Pure Conversation, with Pure247Radio
Jun 30, 2026 · 31 min · 12 segments
Each week, Dr. Richard Scott joins Andy B to discuss all things medical. You can send in your health related questions to hello@pure247radio.org…
Andy BHostThe reason I was so sort of challenged by it was, you know, you're facing with people and they say, well, I need some methadone.
If I'm doing well, can we begin to reduce the dose? you then work with drug agencies who say oh yeah that's great i'm glad you got this person on but make sure you reduce it over the next few months then someone has a relapse they either go to prison or they take heroin on top which we'll come to in a moment then you have to up the dose so it's quite a business plus it was unbelievably irritating at the beginning because we had to do everything twice on the computer and handwritten prescriptions because it's a controlled drug so That was my life for ages, having to do both.
But a little bit more about methadone, because this is obviously a talk for our listeners and yourself, not for medical students or young doctors.
So what do we need to know? It's probably not that advanced for that sort of training.
Well, I'll give you enough, really, because it is important, and it's still, it's been going many years.
So it is a long-acting, and that's the key point, a long-acting synthetic, so it's made by man, opioid.
example morphine which can be illicit or prescribed by doctors oxycodone massive problem with addiction in america with oxycodone so many thousands of people dying from overdoses in america over every year oxycodone is a massive drug and a massive problem um but the reason all these things including methadone are important is because they are such powerful painkillers Now, therefore, methadone, you might imagine, could be used to treat pain, and indeed it can, but it isn't, because we have other painkillers for that.
It's used in opioid addiction, how to get people off other more dangerous opioids.
And the way it works is all of these things, heroin, morphine, oxycodone, methadone, bind to opioid receptors in the brain so if you take an opioid whether it's by mouth or injection or then you can it goes straight to the brain through the blood binds the receptors and you get this euphoric hit which is why people take it and methadone of course being an opioid binds to the same receptors but without giving you the same hit because it acts very slowly over 24 to 36 hours it's not an instant effect Now, that's really important.
How do you take it? Well, it's a pink liquid and you take it in controlled fashions or amounts, usually from drug clinics, although GP's, if they have some interest and ability, can also prescribe it.
The reason I was so sort of challenged by it was, you know, you're facing with people and they say, well, I need some methadone.
If I'm doing well, can we begin to reduce the dose? you then work with drug agencies who say oh yeah that's great i'm glad you got this person on but make sure you reduce it over the next few months then someone has a relapse they either go to prison or they take heroin on top which we'll come to in a moment then you have to up the dose so it's quite a business plus it was unbelievably irritating at the beginning because we had to do everything twice on the computer and handwritten prescriptions because it's a controlled drug so That was my life for ages, having to do both.
But a little bit more about methadone, because this is obviously a talk for our listeners and yourself, not for medical students or young doctors.
So what do we need to know? It's probably not that advanced for that sort of training.
Well, I'll give you enough, really, because it is important, and it's still, it's been going many years.
So it is a long-acting, and that's the key point, a long-acting synthetic, so it's made by man, opioid.
example morphine which can be illicit or prescribed by doctors oxycodone massive problem with addiction in america with oxycodone so many thousands of people dying from overdoses in america over every year oxycodone is a massive drug and a massive problem um but the reason all these things including methadone are important is because they are such powerful painkillers Now, therefore, methadone, you might imagine, could be used to treat pain, and indeed it can, but it isn't, because we have other painkillers for that.
It's used in opioid addiction, how to get people off other more dangerous opioids.
And the way it works is all of these things, heroin, morphine, oxycodone, methadone, bind to opioid receptors in the brain so if you take an opioid whether it's by mouth or injection or then you can it goes straight to the brain through the blood binds the receptors and you get this euphoric hit which is why people take it and methadone of course being an opioid binds to the same receptors but without giving you the same hit because it acts very slowly over 24 to 36 hours it's not an instant effect Now, that's really important.
How do you take it? Well, it's a pink liquid and you take it in controlled fashions or amounts, usually from drug clinics, although GP's, if they have some interest and ability, can also prescribe it.
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