weaning off pain med..questions

fuzzy · #1 (**permalink**) 05-02-2015, 07:16 PM

Maria, trust me, you can do it. Don't wait 4 weeks. Break em in half and try 2.5 mg's. You should be able to make the jump from 5mg to nothing.

Regarding pain these meds actually *cause* pain on withdrawal. So initially the pain will be up but throw Ibu and Ace paracetamol on in and it should reduce somewhat, depending on your actual pain levels. 5mg of Methadone is really low and stopping that may make you feel not that well but it is worth a try in my book. If the withdrawal is bad then go back to 5mg and it should stop pretty quickly.

Maria · #2 (**permalink**) 05-04-2015, 04:18 AM

Ok that helped. Cut my little round 5mg'er in half. Then tried to cut halves in half. Sorta messy. Had half and quarter approx. Wish I still received the longer easy to cut 5mg'ers. Anyway have to invest in another pill cutter as don't want to use Lola's. The day was a wash.. will see how thing go tonight and tomorrow. Had chills and GI weirdness today. Back with fine tremors like standing on earthquake. Don't want to go to 2.5mg yet because I live alone and have to do everything for myself and my 2 pets so can't be stuck in the bathroom half the day or longer or disposed from lack of sleep, pain, etc. if I can avoid it by going a bit slower. Hence the trying to halve 2.5mg dose. This way hopefully too I won't end up bumping back up to a fuller dose. Will keep plugging away and see how it goes!!! thanks again for encouragement fuzzy!

fuzzy · #3 (**permalink**) 05-04-2015, 06:35 PM

If you do it this way with quartering the 5mgs you will have guaranteed success. The problems with the tremors is probably the worst problem with reducing these medications as it can prevent sleep and that is not good. But in little steps like this it will most likely be no problem.

Best to you, you can do it!

Maria · #4 (**permalink**) 05-06-2015, 02:14 PM

The GI stuff is really difficult plus been using 4 Senakot S/night for laxatives and not sure how to decrease those with decreasing pain medication dose or if I can decrease/stop them until stop taking pain meds. Have tried some variations on use and ended up with some serious GI discomfort (actual pain). Don't want to go back to or switch to other laxatives like Miralax as had a lot of trouble with other ones.

Anyway figuring all this out gives me something to do

Yeah the lack of sleep thing.. was SO wired the other night.. drives me nutz..

Maria · #5 (**permalink**) 05-13-2015, 05:42 PM

Not easy at all.. and not sure in my case that it's worth it since WC mandated not really "my choice." Going to keep trying though am not into not being able to function re dramatically increased back pain (although right now it's all over pain). My day is getting shorter and less productive and actually about 3 days out of the week I get anything but walking the dog 3x/day accomplished and taking the cat to the Vet for fluids 3x/week.

Maria · #6 (**permalink**) 05-15-2015, 05:51 PM

I think this is how this has to be done. I have had two good days (yesterday and today so far) .. sorry to bore anyone that reads this. The only information I can find about persons weaning off Methadone have to do with addiction. I would love to read about more people who used this drug for pain management only and weaned off. The doses re the addiction group start out are super high compared to what I've been on the last 13 years (like 120mg, 80mg, etc vs. my 10-15mg/day). My PM has said I'm the only person he has prescribed 5mg pills for and on the lowest dose of his patients (and that was before the weaning).

Ok just moving on here and taking it day by day.

jsewell · #7 (**permalink**) 06-14-2015, 01:30 AM

Hi Maria,
I haven't been on here in ages. Or talked to you. I had computer problems over and over. My daughter just bought me a new one for my birthday. But her computer completely stopped so I leant it to her. Now I am back to my old one.
Your last post was a month ago. How are you doing? What level are you at now? I think that sucks that you had to wean off. I wonder if something new is up with the DEA in the last 2 months. I went to my pain management doc a few days ago. I am having surgery once again. The surgeon wanted to give me a prescription for Norco. I almost laughed. So I told him I would get meds from pm. well I showed the pm doc my surgical consent form. He said they are sure doing a lot. Well I have been getting a prescription for 2 30mg morphine a day and 2 15mg oxycodone per day. I told him I have not been using all of them because the surgeon wants people to totally wean off meds. So he gives me a prescription for 2 30mg morpine per day and 3 15mg oxy. I said don't you think I would need more pain control, he says , we can't tell yet. I asked again and saw he wanted me to leave. I am so upset. Actually I usually get 2 prescriptions like that for each month. He told me to come back in 6 weeks. so I will probably be in the hospital close to a week, but it still means it is for 5 weeks so I will not even have enough to take 2 morphine pills per day. He has always been so good, I don't understand what happened.

I hope you are much better now no matter what you did.
Judy