Methadone Dose: Methadone Detox Clinics

Question: Can i overdose from my methadone dose going up 20 mgs?

(Posted by: on 2011-08-30 12:34:33)

Last week, I increased my methadone dose from 40mgs to 50mgs because I felt the 40mgs wasn't lasting long enough, I had been on the 40mgs for about a month. This week I decided to go up just 10mgs more, and I have been on that for about 3 days now. Ever since going up to 60mgs I have been sleeping anywhere between 12 and 18 hours every day, and I have had a couple days over the past week or so where I felt that I wasn't breathing properly, like I couldn't get enough air. I'm worried that I could be slowly easing myself into an overdose- is this likely?

Posted by: J Miller on 2011-08-31, 01:24:28

It isn't likely that you would overdose now. You've gone up gradually and have given the body enough time to adjust between increases. I do recommend that you bring this up to your doctor though to see what he thinks. 60mg is quite a low dose and although everyone is different I don't think that you're overmedicated. But to check and see you could try going down 5mg and see what happens. As odd as it sounds, though, it's possible that you sleep so much not because your dose is too high but because it's too low. If it's too low and doesn't hold you for 24 hours you will go into withdrawal during the night which disrupts your sleep and causes you to be tired and sleep a lot. This can also cause nodding during the day. It also takes some time for the body to adjust to the new dose which could be another reason why you are so tired. Give it some more time and see what happens. If it persists you may want to try a couple of smaller increases to see if it gets any better. It did for me. I was more energetic on 80mg than I was on 60mg. Another trick that could help is to split the dose if that's possible where you go. You'd take half your dose in the morning and half at night so that it doesn't hit you all at once. It will also make your dose last longer. As I mentioned before though, some people only require a small dose and 60 is plenty for them. You may be in this category. Give it time. Go up little by little, like 5mg instead of 10mg. Focus on how you feel and not the numbers.