It's prescribed in pill form. I took 5mg 3x a day. Pete, who used to post on this board often, was at one time prescribed up to 80 mg a day (I think I have that right). My dose was a pretty low dose. It had a pretty good impact on my pain, which was getting totally out of control at the time. I was only taking percocet and it wasn't working well any more.

Then several months later my PCP put me on Fentanyl. For a long time I was on fentanyl with perc and methadone for breakthru. I didn't find out until 5 months later that the main ingredients in fentanyl don't go with methadone - they work AGAINST each other. Dr. Getson told me that. So I immediately stopped taking the methadone. I was on such a low dose that I never had any withdrawal symptoms.

My fentanyl has worked much better since I stopped the methadone - I've stopped taking as much breakthru meds and I've reduced the strength of my patch a little.

I've never gone thru withdrawal, because I have never gone off my meds completely. I want to slowly taper down a little. My head hurts too much to go off them completely - I can tell just by cutting back a little bit that it will be impossible to go without them for now.

I'm interested in seeing what people have to say about withdrawal, also. How do they go about it? Is there a med for that?

Thanks, Sandy