Methadone Maintainance & Weight Gain!!! Help!!!

I AM A METHADONE MAINTAINANCE PATIENT, CLEAN FROM OXYCONTIN FOR THREE+ YEARS & I HAE PACKED ON 40 POUNDS! I AM RETAINING WATER & EXPERIENCE HORRIBLE CONSTIPATION...ANYONE WITH SIMILAR ISSUES OR TIPS TO HELP ME OR FIND THE CAUSE???

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Kali,
I've taken Methadone for years (chronic pain). It is a side effect of methadone on the constipation & retaining water (edema). Try taking a stool softener like colace two every night. If that don't help take a mild laxative also. On the retaining water you can take a water pill over the counter or ask your doc about taking a diuretic. Sorry I don't know about the weight gain. But, I've got you beat on the weight gain 55 POUNDS!!!
Good Luck,
Gina

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I have gained over 20 pounds, but I don't think that it is due to the Methadone. I think that it is due to the Celexa I was taking along with birth control pills. However, I was researching the issue of wieght gain due to medications. Some meds slow your metabolism (like Methadone) and some create a lack of a hormome which controls your weight. I found that CLA and Omega 3 are two of the only viatmins you can take to help produce this hormone. I found a website that sales high miligram doses of these vitamins and are specifically formulated to cause weight loss. I have ordered them and are waiting for them to come in. I will repost on my progress. In the mean time, if you are on an antidepressant that causes weight gain, switch to one that doesn't. Wellbutrin is one of them. I have also started taking Phentermin to raise my lowered metabolism due to the methadone and other downers I was taking.

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I have been taking methadone for over a year now. When I started taking it, I only weighed 102. However, I now weigh 158. I honestly believe that the methadone is the cause of my weight gain. I have never been this heavy in my life. Yet, it is the price that I am willing to pay, so that I can be grug free. Heroin and pain pills almost destroyed my life, but now I am able to carry on a very productive life with my husband and children. Instead of being all drugged up every day, I now go to school, take care of my children and husband, and I have 2 jobs. I feel wonderful. Therefore, if you gain weight, don't let it bother you. The weight is better than using----ANY DAY!!!------Good Luck!

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Wow! You all hit on a subject that has consumed my life for the last 11 years. I'm allergic to Morphine so my doctor started me on the Duragesic patch in the early 90's. I didn't care for it for many reason's. Anyway after about 4 years of that my new pain doctor switched me to Methadone. I felt much better, was able to take college classes and even play golf. I was more active but I noticed my clothes were getting tighter and by the next year many of the desks and chairs at school were getting smaller lol. I was gaining about 3 to 5 pounds a month which turned into 25 to 50 a year! Each year my wife and I went to Mexico I could see the weight gain in the pictures she took. I had never weighted over 205 in my life and at 6'1 had a 31 waist. I complained and complained but my doctor would just tell me to diet or exercise which was frustrating as I was active for a person who had been through 4 spinal fusion's with new hardware each time. After 5 years of Methadone I broke the 300 pound mark! I was horrified, frustrated and very down on myself! I kept telling my doctor that it had to be the Methadone? I even showed him my charts and how my weight increased from the time I began Methadone and showed him the pictures. I moved cross country and had 2 more spinal fusion's. I talked with my new pain doctor about my weight gain concerns from Methadone but he didn't want to mess with it. That was 4 years ago. I now weighted 348 pounds and was so depressed I was giving up. My wife left me after 20 years of marriage and I felt horrible about myself. Hurting and fat! Finally 3 months ago and weighing 361 my doctor agreed to change my pain medication. Part of the wait was because I lost my insurance. I couldn't afford anything other than Methadone. I have been taking Oxycontin for 3 months and am just now starting to notice the changes. I was given 40mg of Lasix a day 10 years ago because I was retaining water and looking puffy. I have lost the puffiness and no longer need Lasix. That has helped to lower my blood pressure which as allowed me to already reduce my dose of Diovan HCT and Toprol XR! I once again have a sex drive and full function! Thank goodness for the new Medicare prescription plan! Being able to change medications has not only improved my life but very likely made it longer? I have lost 11 pounds so far. I have been approved for a gastric by-pass but if I keep losing am thinking of holding off on it? Thank you guys for reaffirming what I began to believe was all in my head!

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I gained a lot of weight taking methadone also. I've been on methadone for about 7 years now and will probably be on it the rest of my life. All pain meds slow the metabolism, so there is a danger of gaining weight. You just have to exercise as much as your disability will let you and definitely watch what you eat. Constipation is a very serious threat- you must take a stool softener on a daily basis. I agree, Colace is the best one to try. Take two a day and see how that does, raise or lower it after a week of trying.

