Prescription opioid dependence · Mexico City
Ibogaine Treatment For Oxycodone Addiction
The drug you are trying to stop may already be doing what we screen you for.
At higher daily doses oxycodone lengthens the QT interval. Ibogaine lengthens it too. That single overlap is why a long-term prescription patient gets a stricter cardiac workup here than someone who used for 6 months, and why the dose you are on matters as much as the years you have been on it.
The short answer
What is ibogaine treatment for oxycodone addiction?
Ibogaine treatment for oxycodone addiction is 1 physician-supervised dose, given on day 3 of a 7-day inpatient stay under continuous cardiac monitoring, to interrupt opioid withdrawal and reduce craving.
- What it treats
- Dependence on oxycodone and hydrocodone, whether the tablets came from a pharmacy or from somewhere else
- Also covered here
- OxyContin, Percocet, Vicodin and Norco, each with its own section below, because the acetaminophen in 3 of them changes the screen
- What decides eligibility
- A 12-lead EKG read by a cardiologist against written thresholds, your current daily dose, potassium and magnesium, a liver panel, and your full medication list
- Protocol
- 1 dose, day 3 of 7, inpatient, Mexico City
- Price
- $12,500, itemised, with 90 days of follow-up
- What it is not
- A cure, an FDA-approved treatment, or something given to anyone whose heart falls outside the written thresholds
Tell us your actual daily dose, not the prescribed one. The difference between them is a clinical fact, not a confession, and it changes the plan.
The overlap nobody mentions
Oxycodone and ibogaine pull on the same interval.
Ibogaine’s known risk is that it lengthens the heart’s QT interval. What most clinics will not tell an oxycodone patient is that at higher doses their own prescription does a smaller version of the same thing. The 2 do not cancel out. They stack.
How the screen thinks about your QT interval
The blocks above are a picture of the reasoning, not a measurement of you. Nobody can tell you the size of your own segments without a 12-lead EKG, which is exactly the point. What the cardiologist is asking is whether there is still headroom once your current dose and a full ibogaine dose are both accounted for. If there is not, the answer is no, and the EKG is the only thing that can say so.
10 ms
Per 100 mg of daily oxycodone
In 100 chronic pain patients, each 100mg higher daily oxycodone dose was associated with a QTc roughly 10 milliseconds longer (Fanoe and colleagues, 2009). Small on its own. Not small when something else is being added on top.
Middle
Where oxycodone sits on the risk scale
A 2018 review of opioids and arrhythmia puts methadone at high risk even at low doses, oxycodone and tramadol at intermediate risk at high doses, and morphine and buprenorphine at low risk. Which opioid you are on is a real variable, not a detail.
Days
How long ibogaine’s effect lasts
Ibogaine’s active metabolite keeps the QT effect running well past the visible experience, which is why monitoring continues overnight and into day 4 and is not shortened for anyone.
What this means in practice: a patient on a high daily dose is not refused for that reason, but they are screened harder, they are more likely to be asked to reduce under their own prescriber first, and they are more likely to hear not yet before they hear yes. The opioid overview covers the parts that are the same for every opioid.
5 products, 2 molecules
Which drug you were prescribed.
People arrive naming a brand rather than a drug. The brand matters less than 2 things: which opioid is in it, and whether it also contains acetaminophen. This is the whole comparison in one screen, and each product has its own section below.
| Compare | OxyContinBrand | PercocetBrand | HydrocodoneGeneric | VicodinBrand | NorcoBrand |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opioid in it | Oxycodone | Oxycodone | Hydrocodone | Hydrocodone | Hydrocodone |
| Acetaminophen | None | Yes | Not on its own | Yes | Yes |
| Release | Extended | Immediate | Immediate or extended | Immediate | Immediate |
| US schedule | II | II | II since 2014 | II since 2014 | II since 2014 |
| What it changes here | Longer-acting, so the taper and the timing are planned differently | Liver panel and an acetaminophen history | Nothing on the liver, everything on the dose | Liver panel and an acetaminophen history | Liver panel, and the ratio is why the count is usually higher |
Codeine, tramadol, morphine and tapentadol are treated on the same opioid protocol and are not listed here. Methadone and buprenorphine are handled separately, because both need a planned transition with your own prescriber before any dose of ibogaine is possible.
Product by product
What each one changes about your case.
The treatment is the same for all 5. The screening is not. Below is what the physician looks for when you say each of these names on the first call.
- Opioid
- Oxycodone
- Acetaminophen
- None
- Release
- Extended, designed for 12-hour dosing
- Screen focus
- Total daily dose and the QT interval
Ibogaine treatment for OxyContin addiction
OxyContin is extended-release oxycodone. Because it is built to release over 12 hours, daily doses run higher than immediate-release tablets, and the daily total is the number that matters for the cardiac screen, not how many tablets you take. Someone on 2 tablets a day can be on more oxycodone than someone taking 6 of something else.
