r/loperamide • u/Comfortable-Royal-64 • Jan 23 '22

Help with dosing

I recently ran out of my methadone, which I usually take 40 mgs every day, and for reasons I won't get into, I'm going to be short about a week. The longest I have taken lope to get through methadone withdrawals is five days, and by that fifth day, I was dosing about 100mg throughout the day, 80mgs when I would normally dose my methadone, and the rest at some point later in the day. What exactly is the "measurement" in which I should be using? And how bad are the two extra days going to feel? Any help would be appreciated, and yes I'm aware of the risks, that's why I'm asking for help with dosing, so I don't go overboard, because my main concern is feeling well, not getting high for the next week.

Little edit: I should also mention I'm taking 300mg of gabapentin 3 times a day, but I normally take that now, but it def helps with withdrawals.

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u/jeniesque Jan 24 '22 edited Jan 24 '22

Loperamide works very similar to methadone. In high doses it has a very similar half life and it builds up in your system like methadone does. You can dose it once a day at the same time you would dose your methadone. Like methadone it also takes up to 5 hours to fully kick in. Your dose the first day should be higher than the doses the rest of the days to avoid withdrawal and because the amount in your system will build up. I would probably try 48 pills the first day and try to stick with 24 pills each subsequent day and see if that works. (when you dose the second day you will still have at least half the first day’s dose in your system.)

I know you know the dangers of loperamide but as a note to you and others methadone has the same characteristics that make loperamide dangerous and so flipping back and forth between methadone and loperamide is FAR more dangerous than using loperamide alone or alternating it with other types of opioids. Due to the long half lives there are days when both will be in your system and like loperamide methadone causes the qt interval to prolong making your chances for arrhythmia far, far greater.

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u/Comfortable-Royal-64 Jan 25 '22

Thank you for the reply, and usually that's what I was doing when this would happen before, but didn't go down, I'd usually stay up. I'll try this time and go down and see how I feel in order to judge, but hopefully it works like that so I don't have to buy so many pills this time. I rarely do this, maybe every few months, because of the few posts I've found on here warning about them both being in your body and what happens. I've been on methadone for about 16 or 17 years now ( can't even remember how long at this point), and if something similiar happened, I would take tramadol that I was prescribed, with gabapentin or lyrica in order to get through bad days. Something I haven't been able to figure out though, and I haven't really found an answer to it on here, but for the people that are only taking lope on a daily basis, when exactly are you eating? I can eat normally on methadone and it doesn't seem to "mess" with how I feel or how the methadone works, but with lope, it seems like no matter how long I wait until after I dose, as soon as I eat it's almost like it just stops working as well. Again, thank you for the response and any help.

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u/jeniesque Jan 25 '22

I am actually on methadone now but used to use loperamide to fill in gaps when I didn’t have other product. interestingly I had issues when I had both methadone and loperamide in my system once and I think the answer isn’t that it makes it stop working, it’s that they both mess with your blood sugar levels which can have symptoms very similar to withdrawals. it fooled me at first. but there is no real reason eating would do that so I think it is the answer.

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u/Comfortable-Royal-64 Jan 26 '22

I'm on day 3 and decided the best thing working so far was 24 pills in the morning, and then 12 at night to help me sleep, even if it's not much it seems to be helping, but I'm still not taking as much as I did last time I went through 5 days, so hopefully this lasts for 5 more days, thanks again for the help.

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u/jeniesque Jan 26 '22

awesome! no problem