How to Understand The dangers of Methadone with Dr Rodriquez and Delray Center

The dangers of Methadone
"So lets talk about the dangers of methadone. Methadone is a medication that carries of a lot of urban legend, a lot of phulpur, and a lot of mixed public opinion. Some of the real facts about Methadone is that yes it is an effective treatment for heroin and opioid dependence. It is also an effective pain medication and coming off of Methadone in terms of withdrawal is more difficult then regular opiates. However, what is little known about Methadone is that it is extremely dangerous in overdose. Much more so then pretty much any other opiate out there. The problem with Methadone is that it can kill you two different ways. both of which usually accidentally. The first is by simple overdose, just taking too much. The problem with methadone is that its hard to gauge how much is too much. Somebody and a very large amount of heroin or oxycodone, a very large amount might think wow I can take a large amount of Methadone also I am very tolerant, and usually that's true. However, rather often its not true. And a person will experience a rather sensitive response to Methadone. Where a small dose will suppress the original symptoms and a slightly larger dose that is still overall pretty small will cause them to overdose and possibly die without medical attention. That is one of the main problems with Methadone. Is that and that tendency is rather unpredictable and it's different from person to person and within the same person its different from one year to the next, from one month to the next, even from one week to the next. It really changes you know even within the same person over the course of time. The other way that Methadone can kill a person is through an arrhythmia of the heart, where it stops your heart. This tends to happen at higher doses, but can happen at lower doses this is at a dose where the person may have not overdosed. Like they would have expected too, or thought they might have. But rather they just have an arrhythmia and there heart stops. It will kill them just the same that effect is also some what unpredictable and really this is why people on Methadone for pain maintenance or for relapse prevention maintenance need to be checked as far as there EKG, as far as there heart rhythm regularly. To make sure that they are not having any kind of arrhythmia that could escalate to a problem. At the higher doses it is more of a problem."
West Palm Beach FL, Delray Beach FL, Boca Raton FL, Boynton Beach FL, Lantana FL, Ft Lauderdale FL, Parkland FL, Pompano FL, Deerfield Beach FL Raul J Rodriguez MD, a double Board Certified Psychiatrist and Addictionologist, discusses addiction and family history http://www.delraycenter.com

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[Whiterobot1]

Now I'm not saying that anybody can take it and be safe. But when prescribed properly, it is one of the safest medications out there. It's one of the only pain meds that doesn't produce a high in it's theraputic dose, unlike many others such as oxycodone. It comes down the to prescriber truly KNOWING how to use this medicine.

[Whiterobot1]

It is a very safe medication, it can be dangerous though, just like too much of anything. Toxicity is the problem, it takes up to a week to get a steady level of methadone, that 20mg has doubled in the bodyy after a week of dosing. It ultimately comes down to STARTING LOW, GO SLOW. Methadone is very safe and well tested, most GP's don't know how to prescribe and use methadone safely. a non tol patient should be on 2.5mg twice daily to start, up to 3x daily. And titrated a week after.