There is also a history worth naming. When OxyContin was reformulated in 2010 to resist crushing, misuse of the tablet fell, but the economists who tracked what happened next found that total overdose deaths did not. In the states where OxyContin misuse had been highest, heroin deaths climbed from 2011 and synthetic opioid deaths from 2013. If you started on OxyContin and ended up somewhere you never planned to be, that is a documented path, not a personal failure.
Practically, an extended-release opioid is planned differently from an immediate-release one. The physician sets the sequence in writing before any deposit.
- Opioid
- Oxycodone
- Acetaminophen
- Yes, up to 325mg per tablet
- Release
- Immediate
- Screen focus
- Liver panel, plus how many a day and for how long
Percocet: oxycodone with acetaminophen
Percocet is oxycodone combined with acetaminophen. The opioid half behaves like any other immediate-release oxycodone. The acetaminophen half is the reason this section exists, because ibogaine is cleared by the liver, and the screen already includes a liver panel.
Since a 2011 FDA rule, prescription combination products carry no more than 325mg of acetaminophen per tablet, and they carry a boxed warning about liver failure. The recommended ceiling for an adult is 4,000mg of acetaminophen a day from all sources. The arithmetic is unforgiving: 12 tablets at 325mg is 3,900mg, which is under the line with nothing to spare, before any over-the-counter cold medicine.
So on a Percocet case we ask 2 extra questions on the first call: how many tablets a day, and for how many years. Neither answer disqualifies you. Both change which liver values we want to see before a date is set.
- Opioid
- Hydrocodone
- Acetaminophen
- Not on its own
- Release
- Immediate or extended
- Screen focus
- Daily dose and what else is in the tablet
Hydrocodone addiction and ibogaine
Hydrocodone is a different molecule from oxycodone, and for a long time it was the most prescribed opioid in the United States. In 2014 the US moved hydrocodone combination products from Schedule III to Schedule II, which made refills harder to get. For a lot of people that was the year the prescription stopped and something else started.
For our purposes hydrocodone is treated on the same opioid protocol as oxycodone. The withdrawal is the same kind of problem, the dose still drives the cardiac question, and what matters most is whether your tablets were hydrocodone alone or hydrocodone with acetaminophen, which is what Vicodin and Norco are.
If you do not know which you were taking, bring the bottle or the pharmacy record to the screening call. We would rather read it than have you guess.
- Opioid
- Hydrocodone
- Acetaminophen
- Yes
- Release
- Immediate
- Screen focus
- Liver panel, and how far back the use goes
Vicodin: the same drug, an older ratio
Vicodin is hydrocodone with acetaminophen. What makes it worth its own section is timing: older Vicodin tablets carried considerably more acetaminophen than anything dispensed today, because the FDA’s 325mg cap only took effect for prescription combination products in January 2014.
If your use goes back before then, the acetaminophen load in those years was higher per tablet than the same tablet count would be now. That does not mean damage was done. It means the liver panel is worth reading properly rather than glancing at, and it is why we ask when you started rather than only what you take now.
Everything else about a Vicodin case is a standard opioid case: the withdrawal, the dose, the EKG, the 7 days.
- Opioid
- Hydrocodone
- Acetaminophen
- Yes, at a lower ratio
- Release
- Immediate
- Screen focus
- Tablet count, which is usually the highest of the 5
Norco: more hydrocodone, less acetaminophen
Norco is the same 2 ingredients as Vicodin at a different ratio: more hydrocodone relative to acetaminophen. That ratio was the selling point, because it let the opioid dose rise without the acetaminophen rising as fast.
It also means Norco patients often arrive with the highest tablet counts of anyone on this page, and a higher daily opioid total than they realise. The acetaminophen question is still asked, but on a Norco case the number the physician tends to circle is the opioid one, because that is the number feeding back into the cardiac screen at the top of this page.
If you are taking more than the label says, say the real number. It is the single most useful sentence on the first call.
The half nobody counts
The acetaminophen ceiling, and how close a normal day gets.
This applies to Percocet, Vicodin and Norco, not to OxyContin or plain oxycodone. It is not a reason we turn people away. It is a reason the liver panel is read carefully instead of ticked off.
0 mg4 tablets8 tablets12 tablets
12 tablets at 325mg = 3,900mgCeiling 4,000mg a day
Where the 325mg comes from
A 2011 FDA rule capped prescription combination products at 325mg of acetaminophen per tablet and required a boxed warning about acute liver failure. Compliance was required by January 2014, so anything dispensed since then sits at or under that figure.