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I've been on methadone for three years and the constipation I think was the key! My pain doctor gave me Miralax for the constipation and it works as long as you take it every day. The first couple of days require twice a day until things start moving. Good luck. My doctor now has me on Avinza 60mg once a day and morphine sulfate 15mg x2 twice a day. Seems a better response. It is good to see that methadone does work for some people.
Dave

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Regarding your drug-kicking, CONGRATULATIONS on returning to this Sweet Life! My return to life was in 1972, by the Grace of Jehovah God and my Savior, Jesus Christ, who, I believe, saved my physical body on what was supposed to be it's last day alive, though my soul's surrender to salvation and freedom from sin took many more years of learning about my failings and the price of sin, and about God's true love.

I pray you are within some sort of Christian Bible study, by which you may find all the answers you need for the strength required to 'MAKE IT, for real, for good, one day at a time. You are no way unique in your symptoms with the weight gain, bloating, constipation, edema, probably have food cravings and anxieties also. These are the symptoms of an abdominal dysfunction, where drugs suppressed normal eating, digesting, sleeping, etc, for so long, and now there is an onslaught of normal life experience's stresses to which your body is failing to fully handle. Other physicians will diagnose the terribly common and disruptive IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome. This life-killer came on me hard when I was 11 years clean and 2 years sober through AA, when I went back to work full time. You may feel very guilty, self-conscious about the bloating, belching, having to go to the bathroom so much as some sufferers are constipated but it is hard, small deer-pellet stools that force you to strain them out several times daily, never getting complete evacuation.
Your treatment trials should include:
Probiotics (with several million flora per dose), using natural yoghurts several times daily for the same reason, to put back natural, live digesting organisms into your gut, and find a multi-enzyme that has Papaya extracts, Bromelain, Amylase, etc; each digest different things that you eat, taken twice daily with your foods. Bromelain also eases arthritis & muscle pains. Newest studies were amazed to find out that calcium has it's chemical hand in nearly every body function, including fixing water retention naturally. Take daily the Calcium-Magnesium-Zinc combo pill that most Walmarts have cheap, because the latter two are necessary for the first to work right, and Mag & Zinc are great healers. Take a B Complex vitamin daily, which is a recovering abuser's greatest brain and body ally; it will help you to feel stronger, alert, help your blood, lungs, muscles, everthing that will help you to climb out of the rut of feelling rotten for so long, which is the devil's trap to make you give up on your renewed life, by making it harder than it has to be. A natural constipaton remedy is Cascara Sagrada, an herb which I only need to take one in the late afternoons, to have a better BM by the next morning; it normalizes the size & moisture to BM, which will relieve your straining. Just remember to ask your doctor about that endoscopy, if you have med. ins, to check for polyps and any precancerous stuff, all of which can cause obstructions to BM. There's always the old natural stand-bys of prune juice and pears. Best of God's blessings for you; find a good church family to support you, or a 12 step program and seek the Great Physician. Mari,

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As far as the weight gain, its possible, though I have not gained any. Try to cut down on fattening foods. The constipation issue is real and it finally got so bad, my doctor prescribed MiraLax or Enulose syrup, both are excellent but must be taken on a daily basis. Hope this helps.

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I KNOW A NURSE THAT SAID THEY THEY LEARNED THAT METHADONE SOMEHOW BUILDS UP ON THE FAT TISSUE, CAUSING WEIGHT GAIN. I KNOW ALOT OF PEOPLE ON METHADONE AND 99% OF THE WOMAN GAINED AT LEAST 40 LBS. I GAINED 40 MYSELF. MEN ALSO GAINED, BUT NOT LIKE THE WOMAN. WHEN I FINALLY WAS ABLE TO STOP TAKING, I LOST ALOT. THEN A YEAR LATER STARTED TAKING VERY SMALL AMOUNTS { 3-10 MILAGRAMS A DAY.} ,, {GAINING ALL BACK} AND NOW LESS THAN 10 A DAY AND STILL CANT LOOSE WEIGHT WITHOUT EXERCISE AND DIET. LAST SUMMER I EXERCISED FAITHFULLY FOR 4 MONTHS AND LOST 10 LBS. WHEN I STOPPED TAKING IT BEFORE, WITHIN A WEEK I HAD NOTICED THAT I LOOKED LIKE I HAD LOST 10 LBS. LOOKED LIKE A HEALTHY PERSON AGAIN. COLOR IN SKIN WAS 75% BETTER. I DONT CARE WHAT ANYONE SAYS, I KNOW METHADONE CAUSES WEIGHT GAIN AND WATER RETAIN..

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I've also gained TONS of weight on methadone. 50 lbs in the past year. I went from 120 to 170 in about 6 mos. I actually eat a whole lot less than before I started the methadone. In fact, I eat only about 500 calories a day and I still cant lose any weight. I'm way too tired from the methadone to exercise. My blood pressure has went way up as well. Is there anything to combat the weight gain from methadone? This has gotten so bad and depressing for me, I am considering just getting off of it. Sometimes I think I was better off when I was on dope. At least I wasnt fat.

