Pete's post is great - take note of his drug lists folks - although I'll admit to being in the minority who gets more relief from shooting nerve pain with Xanax: a benzodiazepine that has no discernible psychotropic effect on me, unlike Klonopin which I also take for anxiety.*

But neither should Pete's caveat concerning constipation be taken lightly. That, and at least for me, Methadone packed a wallop compared to anything I had known before then, basically Oxycontin/oxycodone, which had largely stopped working for me at one point, due to what we later figured out was my irregular consumption of Oxycontin, which I wasn't taking enough of "on good days" for much the same the reasons outlined by finz.

In any event, I was put on an initial dose of oral Methadone (10 mg.) [3/day] which just left my staggered and totally shut down my GI track - to the point that I promptly developed a small hernia - and was no better when the dose was cut in half four days later. Finally, a week after the Methadone experiment began, we realized my error in having taken Oxycontin only when I was in pain, and returned to the appropriate dosing schedule of the drug, without further incident.

I don't know if my experience with Methadone is at all typical, in fact I suspect I may be simply a poor metabolizer of the drug, but would simply emphasize that it must be taken with RESPECT.

Mike

* Generated either by fluctuations on my blood levels of oxycodone or the general level of gray matter atrophy in my right ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), including the anterior insula (AI), over the last 10 years. See, The Brain in Chronic CRPS Pain: Abnormal Gray-White Matter Interactions in Emotional and Autonomic Regions, Geha PY, Baliki MN, Harden RN, Bauer WR, Parrish TB, Apkarian AV, Neuron 2008;60:570-581, FULL TEXT @ http://www.rsds.org/pdfsall/Geha_Baliki_etal.pdf