knew I wanted to finally try to deal with this illness I really put thought into a methodone clinic.Now Im not some young person,Im a 46 yr old mom of 2.So before I made such a jump onto what has been labeled a very deadly drug,I wanted to and I did put alot of thoughts into it.
I needed to make sure I was doing it for recovery and not just some other way to keep high.
I ALSO realized that I needed some sort of structor.I needed to be watched if you will.Having too much freedom was and is dangerous to me.I needed to learn how to be accountable without having too much freedom.

So for the past almost 3 yrs Ive been on a methodone matienence program.And I am thankful everyday for it.There is so much MISINFORMATION out there about this medicadion and the use of it.I could probaly sit here all day going back and forth about this drug,but I dont think that would be helpful.All I can say is I was started at a very low dose and it ended up I stayed at a pretty low dose(as I said I wanted recovery amd I ment it)
Anyways Im sure different clinics work and do things differently.But where I am t you MUST attend at least 2 meetings there (at the clinic)a week/There is also a big network to put people in touch with different groups in the community.
There are also weekly drug test and one on one thereapy.
Gosh this ended up being so long and I feel as if I just touched the explination I was trying to get to.
So with that Ill pause this long post and hope others will jump in with more information for you.
Best of luck
mj
Thanks so much MJ! One of the things my son did share with me was that having a month's supply of suboxone while in halfway would not be a good plan for his sobriety. He said he knew he would not abuse tasking the suboxone because of the migraines he gets but he did admit that he might be tempted to sell them which could then lead him back to his drug of choice. He has said repeatedly that he wants to stay clean. Have NEVER heard that before!
He started a methadone maintenance program this week and already says the headaches have stopped. He has been started on a low dosage and says he is pretty much ok until he wakes up in the morning when he feels pretty yucky. He is still not sleeping well. Falls asleep easily but wakes up every 1 1/2-2 hours all night. Like you, my son said the structure and accountability will help him greatly. He seems to know that is what he needs to get and keep clean at this point in his recovery. The methadone clinic he goes to drug tests twice a week and has groups and one on one Counselors he will meet with.
How does the methadone make you feel? Will my son be able to take his dose and then go about his daily life. He is young - 25- and has hopes of either working or going back to school. MJ do you think that once a person begins a methadone maintenance program they will need this for the rest of their lives?
My son realizes that if he "falls" he is in a place where HE is the ONLY person who can figure out a solution. He knows we love him dearly but HIS recovery must be HIS journey, even though I do at times I try to voice my opinion. :)
MJ, again, thank you- your response was great! It is very helpful to hear what it is like from an addicts point of view. I truly have great respect & empathy for the hard work addicts in recovery have to make every day to stay clean, healthy & happy!
I dont think youd be a mom if you didnt at least voice your input to your son.It sounds as if he may be ready and I pray he is.He is still a young man with the whole world open to him.I am 46 and I have accepted that I myself blew alot of good productive years drugging.Not that my life at 46 has stopped.Just the opposite now that Im sober I see a life ahead of me.When I was still using...I couldnt believe I had a future.And well...this Saturday I will watch my youngest daughter marry the man shes been with since they were both 14!!!(They are 21 now)And I will be sober and know she will and is so proud of me!!!

But I didnt want to get too side tracked.Your son being young has a good chance of embracing recovery and seeing life again.
You asked how I feel on methodone and again I can only speak for myself.I feel...(as odd as this sounds)normal.I think straight and my mind isnt always thinking of drugs and how to get them.Physically,when I first started I would get tired maybe 5 hrs after dosing really tired like nodding,but once I got regulated at my correct dose that no longer happens.I do (yuck)seem to sweat alot (but than again my age can also have effect on that.)
Oh boy....I feel silly even bring this up but I do hear alot of people complain and struggle with not being able to go to the bathroom.Others say when they started to drink more water.

Again I hope I gave you some answers but again everyone is so different.But if your son follows a treatment plan and puts the "mental"work in his life will change I feel for the better.ANYTHING (to me)is better than chasing that high.So with that again I will keep him and you in my prayers and Ill look in from time to time
Take Care
mj
Thanks for your input MJ. I know nothing really about suboxone so I will leave that to the ones that do because I have never used it. Now methadone is another story.