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I am sure to get blasted here, but this is my experience., I have been on methadone maintenance for 10 years. I was 125LBS when I started, a year later I was close to 160LBS, and everyone of course said it was the methadone. I too had a lot of water retention. I knew it wasn't the methadone because I know many women on it that haven't gained a pound. and I also know women who gain weight and use methadone as an excuse. I am not saying anyone here is.. I went for my yearly check up and my doctor was pissed off about my weight, and he ordered blood work, because he too didn;t think the methadone was the problem..Well, turns out it WAS NOT the methadone, I have an underactive thyroid and that caused all of the symptems I had. Shortly after starting the medication, the pounds came off, the water retention went away. and I am at a healthy 130LBS. Perfect for being 5'3.. I also don't have constapation on methadone, but give me a vicodin and I will be constapated for a week. Everyone is different. People tend to make methadone the demon drug and blame all of their ills on it when most of the time, there is an underlying cause, The nurse that said methadone gets into fat cells is full of it. Methadone is an opiate. PERIOD. Only difference is methadone has a very long half life, and people think that is somehow bad, If you want bad, go to the fentanayl board, that is horrible..Methadone isn't for everyone, and people will suffer some side affects, just like any other medication, but it has also helped many people live full lives wheather it be for pain or for opiate addiction. My life was s*** before I got on methadone. Today I have a wonderful life.. Just try to remember, methadone is a very potent strong narcotic and should be treated as such. People die everyday thinking they wil get high, you won't get high on methadone, but you will OD if you take too much, mix it with anything like xanax. and NEVER EVER take it from a friend..Only take it as prescribed by your doctor
Pat

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That's why you're gaining weight. If you eat less than 1200 calories a day, your body, which is much smarter than you, will slow then shut down because it knows it's starving. You've shut down your metabolism so if you eat 500 calories you will GAIN.

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unfortinatly it is a side affect. i have put 28lbs on in 2 years because of the methadone esp if on a maintenence dose it gets into your fat cells and is hard to get out. methadone is horrible i wish i had never ever gone on it i am reducing 2mls every 2 weeks plan to gt to 30mls and go on suboxone 5 week course and see ya later opiates. iv had it with this life with this crap the sweats the constipation i dnt have my monthly cycle no more nearly 2yrs 6 mnths thats not normal i have been back and forth to dr's hospitals i had a tmour behind my right eye and had surgery last august they removed it i still get headaches i feel like crap every morning methadone is evil i understand people who use it for pain but to come off of opiates it is the devil most ppl dnt get off it. but i swear if its the last thing i do in my life i will get off methadone. fortinatly for me this christmas i told my parents the truth everything and they are supporting me 100% thats what i needed to realise i can do this. and so can others you just need support and the right doctor. good luck

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USE Senokot or any other Generic form like Senna-Lax. They are all natural vegetable laxatives and work great and very fast with LITTLE or NO cramping

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i understand where your coming from but my experience with methadone is different it has caused me problems with my bowels and iv been in n out of hospital and been told its the methadone also my digestion is backed up all the time i rarely use tablets i eat healthy drink fluids methadone for me has not been good. i understand its different for others who use it for pain but for me i hate it. they will chick the stuff at you but dnt give you any info on it. iv never gotten high off it never. iv researched methadone over and over and theres so many different stories out there who knows what to beleive?

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Hi I have been on methadone for 2+ years I have gained an astonishing 80 pounds I lost my job and mainly sat around the house all day I ate junk food BUT it wasnt that I ate all the time it was my habbits I would stay up late pass out for a couple hours at 3:00am wake up at 5:30am take my dose eat and pass out at 10 10:30am and somtimes sleep 15 hours Im active now i was finally able to get back to work its been about 2 months ive already lost 20 pounds and am eating right and only sleeping 6 to 7.5 hours a day i feel tons better and now i go to the restroom twice if not three times a day before i was lucky if i was going once every three days not healthy at all anyway i hope this helps an good luck.

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I was on methadone myself after i lost my insurance after losing a job because of a major car accident which left me with permanent problems and i've been using methadone to treat the pain and obviously avoid withdrawls. After a couple of years i went from 130lbs to 170 lbs. Then I tried every diet there was out there and spend almost 1000$ on diets and pills to lose weight and nothing would work. After taking methadone, i don't know if this happened to you, but i started craving sweets like crazy and that's what lead to my weight gain and other poor eating decisions. {edited for policy reasons}

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Thats the silliest thing I have ever heard. No. Eating little does not cause weight gain. I gained weight when on methadone. But I started taking a rather expensive multivitamin, and it paid off.

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rei, who's post are you referring too?

