following stabilisation on methadone the dose can be reduced at a rate which will result in zero in around 12 weeks. This is usually a reduction of around 5 mg every one or two weeks. Patients often prefer a faster reduction at the beginning although there is no research evidence to indicate the superiority of a linear or exponential dose reduction (1)
an example of a faster detoxification programme is a reduction in methadone dose of 5mg per day until the daily dose of methadone is 40mg per day - thereafter the dose could be reduced by 5mg on alternate days (2)
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