To Thirdson,
I am glad you are finding the methadone board helpful.That was my intention. I am also glad you are so supportive to your son.

Methadone does not make you high, although some folks say it does. I have been on maintenance for many,many years and I dont get high when I take it.

The most important thing your son should do right now is to get himself to a dose that stops the cravings. Please know that every person is different and so their dose is going to different from everyone elses as well. While a person may be fine at 50 ml, your son may need 95.He needs to talk to his counselor about that. When he gets to the right dose he will know. In the meantime he needs to stay busy so his mind doesnt have time to think about getting loaded.
Once he is stable he can spend his time working on recovery. One of the biggest mistakes we see is a patient will be doing great for 6 mos or so and decide its time to detox! Then they detox too fast and it blows up in their face and before they know it they are using again. YOU DONT GET ADDICTED OVERNIGHT, YOU ARENT GOING TO GET CLEAN OVERNIGHT.

It might take a year or two or three, there is no set time. Depending on his addiction history he could be on maintenance for the rest of his life. And that is OK.
If you dont understand how the brain is affected by opiate use please look on the left side of this site and go down to "most popular topics". Read "Your Brain on Opiates". It is very informative and is written in such a way it is understandable. I love it! It may help you to understand why your son could need to be on MMT forever . Maybe he needs 3 yrs or 5 yrs,only he will know for sure. But the more you know about everything the better.

I take my methadone every day right along with my other doctor prescribed medications, there isnt much difference to me. I worked for years and years and retired and 2+ years ago I took in my 2 teenaged grandkids to finish raising. Life is good. I know without methadone I wouldnt have even been here to see all my grandkids arrivals let alone be available to help raise them. What a blessing! I shudder to think where addicts would be in this world today with methadone. It's a good drug and it works regardless of what some critics say.

You asked about AA and NA I believe. NA and AA do not advocate methadone. As good a program as they are (I went thru AA when I got clean the 1st time) in their eyes you are not clean unless you are totally abstinate, even though methadone is DR. prescribed. They still see it as "trading one addiction for another". When you are addicted you need/want drugs every 4-6 hours or more. You take methadone once daily,in most cases, and it lasts 24-48 hours and you dont continually up your dose. I have been on the same dose for years.

My husband and I are advocates at our clinic and we run a meeting once a week at our clinic called Keys To Recovery. Our clinic also requires the patients to attend one meeting a week of their choice that are run by the counselors. They are also required to attend one meeting a month with their counselor face to face for 50 minutes. If social services pays the clinic bill they meet weekly with that counselor. It is their belief, as well as mine, that just dosing a patient and sending them on their way is not beneficial at all towards abstinance and recovery. You need a combination of treatments to be successful.

Good luck!!!!

