How Does Methadone Affect Your Heart

Most people who hear the word methadone think about addiction treatment, and that is understandable, because methadone is widely known as a medicine used in treatment programmes for people who are dependent on opioids such as heroin. What is talked about far less is what methadone itself can do to the heart. That silence is a problem. The heart is the organ that has to carry the cost of every dose, day after day, and the damage it suffers is usually quiet. There is no loud alarm when the heart starts to struggle. There is only a gradual change: a pulse that feels less steady, stairs that leave you more breathless than they used to, a tightness in the chest that you explain away as tiredness or worry. By the time the change is obvious, it may already be serious.

This article explains, in plain words, how methadone affects the heart. It looks at what methadone does inside the body, how it can disturb the heart’s rhythm, why it can raise blood pressure and make the heart work harder, what warning signs deserve urgent attention, and why people whose hearts were already weak face a greater danger. It is general information only, not individual medical advice. If you are worried about your heart, or about someone you care about, a qualified health professional is the right person to talk to.

How Methadone Works in the Body

Methadone is a long-acting opioid, which means it stays in the body for a long time after it is taken. Most opioids wear off within a few hours, but methadone works slowly and lasts much longer, and that long action is the reason it is used in treatment: one dose can hold off withdrawal symptoms for a whole day. That same long action is also part of the problem for the heart, because the body is exposed to the drug for many hours at a time, without a real break. The heart does not get a rest between doses in the way it might with a shorter-acting substance. It is under the drug’s influence almost all the time.

Inside the body, methadone acts on the same system as other opioids. It attaches to docking points in the brain and nervous system called opioid receptors, and it dulls pain, slows breathing, and produces a feeling of calm. But opioids do not only act on the brain. They affect the whole body, including the nerves that control the heart. The heart’s speed, its strength, and the timing of each beat are all controlled by signals from the nervous system, and when those signals are changed by a drug, the heart’s behaviour changes too. That is why a drug taken to calm cravings can also make the heart beat too slowly, too fast, or out of rhythm.

Another thing that matters is that methadone is broken down by the liver, and the speed at which that happens varies a great deal from person to person. Some people clear the drug quickly, and some clear it slowly, and the same amount can therefore sit in one person’s body far longer than in another’s. Age, liver health, other medicines, alcohol, and other substances can all change how the body handles methadone. This makes its effects on the heart hard to predict for any one person. A dose that one person tolerates may place a much heavier strain on another person, especially if that second person already has a heart problem, low levels of potassium or magnesium in the blood, or is taking another medicine that also affects the heart’s rhythm. This is one of the reasons methadone treatment is meant to be supervised, with regular checks, rather than used casually or on its own.

The Heart’s Electrical Rhythm and Why It Matters

The heart is not only a pump. It is also an electrical organ. Every heartbeat is started by a small electrical signal that travels through the heart muscle in a precise order, telling the upper chambers to squeeze first and the lower chambers a moment later. After each beat, the heart’s electrical system has to reset itself, or recharge, before the next beat can happen. Doctors call the length of that recharge time the QT interval, and it is one of the most important measures of heart health. If the recharge takes too long, the heart becomes vulnerable to a dangerous kind of irregular beat.

Methadone is known to lengthen that recharge time. In plain terms, it slows down the heart’s electrical reset, and that leaves a window in which the rhythm can go wrong. The danger is not that the heart simply beats faster or slower. The danger is that it can fall into a chaotic rhythm called torsades de pointes, a French name that means twisting of the points. In this rhythm, the heart quivers instead of pumping properly, and very little blood reaches the brain and the rest of the body. A person can faint, have a seizure, or, in the worst case, suffer a sudden cardiac arrest, in which the heart stops pumping altogether. This is rare, but it is real, and it is the most serious heart risk linked with methadone. It can happen without much warning, and it can happen in people who felt well the day before.

