Methodone Dilemma (Top voted first)

I have been taking Methadone for opiate addiction for almost 20 years! It has worked for me! The only time I relapsed was when I moved from NY to Ohio and had to wait to transfer into a different clinic. I have been clean since 2002! My problem is; I recently lost my medicaid because I do not live with my 12yr.daughter and her mom anymore.Ohio Social Services does NOT give medicaid to single men unless they are on disability or SSI. I am on neither being that I am capable of working, even though I am a insulin-dependent Diabetic also.I work part-time making 8.00per hour. The clinic I go to is 60 miles away, and medicaid was paying for my transportation also. Now I am faced with two dilemmas...getting to the clinic twice a week because I do not have a car at this time (I do get "take-homes"), and also paying the clinic fee. Someone told me that being that I am 54 and have been taking methadone for all those years, I may be able to qualify getting it from a Dr. for pain management.I take 60mgs daily. I am very afraid of not being able to get it anymore and getting very sick. Please help, if anyone has or knows of a solution for me and please don't say try suboxin or detox. I have tried to detox twice in the past, and it doesn't work for me. One of the clinic doctors said that when a person takes methadone for as long as I have, it actually becomes part of their chemical makeup in the brain. ....Please help!

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I too have been in the clinics along time. I currently went to the doctor for methadone but he was listed under addiction specialists. I went it every two weeks paid $75.00 a visit and the received my script. Then when my medicare kicked in because of disability he billed it under pain management and I only pay for the cost of filling script. I just went to a new doctor told him I was looking for a new doctor, told him all the meds I take. He wrote scripts for my methadone. I told him I was taking it for pain and no problem. If you go in for addiction different rules apply than if you take it for pain. I can live a normal life now going in once a month for my meds. Hope this gives you info you need. As long as a Dr. has an DEA number he can write the script. Good luck.

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Yes, Methadone is really a problematic drug that tends to embed itself in the brain and that's why many people that use it for addiction never get to be completely drug free, but require a maintenance dosage of it for life.

And the information that Pam provide is correct, any doctor can prescribe it for pain. However, only doctor's the are approved and trained to treat addiction can give it for that, which is why you have to go to a clinic and there are specific rules for the treatments there.

As to what to do if you can't get any assistance and go into withdrawals, you can go to your nearest ER and they would be required to help you, at least until you are stable.

Learn more Methadone details here.

Does anyone else have any advice to add?

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Yes several years ago I needed to go to the ER for methadone. It seems I was about the last to be treated. I have done this 3 times over my lifetime. The first two times I wasn't treated nicely. Things have gotten better though and hopefully you will be treated like a human being. "We" aren't there to get high we just don't want to be deathly sick. Good luck to all.

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Yes your right, you are on methadone for life unless you decide to go through torture....... I live in the UK, I don't know your system but you must do all you can, speak to all you can..... of your fears of having no methadone, it is a must for you. It is cruel to allow someone to suffer when meds are available, keep this I mind. And I know I should not say this, have a locked cabinet with reserves

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