Granny
I am hoping some of you all that have actually taken methadone to aid in your recovery can offer me some advice on the absolutely negative responses I have gotten about my son beginning a methadone maintenance program for his heroin addiction. Most of the negative feedback I have received has been from addicts in a well established recovery. It all started when my niece who is very close to my son shared this with her boyfriend, a heroin addict in recovery and doing very well in NA. This weekend at a family gathering my niece's boyfriend and a few of his friends started sharing their opinions on methadone. They ALL said that methadone was a horrible option for my son. They ALL said it was highly addictive, just like heroin, and that most addicts who start methadone have a very hard time getting off it and that there are many bad, long lasting side affects from long term use. They also said many methadone patients can figure out how to use other drugs with the methadone to get high. Of course, I understand that if a methadone client is trying to get high their true intent is NOT to be clean.
When my son told me he was starting a methadone maintenance program I was surprised and very concerned. I did not share my concerns(worries) with him as he is the one in charge of his recovery and I am trying really hard to "mind my own business".
How does a doctor come to the decision to have a 25 year old start methadone? I believe I read somewhere that an addict had to of relapsed at least twice to be considered. Well from what I have heard almost ALL opiate/heroin relapse in the early stages of recovery. Most of my NarAnon friends "kids" have relapsed 4, 5 & 6 times. Some of the kids are doing fine now and others are still struggling. Is it the number of relapses alone, or is it the number of relapses within a certain time frame that warrants starting methadone? My son is currently on a low dose but has said by the morning when he wakes up he is feeling pretty lousy. I know the clinic will gradually increase his dose to meet his needs. My son did say he fills out a COWS to document how he is feeling. Can a clinic tell if a patient is being honest with their COWS info? Couldn't a patient manipulate that info so that their methadone would keep increasing? I know I have LOTS of questions!! Yikes! Any info anyone can share is truly appreciated!!
i'm 33 year old male and you sound like my mom talking about me. it made me write to tell you that methadone isn't the answer if you want him to have a normal life. methadone is THE hardest opiate to come off of, and is nothing but synthetic heroin. suboxone is a lot better. he may just be wanting to still get high, as i went to the methadone clinic from 24 to 31 years old because i wasn't ready to be done with opiates and getting high. a methadone clinic is good for people who want to use but want to be responsible to some degree by getting it legally instead of on the streets or through a dope doctor. the thing with methadone like any drug, is that you may start out on a small dose, but soon enough that small dose doesn't do it anymore. the next thing you know you went from 40mg's a day to 140mg's a day. the longer one person is on methadone daily, the greater chance he will be on opiates/struggle with it for the REST of your lives. suboxone is 500 times better for gaining sobriety, but the best cure is to put it behind you and realize your an addict to all forms of drugs/alcohol and live a life where you get your highs from better things like a vacation or a girlfriend or going to concerts. your son's chances of coming back from methadone get harder every day he is on them, and if he wants to stay on it, he will con you to do so. i hope i've helped.
Big G,
you must of had a really bad time while you were on methadone and /or went to a clinic that doesn't give a c**p about its patients.
Methadone IS NOT synthetic heroin. I have been on maintenance for many,many years and I have been on the same dose for nearly all those years. For those who think the are going to get high on it or those who arent ready to really take a good look at their life and do whatever they need to do to stay clean keep raising their doses. Sometimes it takes a few months or longer to find the dose that is just right for them. Some do great at 45mg, others need to be higher, 80mg or more. That is why most clinics dont have "caps" on their dosing. Everyone is different.
From the first time I went on maintenance and I dosed I never touched heroin again and have never had a dirty u/a.
There are those that dont get on a stable dose because they want to keep using. The methadone is their "safety net". As long as they dont use alot they wont get sick. Those patients dont really want to get clean, they want to do both, use opiates daily and be on methadone.No soul searching for those folks.
I will agree that being on methadone long term can be very difficult IF you decide to detox from it after years of being on it.But it CAN be done, I know people who have done it after 10+ years of being on it.It took time, detoxing at a very slow rate over time. For the people who choose maintenance it is a personal choice. The brains of addicts who used for long periods of time are altered and cannot be repaired. (read "Your brain on Opiates" here on this website for a real eye-opener) Methadone gives the brain what it needs to repair the damage. Methadone is addictive, yes, but not in the way you think. It doesn't even fall in to the category of an addictive drug because if it did it would mean we would have to be dosed 3,4, 5 times a day or more to be well. It is taken only once a day.It is really no different than someone who takes insulin for diabetes or uses an inhaler for asthma.If and when we should have to go without those drugs our bodies react.The same goes for methadone. It has been used safely for 50 years or more and is a drug that has been studied intensley for years, always with great results.
Soboxone is a drug complete unto itself, it cannot be compared to methadone. For some it is the right drug, as is methadone the right choice for others.It is taken for a variety of reasons but with the ultimate goal of being opiate free.

AA and NA have their own thoughts and rules and those drugs are not acceptable to them. Its 100% nothing or they say you are not clean.I actually got clean thru AA, I just never mentioned my heroin use and am coming up on 20 years clean, so I can say with 100% certainty methadone was the best choice for me.I am sorry you had such a bad time because of it.

Granny
Neither is a day in the park to get off of after long term use. Based on my experience, 'detoxing'
which is pretty much a PC way of saying withdrawing, ended up being being worse than methadone.

