Out of all the drugs and miracle cures, Methadone was the only thing that seemed to lessen the pain, and all day long, allowing me to live a more normal life. Although not a 100% cure all, I would be miserable without it. Ironically, I had been clean off of Heroin for over three years when I first started getting sick. The first symptoms started right after I had had a major Ovarian cyst rupture. It was so bad that I ended up in the ER, and even their strongest dose of Morphine didn't erase the pain. In years of opiate addiction, I never went the Methadone route because I didn't want to make a bad situation worse. In my mind, I knew I had the will power to get clean if it was a matter of a week or two, but that I wouldn't have the strength to go through a month or two as is the case sometimes with Methadone withdrawal. It has been my misfortune that I have ended up wedded to a drug that I once avoided at all costs, even if that meant being miserable beyond words for days on end. I know measuring pain in days doesn't seem that drastic to you non-addicts, but imagine the worst flu of your life, plus the worst anxiety of your life, plus the worst depression of your life, only there's no Thera-flu or aspirin or hope of relief, then when you take sleep away as well, a day means 24 hours and every minute of every hour is written out on your skin in fire.
In the last 5 years I have stopped drinking, stopped smoking, stopped using any illegal drugs whatsoever, gotten married, bought a house, and lived a happier life than I ever dreamed possible. I am a better person than I have ever been, and my husband and I desperately want to share our happy lives with a child. Yes we have thought about adoption, even being foster parents, and those options are not out of the question yet. I still spend everyday in some amount of pain, partly because I wanted to keep my dose low, partly because I want to feel my life, even if that life involves some pain. I started at 30mg a day and now five years later I'm up to 70mg per day, although there have been times when I've needed more. The pain I have now is bearable, the pain I had before methadone was soul crushing.
I know a few girls who have given birth while on methadone, but never just on methadone. One girl had been using up until her 5th month, coke, heroin, pills, etc... then switched to the methadone program. The other girl used God only knows what during her entire pregnancy. I have no similar examples of my own situation to go by.
I read what the nurse wrote and I agree with her to some extent. If you are in your twenties or early thirties and there's a day in the near future when you think you might be clean, just wait, as hard as it may be, and see if you can't get clean before getting pregnant.
At 34, my time is running out, and I don't know what else to try. Honestly, although I was disappointed when they didn't work for me, I think there would be more of a risk if I were taking Lyrica or other antidepressants while pregnant. The long term side effects aren't known in those cases, even if in the short term it may seem like the right answer. I read about the babies having these terrible side effects after they are born, but then read that they are weaned off slowly with morphine. That confuses me, because the whole point of tapering someone off a drug is to prevent or lessen the symptoms of withdrawal. I also have a hard time believing that it doesn't matter how much methadone you take while pregnant. How can that have NO bearing on the withdrawal symptoms of the child?
A really important lesson I have learned while going through my illness and treatment, is that there is A LOT of misconceptions revolving around opiate use in the medical community. I have met so many doctors and nurses who are predisposed to think of all narcotic pain drugs as evil and destructive, ( and every person who uses them as an "addict" in need of rehab, even people in chronic pain!) and they will prescribe any number of damaging and downright scary non-narcotic drugs (that cost an arm and a leg and don't even work as well) just to keep the DEA off their backs. They care about the morality of opiates, totally ignoring that these drugs serve an important purpose and that all drugs have the ability to do harm if misused.
I wonder if this nurse is thinking of these cases objectively, and does she really have enough information to make these kinds of statements publicly? Statements that might scare a pregnant methadone user into quitting cold turkey and in turn, hurting her baby more than if she had just listened to the sound advice given by mothers of healthy children who have experienced pregnancy on methadone first hand? For instance, are these cases in which the mother spent zero time with the baby during it's withdrawal? Are these cases when the mother may say she's only taking a certain amount of methadone, but is actually taking a lot more off the street and adding other drugs on top? Are these cases where the mother has used one drug at the start of the pregnancy and then switched to methadone for the second part?
Every case is different, every addict is different, every pregnancy is different.
Where is the research on how to lessen the effects of withdrawal on babies without the use of opiates?( to clarify, using non opiate cures alongside the normal tapering off using morphine or other opiates) I know that when I was getting clean time and time again, music helped ease my withdrawal symptoms, so did laughter, so did human contact, so did being distracted, so did hot baths, cold medicine, Valium, muscle relaxants, sleeping pills, Ambien, Ultracet, Xanex, Klonapin, etc...
For anyone who thinks they can quit and stay clean and is only taking Heroin and/or pills, talk to rehab facilities about Suboxone or subutex. I suggest you go to rehab first and then if you relapse, or feel like you will, try the methadone program.