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When you don't eat your body senses it and starts to slow down. The less you eat the slower it gets and stays that way for days. Consuming 500 calories in that condition will cause weight gain!! Look up any good weight loss program and they will tell you the best way to lose is to eat small meals 6 times a day. That keeps the metabolism revving up.

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I've gained over 60 lbs since I've started on methadone. It happens to almost everyone who gets onto methadone treatment and is on a high dose. But if this is the price of staying clean from other opioids then I'm fine with that. That seems like an acceptable trade off lol don't you? The price of being mentally and physically much healthier and not at risk of infections or worse from abusing? Yeah, I'll take the weight any day but that's not to say it isn't troublesome it's something you have to work at imo. But now that your clean don't you have so much more free time we'll spend some of it exercising! Hope this helps someone.

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Yes, try taking stool softer (I take 1 in the AM & 1 in the PM) Also, if you can drink some prune juice, also AM & PM. And IF that’s not enough, there’s an Rx’d medication “MOVANTIK” it works well, in combination with the juice & stool softeners. Good Luck!!

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Hi. I've had the same experience. These days it's not worth trying to stop my neck pain after a horse accident. Any other way, it's a drag I agree, but better than throwing $ away here in Australia. It's been years for me. It's gone so fast. Think I've tried everything. Been taking magnesium, Celeste think it's called, drinking plenty of water. Seems to have improved things for me. Yes, weight gain is a hassle. My ankles and abdomen are swollen at the moment. Good luck. I have to go out. Let me know if I can help or how you're doing, ok?

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You will continue to gain weight as long as your taking the methadone. Trust me

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Just count yourself lucky you can get your meds. I took Hydrocodone for 2 decades until the Opioid Crisis caused by illegal users. My Dr cold turkied me off my meds, never a failed UT, never ran out of my meds. I am now on Tylenol 3, and now being told that will no longer be prescribed by my PPO... they want me to go to Pain Management. I am caregiver to 86 yr old Mom... 62 myself, I don't have time or help to have to drive from our rural area to where the pain management clinics are. Now pain from a new issue... adhesions from my total hysterectomy in 1997. I am surprised I haven't overdosed on the acetaminophen, as my pain level can reach a 10 at times. I have lost weight due to all of this since 2016, from about 110 lbs to 84 lbs as of my last Dr appointment the 24th. At 5'5", you can imagine what I look and feel like.

I wish I could take about half your weight for myself... as for nausea, try getting Zofram (generic is Ondansetron). They prescribe fast acting for pregnancy morning sickness. Works well for me when my nausea kicks in from pain from the adhesions.

Keep up the good fight... but don't forget us who need pain meds that work, but because of new laws/guidelines I can no longer be prescribed by my regular doctor because he's afraid his small practice may come under fire from the DEA and lose his practice or worse. I live in Florida, so makes it twice as hard. I went thru HARD WITHDRAWALS, not my choice, it was forced on me instead of being weaned off slowly as should have been done.

Have a blessed day....

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While on Methadone I actually lost 98lbs. My best advice is wean yourself off that crap. I weaned myself in a few months and walked away without any withdrawals. I've had major spine surgery in Oct. 2016 straighten my spine and fusing 6 discs. I'm still in pain but I'm no longer a slave.

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1. Why the hell are you STILL taking Methadone after being 3 YEARS clean?!
2. WEEN OFF THE METHADONE and you won’t have a weight issue.

I hate people who abuse this medication for ‘life long maintenance’. It’s not meant to be life long or years long. Methadone withdrawal is going to be worse than opiate withdrawal. No reason you should be on this for more than 3-6 months.

- Former opiate user

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Re: Gina (# 1)

I gained a few pounds at first but that was it. It seems like they are coming off as my jeans are looser and my ring keeps fall off.

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Drink lots of water, eat smaller meals, have like 1 sugar instead of 2. Make little changs to your diet like that. Methadone need not bloat you up if handles correctly. You will naturally put on more weight so eat healthier, eat less and do more exercise, that's for sure. As for constipation, it is gross but just get what you can out and kind "snip" your turds off halfway, sounds horrid but I have had bad guts like that for years otherwise you'll be sitting there in LOTS of discomfort. It all depends on your diet too I suppose, more fruit for sure. Just don't eat a s*** ton of oats, that's a free tip I'll give you.. Yikes!.

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Re: Gina (# 1)

Your life changed. No more running around, not eating etc, that's where the gain comes from for almost everyone. Buy generic Mira lax at Amazon. Get the two 50 dose bottles, 100+ doses for 26.00, the price of one 30 dose Mira lax! Take four doses at night. Get up, use an enema bag and insert one bag of water. In a few minutes you will start going and clean it all out. Drink a quart of water the night before and in the morning, use the enema before taking any meds. About 10 minutes after you get up. Been on methadone since 1988 and do this 2x a week with no problems at all.

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