I took methadone for 4 years and then moved to Oklahoma and changed doctors. My new doc wanted to do an EKG on me because I had never had one and he said that methadone can cause the interval between heartbeats to be to long and cause sudden death. It's called the QT Interval. I thought he was being over protective and just covering his butt since I was a new patient but when we got my EKG back my QT Interval was almost in the danger zone. He immediately began weaning me off of it and switched me to a different medication that does not affect the heart that way. I made a comment that I would rather be in pain than have heart trouble and he corrected me and said "oh there's no heart trouble with the QT Interval. Just sudden death with no warning whatsoever". I was in shock. He checks all of his methadone patients once a year and will not keep prescribing it without the EKG.
Anyway... just wanted to pass that along for anyone on it whose doc does not really know about this. The same week as mine he caught a lady who was way past the danger zone. He sent the police/medics to her work to get her! Now that I am off of it and have been for over a month the interval is back to normal. It's totally reversible - just have to quit taking the drug.
Anyway... just wanted to pass that along for anyone on it whose doc does not really know about this. The same week as mine he caught a lady who was way past the danger zone. He sent the police/medics to her work to get her! Now that I am off of it and have been for over a month the interval is back to normal. It's totally reversible - just have to quit taking the drug.
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