If you know you won't stay clean, try the methadone program.
Pain docs sound convenient, but they are for people with chronic pain, it's not a place to deal with addiction issues and you will often end up abusing your meds, leaving you short each month and back on the streets using street drugs and scamming for money to keep you well. I've seen this happen to friends of mine, a lot.
Plus pain docs should be used for pain patients only for another good reason. The people (like me) who have legitimate pain often get swept out with the people abusing the meds when a client gets caught selling their meds or misusing them in any other dangerous way. Then you have people not only out of meds and in withdrawal, but also in extreme pain and unable to go to a methadone clinic for relief because it is against the law! These things all go on record and any clinic can see within a few seconds if you have been treated by a pain doc. Believe me, I have been through this scenerio and it sucks! I hated every single drug addict that had lied and used my pain doctor for their own needs instead of getting help at the proper facility. You don't live your life in a bubble, your actions may effect people you'll never even meet, "only hurting yourself" doesn't mean you're not hurting anyone else.
I don't know what to do yet. I am still debating with myself. It sounds selfish but I want a baby that came from myself and my husband. We may adopt or foster as well, but I want at least one child that is my own blood. Maybe we think of life as this place where suffering should be eliminated, but that's not reality. There is suffering, even when the mother is sober and does everything right, children still get sick, babies are born with birth defects, nurses still blame it on something the mother did while pregnant. I just want to wish the best to everyone out there struggling tonight. Stay safe and just know that there is an end to this life of scamming and stealing and getting sick and well and sick again, but it may not be the perfect end you had imagined. I never thought I would turn to methadone, but it has saved me, literally. I don't know if I would still be here if I had to suffer the full extent of fibro pain every single day. And I am not a weak person who easily chooses suicide. There's no morality attached to any drug, and no drug can make you a bad person, but the freedom of not living for drugs can make you a better person. In the words of RuPaul, "If you can't love yourself, how the HELL are you gonna love somebody else?"
Has anyone actually had a baby on methadone? I am pregnant and am on 55 mgs. I am so sick of the thought of poisoning my unborn baby but the doctor refused to lower my dose bc the harmful effects it could have! What do I do? I have began to detox secretly without thedoctor or nurses consent ! I don't know if I'm doing more harm than good! I'm scared, and I am getting different feedback from every corner! Help , pls without being cruel , i promise that I am punishing myself.
hey girl, I also was and sometimes a user ! There is help out there if you work the program. try getting on methadone and get to a stable dose and I promise if your at the level your bodys good at you wont want to use you could wake up and fell like a normal person. Thats only if you want to change. Ive kicked both herion & methadone and it was hell but worse!! Ive been a user since 9 , I was a herion baby so the first time i let the devil in my life . It was something i convinced my self OH THATS WHATS BEEN MISSING ! i felt some kind of connection and smoked it for a year and swor i would NEVER poke my self..before i knew it i was carring around needles everywere i went! Pluse i smoked crack meth everything. Its taken 13 years of my life and took my beloved brother Paul Garcia (rip) . I have a daughter shes my soldier and very lucky to have a good man that put up with alot. 2 years in prison was enough its still a long way to where i wanna be but at least this time i know where im going. Its been 4 months ive been herion free I give all the glory to my lord,dont get me wrong im far from perfect but i see it and dont want it dont need it nada just get my dose and come home to my family and not the dope man !! so please get help and dont comdem your self because if ypu ask for forgiveness its forgotten and thank the lord you had the heart to ask for help
Hello there. I am a 26 year old mother and I also am on methadone :( , I was put on the program as I was on painkillers and then became pregnant, I was only young and thought what I was told by doctors was gospel, I got put on 20mgs and slowl got put up up up until i reached 75 mgs, thats 15 mills of liquid, I went through my pregnancy and everything was different, I was treated like a drug addict and at times it was hard, I had lots of nausea ''as some of us get'' and as i was getting sick they were giving me hlaf dose replacements to stop withdrawal, I got up to 30 weeks and could NOT feel baby move, went to doctor she checked the heart and said it was all fine, I asked her if the heart beat I was in fact listening to was the babies as from my first two pregnancies ''oh by the way I say im a mother of two because when i was 15 and 17 i had 2 children to another man, I was not on methadone we broke up and I adopted them out, so i actually have had all up 5 children, anyway as i was saying i remember in my other pregnancies the heart beat of baby was like ''chug chug chug chug ''really fast' and sometimes they would pick up the beat of my own blood flow , that was more like chug chug chug chug ''a much slower beat'' so when i went to this doctor i asked her if that was in fact baby and not my own blood flow to the placenta, she said it was baby and everything was