Variances In The Composition Of Methadone May Be Affecting Drug Tests

I had been on 130 mg of methadone and nothing else for several yrs for neuropathic pain, and it helped so much! Anyway one month I picked up my refill... I started not sleeping and dropping weight like crazy. My heart was skipping and jumping off and on all day. Also my kidneys started aching. But it wasn't everyday. I did go see my reg. family dr and told him. They ran blood tests. Nothing. That dr insisted it was my back. Whatever. I knew it wasn't. I went in for my monthly refill again, I still hasn't realized it was my last refill of methadone that was affecting me. When my dr got the UA back, it tested positive for EVERYTHING! Methamphetamine, amphetamines, morphine, THC, PCP, buprenorphine and about 5 others. This tested for 13 different things. All positive. Thank god my dr knew me and believed me.

One thing I had noticed was that my pain wasn't being covered as well and sometimes about 30 mins after talking my methadone I would feel weird. Like I had consumed marijuana or something. I hate marijuana. Haven't touched it in over 30 yrs. So back to the UA. My doctor just kind of laughed and said, well we know there must be something wrong with that kit. No one would test positive for EVERYTHING. I laughed too. I didn't bother telling about the strange feelings I was having. I hadn't connected it yet to the methadone. But then it tested for everything 2 more times!!! By now I had told my dr what was happening to me. He thought maybe it was a different manufacturer and I was having a reaction to it. It wasn't different, it was still made by roxane. By now I knew it was the methadone that was affecting me. As more and more of my old methadone got out of my system the more side effects I was having from this "different methadone".

Sometimes they would dissolve instantly in my mouth. Like always. Sometime they did not. So I dumped out the pills and REALLY looked at them. Some were slightly thicker. They were thicker and just a tiny shade whiter. Tho the markings were the same, they weren't made neatly. They also had a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TASTE TOO!! They looked sort of beat up. Or maybe from the bottom of the pharmacy bottle. I didnt know. So then I put the taller tab in some water. It didn't dissolve at all! Nothing. Then I put the slightly shorter one in another glass of water. It was almost all the way dissolved within 5 seconds. Those ones, I was used to, broke down in my mouth almost instantly. They always had. I could never get them swallowed before they dissolved. Lol. The whiter taller ones had a strange bitter, dirty taste. It tasted COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than what they had always had. But the shorter ones tasted just like always. Bitter. But not dirty. I can't explain the taste. It reminded me of the smell of honing oil my husband used in his shop. YUCK! Anyway something had changed in the methadone. I was going into full on withdrawal. No pain relief, and honestly at the end of the nite I felt like I had taken the old diet pills from the 1960s!!! I did not have this effect from the shorter ones. So next I had to have methadone compounded for me. Custom made sort of.

My dr decided I had become allergic to new binders they were using in the pills. So I did great on the custom compounded water only base methadone. In fact without all the binders I could actually take less and got BETTER pain coverage too. So weird. Everything was fine for about 10 months. Then I got my monthly refill and once again I could feel the very subtle weird feelings. Oddly enough, this too had a slightly dirty taste to it. WTF? My insurance didn't cover compounded medications at all. I had just paid 700 dollars for something I couldn't take. This story is long. In fact even longer. There is more. Lol. But I won't tell it all. It happened again with MS CONTIN. My point is this, we don't know for a fact that these medications r not slightly contaminated by the other drugs they make. There is no one that tests the machinery between batches. They go by the honor system. This is true. I called several pharmaceutical companies and that is what they told me. It seems to me, if it was something u only took a few times u may not notice. It may not show up in a UA. But when u take something every single day, if there r other contaminates in it, they could begin to show up in a UA! Good luck getting a dr to believe or understand that.

It was a really scary thing. I still don't know what happened to my medication. The pharmacist at the manufacturing plants wouldn't talk about that. Also my doctor told me, there is no one checking the large containers of medical grade powders and crystals to make sure they are pure and are what they are supposed to be. I'm talking about the raw ingredients. Before they are mixed into pills. Mine test were NOT FALSE POSITIVES!! My UAs were showing positive because somehow I was getting it into my system. The medicine was affecting me badly. I had taken it for about 3 yrs. never had any reactions or positive UAs until this all happened. So u either had a false positive OR ur medicine was contaminated or u took methadone. Knowingly or unknowingly. If u didn't take methadone u will never know. Oh one more thing. Darvon can test positive for methadone. So maybe u took a darvon? They don't make it anymore it appears. Also I found out, cuz it happened one time, that naproxen will test positive for THC. Naproxen is also called aleve. This all true. It happened to me. I'm 60 yrs old. Non drug user or abuser. I rarely even tell people about this, cuz they don't believe it can happen. It did. Our drugs are almost ALL made in countries that hate us. Just saying....

