Recently, I had an old friend pass away and the cause of death was methadone overdose. I'm not sure how many of you are aware of the rising problem of methadone abuse and over consumption, but it is causing more and more deaths in the states and is suddenly a "big issue." It should be a "big issue." I want all of you to know what methadone did to my friend.
Methadone is normally prescribed by doctors to heroin addicts so they can slowly come off of the incredibly addictive, life altering drug. In many recent cases though, methadone has been purchased and abused by many without prescription. Methadone can be very addictive. No one knows whether or not my friend meant to overdose, but she did, and it has left a huge hole in my heart and in the hearts of many friends. What my friend probably didn't know was exactly how much methadone was too much, or how much to take (if the case was that she was a recovering heroin addict). Either way, she did not have a prescription and methadone was not safe for her to use.
I recommend researching methadone, what it is commonly prescribed for, how it is being abused, and how many deaths it's caused this year. Awareness must be raised so in the future, less of our friends will die from taking un-prescribed, dangerous amounts of methadone.
*Methadone is also commonly prescribed to relieve pain in certain patients. What will we do about the methadone problem? Should it still be available as a prescription drug? If so, how do we keep it away from un-informed, possible users and abusers (or those who simply don't know the difference)?
This is going to sound wrong to you, but it is true. LSD and psilocybin(the active ingredient in "magic" mushrooms) have been shown to be effective in stopping opiate/narcotic and alcohol addiction. They are used at or below threshold dosages, are non-habit forming and in the case of lsd nearly impossible to overdose on.
This avenue of treatment, which could have saved you and your friend a lot of pain and grief is not pursued, studied or prescribed because both these drugs are schedule I in the US and most everywhere, making them illegal for basically anyone to have. THis is because the government claims they have no medical usage. Look into it.
Res ipsa loquitur.
Memento mori, mahalo.
I am very sorry to hear about your friend. My best friend of 16 years recently fatally overdosed on methadone, too. She was in chronic pain for about 20 years, and turned to Methadone, when nothing else seemed to help anymore. I have been working for a pain management doctor for the past 5 years and have even suggested to her that she ask her doctor about it since it seemed much safer for chronic pain, than the short-acting drugs. I never imagined she would not be educated by the physician that prescribed it to her, along with xanax, which he should not have done. My friend received absolutely NO education about it from her prescribing physician and she was used to taking extra hydrocodone when she was in pain after taking a scheduled dose. Methadone is a slow killer. It is not something that gives you a buzz after 20 minutes like most short-acting pain medications do. This is a very slow-working drug. That is why patients need education about it. So when they are still in pain after taking an initial dose, they need to be educated not to take more than prescribed. In any instance, if you know someone that takes it, be aware of the symptoms of overdose, like heavy-breathing or snoring during sleep, slurred speech and someone who is not easily aroused during sleep. My friend's family knew she was "sleeping hard" because she was snoring very loudly, and they tried to wake her up and she didn't wake up, but she was snoring, so they figured she was alright. When they came home 2 hours later, she was gone. So if you know someone that is taking it, especially someone that has just started taking it, take time to read about overdose signs and symptoms. Had my friend's family known the symptoms, they might have called 911 and been able to get her to the hospital in time for help. Educate yourself and share what you learn. Peace.
I am very sorry for your loss.
ANY substance we put into or around our bodies in EXCESS can cause DAMAGE OR DEATH. Even the water we need to keep us alive-if drank in huge amounts can kill you.
For YEARS now the parents in this country have cried "foul" every time a new drug,hobby or behavior comes along that "threatens" thier child. We have begun to believe that anything and everything that MIGHT hurt our children should be BANISHED from the earth. No matter how much there is a benefit in the use of it. We have seen this paranoia and overzealouness recently as all states have started requiring ID to obtain simple cough medicines.
Here are the facts: your child or loved one has a much higher chance of dying when your driving them to school then they will EVER have of overdosing on methadone.....and yet we all get in our cars everyday.
Methadone is a potent drug that doctors need to be educated about prescribing.....but the amount of death/damage caused by methadone is far outweighed by it's HUGE success at treating addiction and giving pain patients back their lives. Methadone, like ALL drugs, must be used correctly. Methadone isn't a killer drug--unless ALL drugs are killer drugs!
We need to look at why our children ARE INGESTING THESE DRUGS IN THE FIRST PLACE instead of focusing all of our energy in "ridding the earth" of ANYTHING that might hurt us (which we can never do completely)!
Lastly--it may make you all curious to know that TYLENOL kills or critically injures more people in American then any other drug. Would we or should we call for a "ban" on that drug too? Or is it just because methadone is a drug used in addiction treatment that makes the problem SEEM worse than it is? If your friend had died because she mistakenly took too many tylenol one night for a headache or your mother took too many and it put her into liver failure requiring a liver transplant for her to live---would you be calling for the drug to be "banned"?
If you want to prevent overdose deaths because of methadone--then educate yourself and your doctor about the possible dangers of over medicating with methadone or using it with other drugs. The answer isn't to drive the use of methadone further into secrecy--because that is what the real problem is to begin with,..when things are "secret" they are dangerous.
I too am sorry for the author's loss. It is always painful to lose a friend, especially one so young, and to something preventable.
