Methadone Rehabilitation

Question by Jordan M: Taking psuedoephedrine to help with methadone withdrawal?
I have a theory and was wondering if it would work. Methadone withdrawal is mainly caused from the body producing too much norepinephrine because opiate cause your body to not make as much and it has to kick up the production when you get addicted to opiates, which is why withdrawals happens. If someone were to take pseudoephedrine for a long while before stopping methadone cold turkey and then stop taking the pseudoephedrine too, would this help the body to not produce so much norepinephrine? Since sudafed (norepinephrine) causes an increase in norepinephrine, it would seem that one would go through a withdrawal from it constiting of too little norepinephrine and maybe the two would counteract each other, or at least make the methadone withdrawals a little easier as they are impossible for me at this time. What do you guys and girls think?
Hey Tim L….

I know for a fact that pseudoephedrine works by stimulating release of norepinephrine from the neuro-endocrine system. Also, a significant part of methadone withdrawal is cause from the body producing too much norepinephrine, which is why clonidine is sometimes prescribed to help withdrawals. Read up on your medical info or ask a doctor before assuming you are right. I’ve done a lot of research, believe me!

Best answer:

Answer by ChaliQ
It doesn’t work.

Answer by Tim L
Psuedoephedrine is NOT norepinephrine nor does it cause an increase in norepineprine. Methadone withdrawal is NOT caused by excessive production of norepinephrine. Every part of this theory is wrong.

UPDATE:

It’s not clear why you would ask a question if you only intend to reject the answer, so I’ll make these my last comments:

Saying you “know for a fact” does not make you claims true, nor more credible. If any of this theory were supported by evidence you could have easily cited references, but you have not.

Methadone is actually a norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, which means it *increases* the activity of norpinephrine systems. Sympathetic amine activity of some opioids is a common topic in pain research.

Removing methadone after chronic administration ends the norepinephrine reuptake blockade, which, if anything, risks *decreasing* adrenal system activity. Generalized adrenal stimulation from opiate withdrawal may counteract this, but the main point is that norepinephrine is not particularly relevant to methadone withdrawal, nor is it generally the cause of opiate withdrawal symptoms. It is at most one part of a cascade of neurochemical changes during withdrawal, and it’s quite possibly only secondary to the actual causes of symptoms.

It’s harder to analyze your claims about sudafed because you’ve gone from claiming that it *is* norepinephrine to claiming that it only stimulates release of norepinephrine. Sudafed most certainly is not norepinephrine, and while it can precipitate the release of epinephrine and other sympathetic amines, its main action is to mimic the action of sympathetic amines (like norepinephrine). The following abstract cited below, just as an example, discusses both actions.

Although clonidine as some effects on epinephrine and norephinephrine levels, it is useful during withdrawal because it is an alpha-2 agonist which helps reduce sweating, shaking, high blood pressure, etc. Epinephrine and norepinephrine are part of the story of how alpha-2 agonists work, but “decreasing norepinephrine” is not what makes clonidine helpful for withdrawal.