Why 4,000mg is not a safe target
It is a ceiling, not a goal, and it counts every source including cold and flu remedies and over-the-counter painkillers. The FDA has estimated roughly 1,600 cases of acute liver failure a year in the US are linked to acetaminophen.
What we do with it
We ask how many combination tablets a day and for how long, then read AST, ALT, GGT and bilirubin against that answer. Values outside range are a not yet, pending correction and a recheck, rather than a no.
If you have been taking more tablets than prescribed, the acetaminophen total is the reason that number matters medically rather than morally. It is the same conversation we have on the alcohol page, where the liver is also the gate.
Before we set a date
Where the tablets came from changes the plan.
If your last oxycodone came from a pharmacy against your name, we know what was in it. If it came from anywhere else, we do not, and neither do you. That is not a judgement. It is the difference between 2 clinical plans.
Dispensed to you by name
From a pharmacy
- The molecule and the strength are known, and so is the acetaminophen content if there is any
- Your daily total can be calculated rather than estimated
- The pharmacy record is something the physician can read directly
- Planning works from facts, and the date tends to hold
Bought as oxycodone
From anywhere else
- Counterfeit tablets are pressed to look like real oxycodone, including the common 30mg tablet
- What is inside them is usually fentanyl, at a dose that varies pill to pill
- Your real exposure may be a fentanyl exposure, which needs the longer washout
- We plan for fentanyl until testing says otherwise, and the date moves with it
5 in 10
Roughly half of the fake pills DEA tested carried 2mg or more of fentanyl, an amount that can be fatal depending on tolerance.
1.94 mg
Average fentanyl content of a counterfeit pill analysed in 2024, ranging from 1.58mg to 2.18mg. The variation between pills is the danger.
61.1 M
Counterfeit pills seized in the US in 2024, down 24% on the year before. Fewer in circulation, not safer per pill.
Figures from the DEA’s 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment. Older DEA statements put the share between 4 and 6 in 10, and we quote the most recent assessment rather than the highest number. If your answers point toward pressed tablets, we move you onto the fentanyl protocol, and nothing about that costs you more.
The evidence
What is known, claim by claim.
Start with the limit that matters most: no published study reports ibogaine outcomes for oxycodone specifically. The opioid research included people dependent on prescription opioids, but none of it breaks results out by which opioid. Anyone who quotes you an oxycodone success rate has made it up.
It interrupts opioid withdrawal
Withdrawal scores fell within 36 hours of a single dose across 102 opioid-dependent inpatients treated in a monitored facility (Mash and colleagues, 2018). This is the most consistently reported finding in the whole literature and the one people come for.
Best supported · open label, no control group
It reduces use in the months afterward
12 of 30 people reported a 75% reduction in opioid use at 30 days, and about 1 in 3 reported abstinence at 3 months (Brown and Alper, 2018). Small sample, self-reported, no comparison group.
Moderate · 30 people, self-reported
The effect can hold at 12 months
Drug-use scores stayed significantly reduced at 1 year in 14 people in New Zealand, of whom 8 completed every interview (Noller and colleagues, 2018). It is the only year-long follow-up published, and 1 participant died during treatment.
Thin · 14 people, 1 death in the series
Oxycodone patients do better, or worse, than other opioid patients
Nothing published supports either direction. No study separates prescription-opioid patients from heroin or fentanyl patients when reporting outcomes, so the honest answer is that the question has not been asked.
No evidence either way · not studied
It is safe when the screening is done properly
A 2026 preprint covering 19,071 patients across 11 clinics under modern screening protocols reported a mortality rate of 0.03%, with all 6 deaths occurring in opioid cases. The forensic review of 19 earlier deaths found pre-existing heart disease or other drugs explained most of them.
Moderate, preprint · not yet peer reviewed, clinic-reported
It is a cure
No. Every study measures a reduction in use, not resolution of dependence, and no randomised controlled trial of ibogaine for opioid dependence has been published. The 90 days of follow-up exist because the session is a starting point.
No evidence · contradicted by every source
Who we turn away
3 questions that decide most oxycodone cases.
Every answer arrives in writing with the reason. Any deposit is refunded in full, and where we can we hand you a referral to a clinician near you. Nobody is passed to another clinic for a fee.
What does your EKG say, and at what daily dose?
A 12-lead EKG read by a cardiologist against written thresholds, interpreted alongside the dose you take, not the dose on the label. This is the question that ends most cases one way or the other.
No
Structural heart disease, heart failure, a prior cardiac event, conduction disease, or a QTc above threshold with no correctable cause.
Not yet
A borderline interval driven by a high dose, where reducing under your own prescriber first and retesting can change the answer.
