Questionwould 40 mg of methadone 4 times a day be too high of a starting dose for pain- given to a person 53 yrs. old for fibromyalgia, that also has emphysema, copd and pnuemonia (changing from lortab to methadone) also taking xanax,soma, ambien, geodon, ritalin, bumex, nexium and zithromax for the pnuemonia? I've read that methadone given to patients with emphysema, copd, pnuemonia could be dangerous and that methadone and the others meds could be dangerous and that the dose of methadone should have been 2.5 mg - 10mg - am i right? I hope you can give me an opinion on the methadone or maybe where i can get more info..
sorry this is so long
hope you can help
thank you
Terry also- all these meds come from the same doctor that has been treating this person for 5 years
AnswerMethadone is a good choice for chronic pain management, however, the starting dose depends on how long the person has been on narcotics and at what dose. People build up tolerance to the narcotics pretty quickly. 40 QID (four times a day) is a very high dose... if you haven't been on pain meds, that dose could kill you. But if someone has taken narcotics for a long time, they would tolerate it allright. So, depends on how much someone has been on. If you have been on hydrocodone 10 mg QID, then switching to methadone, 10-20 QID would be reasonable. 40 QID is a very high dose. When we wean heroin addicts off heroin, we typically give about 50-80 mg per day.
Hope this helps...