When I first stopped taking suboxon (1 of many attempts) I thought it was great- there were no withdrawal. One Dr. even told me if I quit, I would wd only for 1 week or so. Well day 4 I got a few cold symptoms-no big deal. Day 5 I started getting sicker & by day 6 or 7 full WD's started kicking in, and they kept going on & on and on , after a month or symptoms would start to diminish, only to get way worse the next day.

As far as methadone, the withdrawal was comparible to sub, but after a couple weeks (give or take) I was starting to feel better, abd after around a month or so I was functional.

This is my own experience, in ur sons case it will be different. It is also possible that my sub WD's where worse because I was younger when I got off of meth.

A WORD OF CAUTION ABOUT METHADONE CLINICS IN THE SOUTH, they way overmedicate patients . When I got on methadone (for the second time) I was up to 100 mg a day within a few months. I was finally 'maintained' at 160 mg per day. TO PUT THIS IN context, the first time I was on methadone maintenace was is NY for 8 years. My daily dose was about 50 mg, and sometimes they would raise me to 70 mg if I tested positive for opiate use. The only needing doses of 90 mg or more were those who had a dealers habit. They could not go over 100 mg withoust special permission from the State. (By the way, in NY methadone maintenance is <or was > non profit, it's only purpose was to rehabilitate &/or maintain addicts. Payment was based on what u could afford.

This is not so in the south. The purpose of clinics like tri- county labs is to make money. There are certain state requirements, groups , counselors, etc., that they comply with. So there is help availble. At the same time they easily allow addicts to go up to ridiculous amounts. When I first got on the Dr total an effective maintenace dose was between 80 and 120 mg. True, it was my fault that I let them bring my dose so high, but when an addict is offered more of a drug (which methadone & suboxone is, but both are beneficial in keeping an addict of of illegal substances and enabeling to life a normal life) it is close to impossible to say no.

One final word of advise on for profit clinics, some have graces periods from 1 day to a month. Some have none. By that I mean, u pretty much make sure you have the 13 or 15 dollars a day for the dose. Some places wib't even let it slide for a day. No money, no methadone. If it means the patient will get sick, too bad. I've dealt with heroin dealers who have more compassion & would front u for a day or 2
Hi Browndog,
Great info there. I hate to see people who bad mouth methadone on top of the clinics, like where would we be without them?? But I also say not all clinics are alike. Some are the scum of the earth, and for addicts who finally decide to try methadone and wind up in one of these clinics have a tendancy to think they are all like that and that is NOT true.

The clinic I go to here in Calif is one of 24 on the leading edge of new things. We are required to counsel once a month if you are a cash patient and weekly if medi-cal foots the bill. We are required to give a urine once a month as well. We are also required to attend one group of your choice each week. None of this is new but the success rate is higher.

The bottom line is if you dont want to do what is required and actually work towards getting clean you can be asked to leave. Then you can go to another clinic somewhere else(not another one of their clinics) where they dont care if you get clean and stay clean or not, they will just take your money and give you the methadone.
Our clinics are even considering changing their office hours to be open later in the day, like 6pm and offer meetings at night.Most clinics open at 5am and close at 1 or 2 pm. As far as I know, no other clinics in Calif or anywhere have those hours. They are trying to take the stigma away from the way methadone clinics are thought of.

granny
Granny, you are correct

Methadone maintenance is a lifesaver for some people, probably many people. The clinic I went to for years in Niagara Falls was a very good place, and my fukups were all mine. The only negative I can say had nothing to do with the clinic itself but myself and the people who went there, I ended up making more contacts then I ever had. But that can be true of any program, including NA. To get involved with people who are still in active addiction is a choice I made, which ment I was still in active addiction, even while on maintenance.

That being said, several years ago I was a 'visitor' to a couple clinics in Louisiana for several months. The clinic in Baton Rouge was out and out abusive to it's patients, while the Clinic in New Orleans was probably the best clinic I have ever been involved in.

