Effects of Mixing Methadone & Dilaudid

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is John Bosworth. I'm a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and private practice in St. Pete, Florida. I like to speak a little bit about the effects methadone with dilaudid. Dilaudid like methadone is a narcotic analgesic or painkiller. So dilaudid has basically the same effect on the central nervous system and gastro-intestinal tract that methadone has. And the danger of combining the two is, let's, let's look at an analogy like an alcohol. Let's say somebody's drinking a shot of alcohol at a party and they feel pretty good. So they think, "Well, I'll have another shot". So they, they have another shot and they're actually feeling pretty good but what happens is the alcohol doesn't get metabolize in the system; you know based after that first shot or second shot, it starts to build up. But with painkillers or with any other drugs, you have the same effect and with methadone and dilaudid, since both of them act on the central nervous system of the user and the gastro-intestinal tract, what you'll see is an exponential increase in the actual effect of the drug. And the effect of the drug basically is, you know, to block the opioid receptors and to produce basically a euphoric effect where it prevents the pain receptors from being activated in the brain. So when there's a double amount or an amount of methadone and dilaudid mixed, the brain actually, the signals in the brain become very, become very confused actually. And what happens is, the central nervous system becomes acted upon in an exponentially increased way or intense way and can produce many, many side effects such as labored breathing, rapid or irregular heartbeat or really weak pulse or weak heartbeat which is what we have to be real careful because if that continues and it's acted upon on the central nervous system, respiration can become so compromised and so depressed that the person could actually go into not only respiratory distress but cardiac arrhythmias, cardiac arrest and even coma, seize, seizures or even death at that point if there's enough in the system. So what we really want to do is be careful when mixing any kind of opioid and make sure that it's done under, you know, a medical professional or psychiatrist and make sure that the levels are constantly checked. My name is John Bosworth and I'm speaking about the effects of mixing methadone with dilaudid."