Comments on: Methadone, Used to Treat Pain, Kills Thousands Every Year

By: jim

jim — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 11:28:00 +0000

I was paralyzed due to a spine injury. I had to fusions. I could not walk for two years. The pain was unbareable. I tried everything. Morphine did not work. The doctor asked if I would like to try methadone. It was like night and day. Pain was controable. I ave been taking methadone for ten years to manage my pain. I take 10 mg every 8 hours. I am also prescribed tramadol for when the methadone does not take affect right away. I will not take more than prescribed. I tried wiening or cutting back but the pain level comes back up. The important thing is to follow your doctors orders. I also have a spinal cord stimulator that sends electricy through my spine and legs to help control the pain. It works but Istill need methadone. I also get testostrome injections do to low t. It was down to 25. My erections have been affected about 50 percent, I am 62 years old and at least I can walk again and my pain is controlled. Being on disability with no money is a whole different story for another day.

By: Geack

Geack — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:45:58 +0000

@2. Etienne – “Of course there are natural substances out there that people have been using as painkillers for thousands of years. Most you’ll never hear about…” You never heard of them because they don’t really work very well. Your implication that they’re being hidden from us is stark raving BS. Aspirin became an overnight sensation a century ago because, unlike virtually everything else everyone up to then had tried, it actually worked without being more trouble than it was worth. Think about it this way: people have been getting rich by trading useful materials since the beginning of time. The Silk Road, the spice trade, the pre-biblical copper mines in Turkey, the ancient caravan-route empires, cotton, wool, iron, glass, buckwheat, hemp, rice, sorghum, opium, on and on and on… any time someone somewhere has produced something better than what people used to be stuck with, word about that new better thing spread, creating trade. You honestly want us to believe something as universally useful as a real painkiller has been around forever but somehow word never got out about it? No 13th-century monarch or 15th-century raja or 18th-century merchant or 19th-century robber baron built a fortune on it? Just plain silly.

By: Donald Wagster

Donald Wagster — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:43:55 +0000

This is total crap. They are using data from the period when pain doctors were allow to prescribe the 40mg waffers ,which had only been used at detox. Because methadone had such a safe history to that point , they were loosing the restrictions on it. Big mistake, That is why there was a sudden spike in deaths (almost always multi-drug O.D.’s) during the period stated. It has been removed from market in that form .Check the latest stats. Back to normal.
Its is a shame that the this info has been distorted and used in the way stated in this article.

By: Heather

Heather — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 00:44:58 +0000

My mom was sent home with methadone after a spinal fusion surgery. My mom will religiously take any drug that the doctor prescribes, and if she had been alone, she would be dead. I had to seriously fight her doctors to get her off this medication, she was so screwed up and incoherent and had no idea that she kept taking more. She was just like a sleepwalker. No one’s mother or father should ever be sent home with this stuff. As a caretaker, it was a nightmare dealing with her the two days she was on it.

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 10:39:09 +0000

As long as opiates are manufactured (by whoever), and as long as doctors prescribe them, there will be opiate abusers and addicts. Methadone is the best thing there is that allows addicts to continue with a productive life. I know. I’ve lived it. I was an opiate abuser since having multiple surgeries for injuries received as an athlete dating back to 1982. From that point on, I had periods of sobriety and periods of debilitating addiction until I finally went to a methadone clinic in 2004 – and doing that has put a stop to the insanity. You can’t tell me that if I were to just “get off that stuff” as my sister yelled at me a few years ago, that I would be fine. Since then I was forced to stop for several months, but still I went back to maintenance as soon as I could. Now, as I’m getting older, I think I want to see if I can move away from it and the entire drug scene, and for the first time in my life I feel I actually might be able to succeed. If not for methadone (maintenance), I’m not sure I would feel the same way. It has allowed me to live a productive and decent life until I think my body and my mind are ready. And I want to bring up my initial point again. Opiates (as we know them) must be phased out, and they should be prescribed to those not enduring a terminal or painful chronic illness/injury very, very sparingly. For those of you who wouldn’t willingly go the route of drug abuse, don’t allow a doctor to lead you down that path. A problem that’s hard to get around, relating to medication for doctors, is that sometimes they have either no or inadequate personal experience with the use of some drugs they prescribe. The fact of the matter is, until opiates as we know them are no longer prescribed/manufactured, there will always be a need for methadone maintenance or its equivalent as a countermeasure to opiate addiction.

By: noel

noel — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:14:01 +0000

Those who with-hold effective painkillers because of ideology should sign a legal form preventing themselves from ever receiving such treatment in the future despite how badly they need it.

By: candy

candy — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:30:46 +0000

definitely. marijuana studies that show it has actually helped people are suppressed. they dont get enough profit. but by all means lets lock up people who use it legally or not.

By: Bob Manke

Bob Manke — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 01:12:04 +0000

I am a currently listed affected party to the Iowa Supreme court challenge to schedule one status for medical cannabis. It is thoroughly outrageous that anti-drug morons can run so much as a traffic stop when they have made such egregious careers out of crushing the ill and infirm. I appeared before the Iowa Board of Pharmacy three times and they came out unanimously in favor of legalizing medical cannabis in Iowa. I am on oxycodone and today was abused by a lying drug warrior of a medical doctor who has his head up his ass. We badly need relief from these psychopaths. The totally phony drug war is lost, drug warriors. It is coming down around your shoulders! I am not going to stop drug warriors. I am going to set up Iowa to reprogram the brain of the DEA and then you can try your filthy tricks some more. I want to take Less dope and marijuana is way less dope than oxycodone, for sure. Legalize medical marijuana in Iowa NOW!

By: MrsRobinson

MrsRobinson — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 01:44:42 +0000

Norbrook, the key differences between Pot and Morphine & Cocaine is that pot is taken as is and is nontoxic with no addictive properties whereas morphine and cocaine are MADE FROM alkaloids taken from plants and altered to their respective states and are both toxic and addictive.

Also, I knew a guy who was using methadone to treat a heroin addiction… he was also dying of hepatitis C which he contracted from his own dirty unshared needles. It’s not pretty and it was horrifying to see the skull x-bones on the warning label stating if any non heroin user were to take the dose it would kill them. I’m all for scientifically back safe meds and not garbage panned out by doctors on guess work with no peer review.

By: tonya1968

tonya1968 — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 03:23:47 +0000

This drug is very dangerous, even taking as prescribed. Please visit my website at http://www.stopmethadonedeaths.com.