But, when all is said and done, it is up to the patient/addict. Methadone can be a valuable tool as part of recovery, or a further step in addiction
Hi my name is brian. i have been on methadone for 10 yrs. The post that says methadone
is not addictive is bs. This is the hardest drug to detox off of, worse than heroin, and all opiates. why????? Because of its halflife and the fact that its a full atogonist. why do you think you can take one doseca day yet feel fine, thats why. try going a week without it. you will wish you were on heroinn. plus detox can last 3 months. i hate this drug with a passion and will help anyone outvwho has questions about it. i have been or done every drug and methadone is by far tge hardest one to.come off of. Sorry about my punctuation typing on my small a** phone but my point is please if anyone who is on opiates are serious about coming off of them and want to go toba methadone center im begging you dont. it will ruin your life. and also the post about itcrepairing your brain after opiate use or heroin use is bs too. it dammages your memory and emotinal not including your hormones loss of testostorone list goes on. normal t levels in 30 yr old male is 500-700. On methadone 30-70 t levels after 1 yr using 60mg or higher methadone.
And what you wanna be 80 and still taking this crap? You can never go on a vacation wanna travel for 30 days but you cant cause after tge 2nd day of missing your dose it will be the worse withdwall youll ever experience. dont believe me research it yoursellf. its hell disquised as heaven
I see that this post is over a year old so I will keep it short and sweet. I tried suboxone and abused it to get high. Then I tried methadone maintenance and since then I've been clean three years and counting. METHADONE MAINTENANCE SAVED MY LIFE AND MY RELATIONSHIP WITH MY KIDS
Hi Brian,
Thanks for your post.
I will have to disagree with you on a couple points. First off methadone is not classified as an addictive drug. If it were you would have to take it multiple times a day instead of once every 24-48 hours.

Yes, I will agree that if you tried to detox from it in a rapid manner, you will feel like crap.

Since I have been on methadone I have taken numerous 2week plus day vacations and I took my methadone with me. My husband and I even went on a 2 week cruise to Hawaii with methadone in tow.
I am raising 2 teenage grandchildren and I run around like a fool some days having to take them to various appointments and what not, shopping, caring for animals, including the neighbors pets.
Methadone saved my life years ago and I am not sure where I'd be without it now. A suicide attempt to never again be a heroin addict is why I chose it. Life. Not death.

Part of what you say is true, It is not the right treatment for everyone. But just because it didn't work well for you after taking it for 10 years doesn't mean no one else should try it.

From the first dose on maintenance in 1993 I have not used again and I have a life. And compared to where I was back then I am a hell of a lot better off. I own my home, I retired and I am enjoying my life. methadone is just another drug I take in the morning with all the other meds I take to keep myself healthy. My thyroid pill, my high blood pressure pill, my water pill, my "mature" vitamin.....It is that simple.

All in all I am sorry it didn't work for you.

granny
The 12 traditions of NA state that they have no outside opinions on any issues and that includes suboxone or methadone maintenance. if you go to a meeting that says otherwise then find a new meeting to go to. The third tradition states that the ONLY requirement for a membership is a desire to stop using, which means you don't HAVE to be clean to attend. That goes for all you on suboxone or methadone as well. Maybe you just haven't found the right meeting yet. I wish you the best
granny, I'm not sure why you think that methadone isn't addictive. you say that because you only have to dose once a day it's different from other drugs? I'm not sure where you heard this, because that's totally false. methadone is very addictive, just like virtually every opiate. look up the factors used to diagnose chemical dependency in the DSM-5 and tell me that methadone doesn't fit. my question is not one of whether suboxone or methadone are addictive; they obviously are. my question is this: what are the benefits and downsides to each? what makes them different? please no speculation or anecdotes disguised as fact, like I pointed out above.
compulsive_user,

I get what you are saying about methadone not being addictive. People who are diabetic and need to use insulin have the same problem....if they don't take their medicine like they should they get really sick, the same goes for methadone.
I will look into what you have said because if I am wrong in any shape or form I want to fix it. My aim is to be an honest, informed person who is an advocate for methadone only because of how it has changed my own life. I choose to share what knowledge I have to help others but if it's not the truth I need to fix that.
I have had a really stupid week so I will do my best to get on it asap.
Thanks so much and Merry Christmas!