However, methadone is, as the other poster noted, the #1 MOST studied medication around today. It has been used since the early 60's for opioid addiction treatment. The author stated that methadone is used to "slowly" wean people off heroin. That is not precisely true. Methadone immediately replaces the opiates the person is addicted to--there is no gradual weaning off of heroin/opiates
The majority of MMT patients today are NOT heroin addicts, but are Rx opiate addicts. In many clinics, up to 75% of their patients are Rx addicts. This is the NEW face of opiate addiction, and it includes your neighbors, professionals, university students the elderly, etc. Methadone treatment (when people remain IN treatment) has a success rate around 66%, while conventional methods have about a 5% success rate. It is the gold standard of opiate treatment.
There is over 40 years of scientific data concerning this medication.
Yes it is used to help control pain,but what else does it do? It gives
users back their lives so they can once again go back to work,or to
school or simply become the parents they were not before. I am not
belittling your friends death,but I would bet there was some alcohol or
a type of benzo in his blood stream as well. Methadone does not get you
high,but it keeps me out of a motorized wheelchair. Methadone is more
highly researched then Toxic Waste. Fact. The stigma surrounding this
medication is of yrs and yrs of people,patients and the media portraing
us as down trodded and grimy letch's crawing to the clinic each day to
get our "Fix" and then go steal from the area the clinic is in. Nothing
could be further from the truth. Fact: A stabilized methadone patient
does not drug seek,steal,lie,cheat as they are too busy jumping thru
the hoops the rigid clinic system has in place for them to do just
that. Now change the disease around to Diabetis. Here is a patient who
must take a maintenance medication or they will get very sick. Do they
receive the same type of stigma present surrounding methadone? No,they
do not. Why? It's is also a medical disease much like Dependence is.
Methadone is not a "Fix" it is Medicine. It saved my life and it saves
hundreds of patients lives each day across this country,except for 5
states who still not allow programs as they feel they dont have a
problem. Theres that River again,De-Nial. With any type of
medication taking someone elses medication is always a dangerous
choice,but the person who does take it is doing it by choice. Lets not
cut off our nose to spite our face due to folks making bad decisions.
Thats what got us here in tyhe 1st place. Now we just want to live our
lives and have society understand that we are people too.When you cut
us we bleed red blood and not orange. Please check
out www.methadone.org to find out more about this medication.
Also another good site is www.atforum.com
Roxanne Baker
VP NAMA
namavp2@gmail.com
Sorry about your friend.
Like any other type of drug, abuse can come about, whether it's legal or not.
I agree that more information needs to be out there about methadone (especially for the junkies that hang out around clinics!). Overall, methadone treatment is pretty safe and can be used for other narcotics besides heroin. There are a lot of benefits of methadone and I would hate for recent deaths, whether they were accidental or purposely, to push for methadone to be illegal or harder to get a prescription for.
First allow me to express my sincerest apologies regarding the passing of your friend. On June 24th 2006 I lost my fiancée (Ron) to the same deadly drug prescribed by a physician with a combination of other medications. He had knee surgery and became addicted to the percocet he was prescribed. He checked
himself into Greeleaf in
Valdosta, GA for detoxification. Upon entering the facility he was drug tested and did not come up positive for opiates (he had stopped taking the percocet 4 days before entering the facility). On the fourth day in detox he died sometime between 2am and 1pm in the afternoon (he was never checked on in all of those hours). I have been doing some research and have learned that deaths usually occur in the first 3-10 days of initial dosing. “The risk of death during methadone induction has been calculated as nearly 7-fold greater for new patients’ risk of death prior entering MMT (Caplehorn and Drummer 1999), and nearly 98 times greater for new patients than for patients who have been safely receiving methadone for more than tow weeks”. T
his statement does not asses the risk for people being prescribed additional psychotropic medications; w
hich increase the risk significantly.
Regardless of the reason for taking this drug I know that t
his medication is deadly and physicians need to more prudent in prescribing it as well as monitoring their patients w
hile beginning treatment of any kind using Methadone. I'm not sure if Ron was given methadone for the sole purpose for detoxification from opiates or if it was a combination of pain relief associated with numerous surgeries and
his opiate addiction. Methadone is difficult to properly dose no matter what reason it's being used for and primarily relies on the patient’s indications of how they feel (assumedly they are being monitored). There are ways to make the administration of methadone safer, it's just a matter of putting the focus on t
his drug and the deadly consequences when administered incorrectly or not monitored.
I am trying to get in touch with other families that have lost someone in a similar manner so we may be able to come together to have our voices heard. Many people are dying unnecessarily at the hands of physicians they turn to for help. Methadone deaths are rising throughout the country.
I'm also providing you a link to a website I created in
his memory to give a more human touch to t
his email. http://renato-capozzo.memory-of.com/
I hope t
his letter gets to you and thank you for taking the time to read t
his. Again I offer my deepest condolences.
Sincerely
Melissa Zuppardi
65 Montowese St
Apt 1
Branford, CT
06405
203-868-8428
I am sorry about your friend.
After five years of chronic pain from the side effects of cancer treatment, I finally got access to a pain specialist. He gave me a prescription for methadone, and now I have a normal, productive life. I can get out of bed, do things, and am even going back to work. I thought this would never happen for me.
The drug is very safe, if used correctly. (Dosing must start low and build up slowly.) And it's very dangerous if used as a recreational downer. I would hate to see this valuable (for me, it's lifesaving) treatment banned because some people abuse it.
Education would help. People need to know that this is not a drug to play with, and it's not a fast acting pain reliever for today's headache or stubbed toe. It's serious medicine for long-term pain relief.
Thank you.