Mixing Methadone and Opioids
Dangerous
Methadone is still there whether you feel it or not, and it blunts other opioids, so people take more of them. Do not combine. Keep naloxone nearby.
Using heroin or oxycodone on top of methadone is dosing into an opioid load that is still there whether or not you feel it. Because methadone blunts the effect people are chasing, the usual response is to take more of the full agonist, which is precisely the wrong direction.
The risk here is to the body — breathing, heart, temperature or organs. Set limits before you start, because this kind of harm does not announce itself in time to react.
Headspace vs physical riskWhat to do
- Say what was taken and how much.Responders need it, and in most US states Good Samaritan laws protect both of you from drug possession charges when you call for an overdose.
- Unresponsive: put them on their side, tilt the head back, and stay until help arrives.Never leave someone alone to “sleep it off”.
- Give naloxone (Narcan) if you have it.It is sold over the counter in every US state and does no harm if opioids turn out not to be involved.
- Never Use Alone 1-800-484-3731Stays on the line and sends help if you stop responding.
- Full steps: what to do if it is already happeningOverdose signs, the recovery position, what to say on the call, and whether you can be charged for making it.
- Poison Control 1-800-222-1222Free and 24/7, for “is this bad?” before it becomes an emergency.
Can you mix Methadone and Opioids?
MixSafe rates mixing Methadone and Opioids as "Dangerous" — high risk of death or life-changing injury. Do not combine. Source: MixSafe research. Educational information, not medical advice.
- Methadone
- Long-acting — outlasts its own effects by many hours
- Opioids
- Full agonists — heroin, oxycodone, morphine
- Methadone also called
- dolophine, methadose, done
- Opioids also called
- opiate, opiates, opioid, heroin, dope, smack
- QT prolongation with methadone. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2760917/
- Methadone Safety: A Clinical Practice Guideline From the American Pain Society and College on Problems of Drug Dependence, in Collaboration With the Heart Rhythm Society. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1526590014005227
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Checking more than two?
Combinations of three or more carry risks that no pair-by-pair chart can show. The checker rates every pair at once and flags the whole-mix ones on top.
Open this in the checkerRelated combinations
All combinations →Rated dangerous. Educational information only, not medical advice. Absence of a documented interaction is not evidence of safety.