fine, I went to my mother in laws for a dinner , I went to bed and still no baby move, i drunk coke as coke used to make him go hypo in the tummy, still no movement, I guess a mothers intuition led me to go get a second opinion, the next doctor i went to see was old fashion and she used a hand held device to hear baby, she said she could not hear baby and sent me to the hospital . the nurses tried to hear baby at the hospital but could not so the doctor came in with a scan machine to look at baby, he looked and baby had no fetal heart beat, I screamed and screamed and no doubt it was the worst thing I have ever been through, I went numb for a while and got induced and had baby and all the rest, we named him Alexander the great, and had a lovely coffin made, anyway so that was a horror story, I am not sure why how when or what happened , I have since had 2 children while i am still on methadone and it was not easy, the baby does go through withdrawal and its not the nice birth you would usually have with nurses saying OH CONGRATS ON YOUR BIRTH'' they look at you like your s**m and its not nice, the baby gets given ''in my country'' small amounts of morphine to stop the symptoms, all babies go into the nicu until for 10 days at the least so they can figure out what amount of meds they need to go on, you do have to go home and leave your baby at the hospital, in our case i was aloud to go back and stay at the hospital 2 days before they were due to come home, not just that I had to prove that I was a fit mother and also my husband had allot to prove, there was no doubt in the nurses or doctors minds that we were junkie horrible s**m in society and really did NOT deserve children, even so My boys are 2 and 4 , my youngest is 3 tomorrow actually and mother other boy is nearly 5 in a couple of weeks, they are both very healthy and have not had anything wrong with them, I would do it all again for my boys ''but maybe off methadone'' what I'm saying is I would not give them up for the world, but ideally it is not really best to plan a pregnancy while on this, I struggle with myself everyday thinking should I have another baby, and feel very confused about it, but it is not nice what you and baby have to go through at the start, like i said they are fine and it was sad we lost Alex , we wont know if it was because of methadone or because of other things they could not say why, if you are pregnant on methadone do not try to come off, it will cause SERIOUS harm to your baby and the risk of baby...... or having problems are very high, Im sure it was because of my unstable dose getting sick and having to get more that made him die, with my other two even though i still got sick and ill i never ever got a replacement dose, so thats my story Im more than happy to help anyone through and answer any questions.
Sarah s, I have been through this with 3 pregnancies and am happy to help you, have you had baby yet? u will be ok hun, you need to keep strong and hold onto hope and the love of your partner, no one will support you while pregnant and on methadone like your own partner, baby may go through some withdrawl, he or she will have to go into the nicu unit for around 10 days depending on how bad it is, you will have to leave baby there and come back each day to feed and spend time with, this is ery hard but i suggest u use the time to rest heaps because after your birth you will need plenty of rest and you will have months and months of tired sleepless nights as you know with new babies :) methadone is a bit harder with crying babies, sometimes they sleep more just depends, but each time they reduce your baby off meds he or she with feel the withdrawal and get cranky, you know how bad we feel when we are sick/> well you imagine a little bubs, I guess at least they dont have the brains to know whats going on, and you know they ont jump out the window to go get on, so its all up to you to hold baby as much as you can, comfort baby, hold baby tight they like to be wrapped up tight in a blanket when they are withdrawing , family support is important to, it was the hardest thing telling my husbands parents at the hospital, we had no choice but to tell them as we were having a big meeting about where to from here, they were shocked but very supportive. just hold on to hope and please email me if you need support.
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hiya, thanks for reply (I'm Sarah s) I'm 9month preggers now & am actually due in 2 days although things just aren't happening quick enough, I was still getting my script reduced at first but after a while I started feeling withdrawal towards end of day & next morning before going to chemist so agreed to be put back up to 75mls and have felt fine since and baby has been growing great and just doesn't seem to stop moving. Everything has been just like normal pregnancy except from the extra hospital visits and social workers getting their bit in(because me & boyf are on meth and both have criminal records they apparently have to keep eye on us) but we have been doing EVERYTHING asked of us so hopefully we will be able to just be normal parents once we have proven we can look after our little boy, only scared bit left to do is give birth now but hoping baby will be strong enough to get himself & US through the worst of it but here in Scotland where I'm from they tend not to give baby any medication unless he is really suffering so my choice is to either breastfeed and prolong the methadone intake to his system or just hope he is not in too much pain and that he can get through it himself but I'm b able to stay in the hospital with him for the first 3days/72hrs as its mandatory here cause of drug use then hopefully we can both go home so fingers crossed!!!