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It's a shame we're at the mercy of most doctors etc. and company's. After all we're dummies. It's our body that hurts and they say you're crazy it must be your back. Today I had a doc tell me to get lost and come back in a week. Not in so many words !!!!!

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There's nothing like being in pain and you can feel doctors acting like you are some kind of trash pill popper. All u want is out of pain it's crazy. I live in Kansas city and haven't found doctor yet.any kansas city or overland park on here

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WOW !!! I've been taking ms contain for 19yrs. But in the last few months hv tested + for heroin, codeine & buprenaphen. Codeine I hvnt even SEEN in 40 yrs. Buprenaphen ? YTF wld I take something w Narcan???

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I have pain in my left leg on the left foot for 5 years I've been taking pills for pain, and I see a lower leg than the other one.

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I am having trouble testing positive for a drug I did not take, had no way of getting it but since I am new at the pain center I am going to they told me if I test positive for the drug again they will kick me out of their program. I have been taking a small 40 mg. methadone per day for several years, never had this problem before. I called my pharmacist and he told me there are OTC meds. I take every day that can cause me to test positive for many drugs. I don't know what to do. I have RSDS and have to take methadone. Any suggestions? I am sorry for your plight but I sure am glad to hear about this as maybe I can tell the Dr. and hope he will believe me. Good luck and hope you can get things straightened out.

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U don't say what the drug is that u tested positive for.
Google this:
False positives on drug test read their site. There r 100s of drugs that can test positive for something else.
For instance I think NyQuil can test positive for methadone.
ALEVE can test pos for THC.
Some antidepressant can test pos for benzodiazepines.
It happens.
I think there r decongestants that can test pos for meth.
So do ur homework. Google this: false positive with UAs.
There r several sites that u can go to.
Maybe u take a digestive enzyme.
Also there have been several vitamins for weight loss or for more energy out of China that tested positive for amphetamines.
They have been recalled several times.
A few yrs ago there was a vitamin/ herb mix for calm and sleep that tested pos for VALIUM!! It was recalled.
So u do have to be careful of what u take.
They used to say that a poppy seed muffin could make u test pos for opiates or heroin.
I don't know if that was true or not.

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Yup. I'd never been able to take mallincrodt methadone. It made my heart skip and race. So my pharmacist new to always order Roxan methadone. Then I got a bad batch. That happened to me about 5 yrs ago. Not only did my UAs come back positive FOR EVERYTHING, from morphine to oxy to THC benso, it was thirteen different things I tested positive for. It was making sick.
I knew something was wrong with me, but it took a while to figure out it was the last refill of methadone I'd gotten. I still had some from the previous month left over. So I took those. My bad symptoms we've away. Then I tested the new refill again. Yup. Same thing made me sick. It happened with the nest refill too. My dr changed to me to MS Contin. About 9 months later it started up AGAIN!
So then I had my methadone compounded. Made for me. While I wait. Liquid. No binders or powders. Just methadone crystal and distilled water by the pharmacist. It was ground up methadone pills and water. It was pure methadone crystal powder and water. It worked just like it should.
In fact I had to reduce my dose.
30 mgs of methadone powder was A LOT stronger than the pre made methadone pills.
For me it wasn't that the tests weren't working right, the medicine was making me very very sick. Really scary symptoms. I hope u figure it out.
Oh. Here's the other thing I did to confirm it was the methadone. I bought a drug testing kit and put 3 methadone tablets in it with kind of warm, not hot warm water. It STILL tested positive.
When I told a pharmacist about he said he was shocked. Infact I SHOWED IT TO MY DOCTOR.
My dr new me for a long time. Before I ever took medicine.
I hope ur dr or clinic or what ever will work with u.
There r other drugs and over the counter stuff that will cause a false positive. R u taking anything else? Diet or work out vitamins? Sleeping aids antibiotics, allergy meds? Those can all give false positive.
Good luck.

