Deaths from Opioid Overdose Tripled

[liveonearth]

US Deaths from opioid overdose tripled between 1999 and 2006 according to CDC Data. The drug leading the charge for the grave was methadone.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/709744?src=mpnews&spon=12&uac=89474MT
I talked to a junkie on bus#9 the other day who had been through hell but not died. He had a good idea what his protocol would be for getting people unhooked from methadone. It involved taking pts through a series of other high powered drugs, each to be given for a time period just short of the dependence/addiction-inducing timeframe. He was sure his method would work.

Comments

there is a study in there...

[beauregard45.livejournal.com]

I think you could call it "the street protocols.." Who better to know how to work and manage the beast of addiction than addicts. Plenty of time in the saddle there for them. A serialed compilation of vignettes of people who have battled addiction and how they worked themselves out of it, or thought they could.

Studied medical research yet? You could easily have randomization (which bus you took...), time frame would be at your discretion, theory to be developed,and you have plenty of subjects there in Portland. Keep it to one or two variables and it might go somewhere...hmmmmmmmmmm?.........

I give methadone about once a month at work. I wonder about how it affects the pt. It has a long half life as I have been told so the buzz is stretched out...and whatever you do, DON"T CHEW IT!....

Re: there is a study in there...

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

What happens if you chew it????

Re: there is a study in there...

[beauregard45.livejournal.com]

chewing. If a pill is in the sustained release form, chewing it negates the slow release of the medication and it is as if a person took multiple doses that then release at the same time. Result? Instant rush. Stonerville. Same as crushing and then snorting Oxycontin (a sustained release form of oxycodone).

But this does not address half life of a drug. Methadone is maybe not packaged in a sustained release form, but it has a very long half life. I do believe this is the trait that the clinicians are hoping will allow the addict to then transition down in dosage, and eventually off of an opioid.

So, for my understanding, chewing of a pain med is never a good idea, and the same goes for things like ambien, some stomach meds, and any drug meant to be dispersed in the body over time.

Lots of demented seniors in nursing homes will chew instead of swallow their pills. They either then spit them out, a real mess, or swallow them in a masticated form. Usually not a good idea. But they just don't comprehend it any other way.