[blue_indiana_girl_46534]

My mom has been taking methadone for the last 2 and a half years. She is having all kinds of problems.. We have inform her doctors but they just say that its not caused by the methadone.. She has swelling of the legs and hands, her sleep patterns are not normal, she has a hard time going to the restroom.. Is there anyone out there who are on methadone and having the same kind of problems and if so what can we do to releave her symptoms?

[Jenblossom]

Not familiar w/ the med.Try looking it up on wrongdiagnosis.comThere you can enter the symptoms and see if any are caused by the medication.Hope you get answers and help for your Mom soon!Much luck!

[Thomas B]

have her get a liver function test..her liver may be damaged that causes swelling and fluid retention

[Elizabeth]

Is she on Methadone due to having a medical condition that causes Chronic Pain?The symptoms you listed are very common in people who have chronic pain.The swelling of the legs and hands is often caused by inactivity because a person with chronic pain is often too ill to exercise or engage in even mild activity.Abnormal sleep patterns is a major problem is almost all chronic pain patients. The pain interferes with sleep and can cause a person to toss and turn all night and can also cause a persons sleep/awake cycle to get all out of whack (sleeping in the day and being awake at night and never having a"normal"sleep schedule).A hard time going to the restroom - do you mean a hard time urinating? Having constipation? or a hard time walking to and from the bathroom?Have you (or your mom) ever visited and online patient support group for people with chronic pain? You may find a lot of info and support by talking to other patients.Braintalk.org Neurotalk.org healthboards.com all have patient support groups for chronic pain.Finally, Methadone can (in some cases) can cause a side effect of fluid retention in patients (which could cause some of the symptoms you described). However, often the doctor will monitor the side effect, or treat the side effect with supportive therapy, but will leave the patient on the medication because the doctor and patient decide that the overall benefits of the medication are far greater than the small side effects.For people with chronic conditions this weighing of benefits and risks with medications is very very common, and many patients are willing to accept a certain level of side effects in order to get relief from the chronic (and painful) condition/illness/disease that they suffer from.