The risk is higher when the level of methadone in the body is high, and when other factors are present at the same time. Low potassium or low magnesium, which can happen after vomiting, diarrhoea, poor eating, or heavy sweating, make the rhythm more fragile. So do some other medicines, including certain antibiotics, some medicines for mental health, and some medicines for heartburn and allergies. Alcohol and other substances that slow the body down can add to the strain. This is why the danger is not only about the methadone itself. It is about the whole picture: the drug, the body’s chemistry on that day, and everything else that is taken alongside it. A heart that might have coped with one risk on its own can fail when several risks arrive together.

Many people never feel the rhythm problem until it becomes serious. Some people notice their heart skipping beats, fluttering in the chest, or pounding for no clear reason. Others feel dizzy when they stand up, or light-headed after climbing stairs. Some faint, and only afterwards is the rhythm problem found. That is what makes this risk so frightening. It does not always announce itself with pain. Sometimes the first sign is a collapse. If you take methadone and you notice palpitations, fainting, severe dizziness, or a feeling that your heart is beating in a strange or uneven way, that is not something to wait out. It needs urgent medical attention, the same day, because a rhythm problem can turn serious very quickly.

Blood Pressure, Pulse and the Extra Work

Methadone also affects blood pressure and heart rate, and the effects can go in different directions at different times, which is confusing for the person living with them. Opioids generally slow the heart and lower blood pressure, because they calm the nervous system. But the body does not stay calm in a simple way. As the drug wears off between doses, the nervous system can rebound, and the heart can race, blood pressure can climb, and the person can feel sweaty, restless and on edge. Over months of regular use, the heart is pushed back and forth between these states, and that constant shifting is itself a kind of strain. A heart that is always adjusting is a heart that never gets to settle.

High blood pressure matters because it forces the heart to push blood through narrowed or stiffened vessels, and over time the heart muscle thickens and stiffens in response. A thickened heart is not a stronger heart. It is a stiffer heart, and it fills with blood less easily between beats. That makes ordinary effort harder. Walking up a hill, carrying shopping, or climbing a flight of stairs can leave a person breathless, because the heart cannot increase its output the way a healthy heart would. Over years, this strain can lead towards heart failure, a condition in which the heart can no longer pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs. The ankles swell, the lungs fill with fluid, and even small tasks become exhausting. Heart failure does not arrive in a single day. It builds slowly, and methadone’s long-term strain on blood pressure and rhythm can be one of the things that pushes a vulnerable heart in that direction.

A slow pulse can be a problem too. When the heart beats too slowly, less blood reaches the brain, and a person may feel tired, confused, or faint. This is more likely when methadone is combined with other substances that slow the body, such as alcohol or sedatives, or when the level of the drug in the body is high. Breathing also slows, and that matters for the heart, because the heart depends on oxygen-rich blood. When breathing becomes shallow and slow, the oxygen in the blood falls, and the heart muscle itself is starved of the oxygen it needs to work. A heart that is short of oxygen is more likely to develop a dangerous rhythm, and the whole system becomes more fragile. This is why methadone overdose is so dangerous: it is not only the breathing that stops, it is the heart that fails with it.

Chest Pain, Breathlessness and Warning Signs

Chest pain is the warning sign that most people know, but it is also the one that is most often explained away. A person feels a tightness or heaviness in the chest and tells themselves it is indigestion, anxiety, or a pulled muscle. Sometimes it is. But when a person who takes methadone feels chest pain, especially pain that spreads to the arm, the jaw, the neck or the back, or pain that comes on with effort and eases with rest, it must be treated as a possible heart problem until a doctor says otherwise. Methadone can contribute to the narrowing of the arteries that feed the heart, and when those arteries narrow, the heart muscle does not get enough blood during effort. That is angina, and it is a warning that a heart attack may follow.

Breathlessness is another sign that is easy to dismiss. Many people who take methadone are also smokers, or have lung problems, and they blame their breathlessness on their lungs. But the heart and the lungs work as a team, and when the heart cannot pump properly, fluid backs up into the lungs and breathing becomes difficult, especially when lying flat or during the night. Waking up gasping for air, needing extra pillows to breathe comfortably, or feeling breathless after walking a short distance that used to be easy are all signs that the heart may be struggling. So is swelling in the ankles, feet or legs, which happens when the heart cannot move blood forward efficiently and fluid gathers in the lower body.

