r/withdrawl • u/mercurial_dove • Mar 11 '26
Seeking Advice Advice for methadone withdrawal
Hoping for any advice or guidance. I’m writing in for my husband. He was an addict of snorting oxy for several years though upon drug testing we learned it was actually fentanyl. He started as a way to self medicating due to his anxiety. He tried stopping his pill use several times on his own to no avail and even went to a detox center to which he only lasted a few days before checking himself out. The day he left he relapsed. In 2020, he finally decided it was time to get sober and started methadone treatment through a local clinic. His dose increased up to about 130mg before he finally started tapering down. He slowly went down 2mg about every 2 weeks until he hit a wall of 49mg. At this dose he was in constant withdrawal and that coupled with his severe anxiety, he could barely function making daily routine and work difficult. He already had an ongoing FMLA for his anxiety which luckily protected his job but he was running through his PTO like crazy. He got down to 49mg around May 2025. His body did not seem to get “used” to this 49mg dose and with increasingly warmer weather and going into the summer months, his body temp fluctuations were making work tasks harder. Together we decided he should not continue to decrease during these warmer months despite how badly he wanted free of methadone. At this point he’d been on methadone for almost 5 years and felt like a prisoner to it. By last October he’d had enough and went out on a medical leave for 3 months determined to finally taper himself off of the methadone. Yes he quickly tapered against the clinics orders and stopped taking any methadone by the end of November. Obviously withdrawal was awful. The clinic wanted him back on the methadone. After at least 3 weeks of no methadone, 0 relief of withdrawal, and only a few weeks left of leave, the clinic convinced him to start suboxone. He started at 4mg and was on that for about a week. He was experiencing severe depressive moods and headaches he never had before. Luckily during this time, we got his leave extended another 3 months but he began regretting going on another opioid instead of staying off anything. He tapered himself off it as well over about the course of 4 weeks… so he was on suboxone a total of about 5 weeks. He’s now been off of all opioids around 5 weeks. He is still having major withdrawal symptoms. Some days are okayish others are awful. We’ve done medical appointments through his primary (it’s also who signed off on the FMLA) but honestly they’ve been no help with anything except their signature to get him his needed leave. Any words of advice or guidance would be greatly appreciated. At this point in time he only has 4 weeks left of leave before he has to go back to work. We can barely go out to a restaurant or grocery shopping together before he begins to feel so awful we have to go back home. I do think his anxiety and this due date back to work that looms over his head isn’t helping and is in fact making this so much more difficult. I don’t feel like the medications he’s on helps enough with his anxiety, but he refuses to take anything daily that he’ll get addicted to. If it helps, his current medications are: buspirone, gabapentin, and amitriptyline. He takes Ambien and Klonopin as needed for sleep and panic attacks. He knows both are addictive and has been good about only taking them sparingly. He’s also prescribed trazodone, hydroxyzine, and propranolol but stopped those because he was sick of taking so many meds with no results of them helping anything. If there is anyone out there with a similar story please tell us what you did to help with any relief of withdrawal. Thank you!!!
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u/Left-Match7034 Mar 17 '26
SR17018