What else is on your medication list?
Prescription opioid patients usually arrive with a longer list than anyone else on this site, because the pain that started it was often treated by more than 1 clinician. Other prescriptions lengthen the QT interval on their own.
No
Benzodiazepine dependence as the main problem, because that withdrawal can cause seizures and ibogaine does not shorten the taper.
Not yet
A QT-prolonging medication your own prescriber has not yet agreed a plan for, or methadone, which is never combined with ibogaine and needs a transition first.
Where did the last tablets come from?
Pharmacy or not. This sets the washout and decides whether you are planned as an oxycodone case or a fentanyl case, and it is the question people most often answer carefully rather than honestly.
Either answer is fine
Telling us the truth about what you have used is never a reason for a no. It has never once been the thing that disqualified somebody.
Not yet
Significant fentanyl exposure that moves you onto the longer washout, or use during the washout window. Tell us and the date moves, with no penalty.
Pregnancy or breastfeeding and anyone under 18 are a no on every page, along with wanting the dose without the screening, the 7 days or the follow-up. The full decline list covers every dependence we treat.
Common questions
Oxycodone and ibogaine, answered plainly.
Most of what decides a prescription-opioid case is an EKG, a daily dose and a medication list. The screening call exists for exactly that, and it costs nothing.
Does ibogaine work for oxycodone addiction specifically?
The opioid evidence applies to oxycodone, but no published study reports outcomes for oxycodone on its own. What is documented is that withdrawal scores fell within 36 hours of a single dose in 102 opioid-dependent inpatients, and that a smaller series reported reduced use at 30 days and 3 months. None of those papers separates prescription-opioid patients from heroin or fentanyl patients, so anyone quoting you an oxycodone-specific number has invented it.
My dose is high. Does that disqualify me?
Not by itself, and it is one of the more common worries on the first call. A high daily dose does 2 things: it raises the chance that your QT interval is already lengthened, and it makes the cardiologist’s reading more decisive. Some high-dose patients are asked to reduce under their own prescriber and retest before a date is set. That is a not yet, it is given in writing with the reason, and it is reversible.
Is ibogaine treatment different for OxyContin than for immediate-release oxycodone?
The dose day and the monitoring are identical. What differs is the planning around it, because an extended-release opioid clears on a different schedule from an immediate-release one, and because OxyContin daily totals tend to be higher. The physician sets the sequence for your case in writing before any deposit exists.
Does the acetaminophen in Percocet, Vicodin or Norco matter?
Yes, for the liver rather than the heart. Ibogaine is cleared by the liver and the screen already includes a liver panel, so a long history of combination tablets means those values get read properly rather than glanced at. We ask how many tablets a day and for how many years. Prescription combination products have been capped at 325mg of acetaminophen per tablet since a 2011 FDA rule, with a ceiling of 4,000mg a day from all sources. Liver values outside range are a not yet, not a no.
I have been buying pills that were sold to me as oxycodone. What changes?
The plan changes, and usually the timeline with it. Counterfeit tablets pressed to look like oxycodone typically contain fentanyl rather than oxycodone, at a dose that varies from pill to pill. DEA analysis of 2024 samples found the average fake pill held 1.94mg of fentanyl and that roughly half carried 2mg or more. Because fentanyl stores in fat and leaves slowly, it needs a longer washout, so we plan for fentanyl until testing says otherwise. Saying so on the first call costs you nothing and protects the dosing day.
I am on methadone or buprenorphine now, after oxycodone. Can I still come?
Not directly, and this is the most common reason a prescription-opioid case is deferred. Methadone prolongs the QT interval on its own and is never combined with ibogaine. Buprenorphine binds tightly and for a long time. Either one needs a planned transition to a short-acting opioid, arranged by our psychiatrist with your own prescriber first, on a timeline measured in weeks rather than days.
Will I go into withdrawal before the dose?
There is a washout window before dosing and its length is set by the physician for your case, so some withdrawal before the session is expected. It is medically managed on days 1 and 2 of the stay rather than endured alone, with the nurse on site through the night, and potassium and magnesium corrected before any dose is given. You are never asked to detox by yourself before travelling.
What does it cost, and what is not included?
$12,500 for the 7 days and the 90 days of follow-up, the same for every dependence we treat. Not included: flights, the EKG and labs your own doctor orders before screening, extra nights beyond 7, medications prescribed after discharge, and family accommodation outside the facility. All of it is itemised on the pricing page.
Screening costs nothing
Find out whether your heart has the headroom, before you plan anything else.
3 questions on the contact page. A physician or nurse calls you back within 1 business day and tells you which tests to order at home. The answer comes in writing, whether it is yes, not yet, or no.