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One other things. Both kidney infections or disease and liver disease can cause false positives. U might get checked for that.
R u diabetic? Diabetis can affect the kidneys. Hepatitis c ur liver.
U don't have to be a drug addict to have gotten hep c. Blood transfusions before 1997 I think, was when they started testing for hepc. Also a glammuglobulin shot can do it. Rare but happens. Also tattoos before the 2005?
But it u got a tattoo in a tent at a festival I wouldNT count on them to follow rules. They r rare, but they r finding more and more pockets of people that had colonoscopies done where equipment was not properly sanitized. Other surgical transitions have happened. Dentistry in 3 rd world countries passing hep c is common. They r starting to find pockets of that too. Not because the dentist had hepc, but because autoclave used to sanitize dental tools may not have been working properly.
So get tested. Everyone should get tested. That way ifvthey r negative and ever do get it, they can pinpoint how and when they got it easilier.
Hep c doesn't affect u right away. It takes about 15-20 yrs. it's like aids in some sense.
Infact I recently read that more people die from hep than aids.
Ok so now that I've scared the crap out of you, I hope this info helps.
I hope ur dr or clinic will work with u.
I think U have a right to ask for a test outside of the office. Some sort of chromatography test. I can't remember what it's all called. But it's much more sensatives. If u r getting false positives it can tell u WHY. WHAT DRUG IS causing that too happen.
Take care.

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And I have the other problem. False negatives. I have been on methadone for 20 years and take pain meds as well oxymorphone and dilaudid those meds for the last 6 years and for some reason I keep showing up positive for Methadone. Nothing else in my system when I get a swab test yet when I am given a urine test all the drug show up. Sadly I get my methadone at a methadone maintenance program and the pain meds at pain management my pain management doctor has no problem with me I even told them about what happened and as far as they're concerned the swab tests are unreliable for many reasons but the program has come up with all kinds of crazy ideas yet they change the squad manufacturer 3 weeks after I brought this to their attention after all I noticed a problem and wanted to make them aware of it. Needless to say after all my research I found out that swab test are indeed unreliable there are too many factors that can affect the outcome of these tests and wondering if you might have any information that I might use to help me provide additional information to my program to educate them because it is a pound that they have failed to educate themselves

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Re: Jude (# 5)

I tested positive for Klonopin and when the doc told me I about fell out of my chair as I have never taken the drug so how can I test positive for it? No amount of denial does any good either. Thanks.

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Yes. I believe this is a significant and underreported phenomenon. And the kicker is most clinitions believe a urine test is absolutely accurate beyond any doubt. It's not. I've studied in the area quite awhile and I can tell you that these drug companies that outsource for low cost labor in other countries have a terrible quality control track record. I had the same issue. I had been taking my regular pain meds when a forced (I believe in freewill when it comes to tests but I digress).urine test showed Morphine in it!. I hadn't had to take morphine for a few years. I couldn't tolerate it. The pain specialist kind of shook it off and believed me but my primarily MD absolutely believes I'm a hopeless drug addict and she treats me accordingly and tries to slip in urine test for fentynl when I get labs. I refuse those and am xxissed as hell at her for trying to trick me into something that would be harmful to every aspect of my life should I get a false positive. If you take urine tests enough times you will get a false positive for something. But back to your point. It's been in the news recently that India has new pharmaceutical plants sprouting up everywhere with unsafe quality controls. All those opiate compounds are similar and I bet little care is taken in keeping them well separated. With cleaned equipment after each batch. It's really both ends of complexity and laxity of urine testing., and a chronic pain patient is in the bulls eye if any little deviation from what they think is normal behavior and normal pain , etc. Pain and treatments are highly variable and furthest from normal more often than not. I'm finally getting a dorsal spinal stimulate r so I can rid myself of this constant treatment of a person that I am not. I'll be so glad when I don't have to take pain meds. It's as treacherous as the pain in many ways.

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Re: Postal canary (# 6)

The problem is convincing the clinician that the lab makes errors and med factory's have contaminants. We (I'm a long time RN critical care) are taught to believe these tests and to know all the interactions that may effect them. There has been no updates for clinicians on the state of lab errors and factory mishaps.

I know until I personally had a problem with this I would always believe the lab over a person taking addictive drugs. It's a difficult thing. They need to see it in research papers to believe the lab could possibly be wrong. God help you too if you are new to your MD. I lie detector test wouldn't be believable over a lab test. We were taught to believe the lab and the pharmacies are so tightly regulated it would be nearly impossible for an error to occur. I'm not joking. It must be in peer reviewed research documents before this mindset can be enlightened.

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