granny
Hi , my first time here. I'm thinking of taking methadone. I have chronic pain but am an addict too. I've been on opiates for nearly 15 yrs. I'm taking suboxone now have been for 1 yr. ( and , by the way the guy who said " I used sub to get high is delusional it's an opiod antagonist it blocks the opiod receptors ... You can take more but you'll never get any " higher")
I'm thinking of methadone for pain management but heard like many others it's THE WORST , to get off of.
And a shout out to granny who doesn't see any issues with taking meth every day, ...it controls you,; what if there was a hurricane and all the meth was gone, then what, or you got robbed or whatever, any opiate controls you, without it you feel like you will die. That's a pretty powerful pull. As Michel Foucoult said .... Opiate of the masses, oh .. That was Karl Marx.
Hi Granny,
I realize your last post was a few weeks ago but I just wanted to respond to something you said about methadone not being addictive. You compared it to how a diabetic relies on insulin and this is not a correct comparison at all. I think you might be confused on the definition of addiction. Physical addiction is when the body adapts to the presence of a drug/substance and then develops tolerance to it. When the drug is discontinued, withdrawal occurs. You are able to only take methadone once a day because it has a long half-life and stays in your system for a while. Methadone is something that will require a taper when being discontinued because the body comes to expect it and when abruptly discontinued, you can experience symptoms of withdrawal. Diabetics rely on insulin to lower their blood sugar because their pancreas cannot make insulin. They do not become addicted to it. If they don't take their insulin, then their blood sugar rises because they have no way of lowering it without their medication, but this is not addiction.
I rarely spend time reading message boards full of differences of opinions and I've NEVER posted a comment, that's for sure, but Nstudent's explanation to Granny of why methadone is an addictive drug and the difference between needing it verses a medically necessary drug like insulin for diabetes was so perfectly done, it got my attention!
Anyone considering methadone or questioning the type of treatment it offers an addict, Nstudent's post gives a very straightforward summary of what makes a drug addictive and truth be told, methadone is addictive by all counts.
What Granny wants to get across is that you may be addicted, but if you are following the program responsibly and you are serious about being clean, methadone can give you a life back where you're not high any longer and you're functioning responsibly but in order to have that, you have to take your "prescribed medication" for that illness called addiction. Not only is your body physically dependent upon it, you actually don't know if you would relapse or not if you were methadone free.
It hasn't really been discussed in laymans terms that you cannot get high from opiates when you're on methadone, it blocks the high from heroin or pills. That's a pretty strong deterrent right there. So you're basically going to be clean (of opiates) for the duration of your methadone treatment.
I'll have been on methadone for 2 years next month and I absolutely see both sides of this debate. Methadone helped me very quickly and easily. I haven't used in 2 years, I put my life back in order and our finances are much improved. I am productive, because I no longer spend my day looking for and waiting for drugs. My relationships are better and it's an improved quality of life. However, I manipulated my dose in the early days to get up to 110mg and as a 5'0" woman at a size 4-6 I put on a good 60-80lbs!!! I'd rather be thin than use so I'm done and am coming down. Now I'm worried about all the horror stories I've heard along the way about how severe the wd's are and that they last so much longer. You hear them all the time, but when you are doing well on the methadone, you don't worry yourself about it.
I'm coming down slow, 10mg every 2wks. I'm down to 1/2 my dose, 55mgs, but I am very worried about wd's in the end. I wonder is it possible to come down slow enough to adjust to wd's or maybe maintain a dose of 20mg if the weight comes off with the decrease.
I don't regret starting the methadone. I regret the weight I put on and it's my reason for discontinuing, but if that wasn't an issue, I fear that I would become mentally dependent as well as physically and it can be a very long term treatment.
I don't see much of a problem with longterm treatment if someone truly can't stay clean, they have a better life on the methadone and they choose to continue indefinitely. It's a personal choice and not everyone sees it as a short term detox medication.
Personally, I don't like to be dependent on the drug, but am scared that the very reason I began taking methadone will be the very reason I risk relapse...... in the end, however, it's about treating my addiction. If I am serious about it, I will not look at relapse as an option.

I have heard of a few things to help with wd. One is called Kratom......anyone??? Not an illegal drug, but not FDA approved either!

One more opinion