United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Hi my name is keith my accident was 2/14/04 i just got put on methadone yesterday and so far i have seen no affect it hasent stop or help the pain at all just like the 1200mg neurotin i was taking. I am suppose to take 1 5mg tablet 1 every 12hrs however i take 2. My question for all you methadone uses are what is your dosage and how many times a day, also if you dont mind your weight and age. i am 20 and at 140 i lost 30 pounds in my hospital bed i went in at 150 and came out at 122 in a month. i am also on 50 mg of elevil and i take 2 hydrocodne 10/325 every 4 hrs. this is the worst pain i have ever been in and the only help is me doing strategy games/activities.

Hi Keith,m

I'm tracking my methodone therapy in the topic "Methadone Tapes." I'll give you the stats there.

Henry

Hi Keith,
I've been taking 15 mg of Methadone and 900 mg of Nuerontin every 6 or 8 hours (supposed to 3x a day or every 8 hours, but the pain slams in like clock work at 6 hours usually) and it works really well for me. I sleep too much, but that is probably aided by my depression and lack of life direction due to loss of career, due to injury. I recently switched to Methadone from 60 mg of Oxycontin 3x a day, got off of that because of the depression and got on to Methadone because I couldn't swallow the pain any more. I stand at just over 6'3" and wiegh in at 225. Was taking the Elavil also and that really helped with my sleep, but made it hard as hell to urinate, found my self standing at the public urinals for three to five minutes, and started getting the wrong kind of attention!
I'm sorry you've got to deal with this crap, it seems like there will be a never ending supply of freshly injured. Keep on trying things until you find the right mix, don't let your pain specialist tell you what you're feeling or not. Good luck!

Christopher

hey chris your about the same build as me were the hell do you guys see your drs at they wont give me any kind of narcotic for the pain i was taking ambien amatryptlin one of those 2 is the same as elivil and neurotin at 3200 mlgs a day know im down to 1600 mlgs a day and still has same affect not much i hate to say it but it seems the only thing that works is to stay busy and keep your mind off it

Hdcrash,
Nuerontin works well for me, but not alone. Alone I still get significant sharp burning, the Methadone cuts that out well. It took me a week or two to settle into the stuff, but it is now the best thing I've tried. I feel as close to my "old" self again as I ever have since my accident.

No need sticking with a Dr. that isn't doing his job and helping you out. If he isn't meeting your needs, then move on. I don't know how bad your pain gets but I bet it's probably about the same as mine, and mine is definitely the worst pain I've ever experienced. And I've experienced pain, by bad luck alone to a non-violent man, I've been stabbed, shot, and had cancer, and the cancer was operated (along with ever six month check ups for the last ten years) through my urethra. That's my pee hole in high tech. terms. Anyway, no doctor is going to get in the way of the right drugs that are out there, made to help us out. I had one Dr. that started treating me like a junkie, because he was prescribing me oxycontin, and he was the one that started me on the stuff. Well, a little venting there, but this pain is no joke, and no one has any understanding how severe it is but us poor suckers. I hope you change doctors, hdcrash, or twist your doctors arm a little and give him the hint. Best with it all.

Christopher

I have a question about methadone. My son who had avulsion 9 years ago, take neurotin and elevil at night. He has never tried methadone. Is that a narcotic? Do you get a druggy feeling while taking this? It was never suggested to him either. He is working and has been going on with his life. He also hates to take a lot of medication and has decreased his neurotin. Can you please tell me more about metadone? Thank you.

This might be a dumb question, but can you drive when you are taking methadone?

Yes, Methadone is a narcotic, an opiate. It's in the class of pain killers like codeine, morphine, oxycodone, etc. etc., and yes it can make you feel 'dopey' and it is illegal to operate a motor vehicle while your blood contains a certain % of it. Which I don't know what that amount is, and I do drive while using it, better than a good % of the people on the road. I never have felt 'high' on it, except for the first dosage, I felt a little mellower than usual. I think it is all individual and varies depending whether the person taking it is in pain, or just going for a 'joy ride'. I felt more 'out of it' and 'spacey' adjusting to Neurontin then I did to Methadone. I'll paste a link below to WebMD.com for Opioids. Hope this helps

Christopher

http://my.webmd.com/hw/pain_management/ty6795.asp

hey chris ironically my name to sounds like youve delt with a lot of crap i have had my share to several broken bonesand surgerys you name it ive broke it except arms every bone in my head and face neck back legs etc and will agree this is the worst pain i have ever felt im in ky but see my dr in ohio do you see a specialist for your injury or family dr how long you been dealing with this crap they had me on the methadone when i left the hospital and when i quit taking it is when i noticed the pain for the first time i still have surgerys from time to time and they give me percacet for that but i take it for the nerve pain and it wont touch it so im gonna try the methadone again and thanks again for the post on the stem cell research i caught the show it was awseome

Hdcrash, I see the team of BPI specialists at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota about 3x a year for check ups on the surgery they did back on April 15th of '03. My accident happened on December 15th of '02. The guys at the Mayo had me go to a pain specialist there who initially suggested that I try Methadone, but I told'm I'd stick with the Oxycontin, since it was working well why risk a switch... Bad move, I didn't realize how bad till I got off the stuff. Oxycontin, so I had been told, can lower your testosterone levels, which I didn't think was too much of a threat because I had more then I needed, hell I even thought that it could be good and help lower my libido (since I wouldn't be using it for a while anyway)... Wrong again, after a while I lost desire to do anything, I mean anything. Craving sweets all the time was about it, like a heroin junkie, and almost stopped eating meat completely, which has been my staple diet since the time I could walk. I chalked it all up to depression from the overwhelming negatives changes in my life that had been caused by this injury. The stuff was chiseling away at my soul, but I couldn't tell, because without it the pain would surge back, so I was grateful for it's invention. Now that I'm on Methadone, I feel closer to my old self again. I just make sure to keep check on moods and appetite. Sometime this summer I'm going to try to get off all the meds if I can hack it, but not until my life is more stable with a solid sense of direction. Unless of course I can wrangle up these doctors in Europe, to get going on a stem cell enhanced nerve root re-implantation surgery on me, then it's back to square one.

See if you can give Methadone a shot. My pain specialist out here in Los Angeles has me taking the pill form of it, not the liquid form used for heroin rehab patients. The clinic I go to is good, it's at USC. If you can't find a clinic near you, try a good local university that has a Med School, they should have the heads up on the stuff. Best of luck with it all, pain free is a different world. Well I'm never totally pain free, but by comparison to life without the meds, it's pretty close.

Christopher