Fainting, or nearly fainting, deserves the same urgency. A faint can be caused by many things, but in a person taking methadone it may mean that the heart’s rhythm has gone wrong for a few seconds, long enough for the brain to lose its blood supply. Seizures can have the same cause. If someone on methadone faints, has a seizure, or complains that their heart is racing or fluttering and they feel unwell, that is an emergency, and an ambulance should be called. It is far better to be checked and told that it was nothing serious than to wait and discover that it was the warning before a cardiac arrest. Hearts rarely give second warnings.

When the Heart Was Already Weak

Not everyone who takes methadone faces the same level of heart risk. For a young person with a healthy heart, the risk of a serious rhythm problem is low, although it is never zero. For a person whose heart was already damaged, the same drug can be far more dangerous, because the heart has less room to cope with extra strain. People with a history of heart disease, a previous heart attack, heart failure, a slow or irregular heartbeat, or a family history of sudden cardiac death are in this group. So are older people, whose hearts and blood vessels have already aged, and people with liver disease, kidney disease, or low levels of potassium or magnesium.

The difficulty is that many people do not know their heart was already weak. Heart disease often has no symptoms until it is advanced. A person can have narrowed arteries or a thickened heart muscle for years without feeling anything wrong, and only discover it when a new strain, such as methadone, pushes the heart beyond what it can handle. This is why a heart check before starting methadone, and regular checks while taking it, matter so much. A simple heart tracing, called an ECG, can show whether the heart’s electrical recharge time is already long, and blood tests can show whether potassium and magnesium are low. These are not complicated tests, but they can make the difference between a risk that is managed and a risk that is missed.

Other medicines deserve attention too. Many people who take methadone also take medicines for pain, anxiety, depression, infection, or other conditions, and some of those medicines also lengthen the heart’s recharge time. On their own, each one may be safe. Together, they can add up to a dangerous effect. This is why every doctor and pharmacist involved in a person’s care needs to know about the methadone, and why a person should never start a new medicine, including one bought without a prescription, without checking whether it affects the heart. The same applies to alcohol and to other drugs, whether they are prescribed or not. Mixing substances is one of the most common ways that a manageable heart risk becomes a life-threatening one.

The Strain That Builds Over Months and Years

The hardest thing about methadone’s effect on the heart is that it is not a single event. It is a slow accumulation. One dose does not usually damage the heart. A hundred doses, a thousand doses, each one placing a small strain on the rhythm and the blood pressure, can add up to a heart that is measurably weaker than it was at the start. The person may not notice the change, because it happens gradually, and because the brain adapts to feeling a little worse each month. They think they are getting older, or they are tired, or they are out of shape. In fact, their heart is carrying a burden that grows heavier with time.

This slow build-up is also why stopping matters. The heart is a living muscle, and when the strain is removed, some of the damage can ease. Blood pressure can settle. The rhythm can become steadier. The heart’s ability to cope with effort can improve. Not all damage reverses, especially if the heart muscle has thickened or the arteries have narrowed over many years, but removing the strain stops the damage from getting worse, and that alone is a meaningful gain. The longer a person continues, the more the harm accumulates, and the harder it becomes to undo. That is true of most long-term heart risks, and it is true of methadone.

There is also a quieter cost, which is the way heart strain changes daily life. A person whose heart is under strain tires more quickly, sleeps worse, and finds it harder to concentrate, because the brain is not getting the steady supply of oxygen-rich blood it needs. They may give up walking, give up work they once enjoyed, and stay at home more, and that loss of activity weakens the heart further, in a slow circle. Families notice this before the person does. They see a parent who used to play with the children now sitting out, or a partner who used to walk to the shops now asking for a lift. The heart problem does not only live in the chest. It spreads into every part of the day.

Other Things That Raise the Danger

Methadone’s heart risks do not exist in isolation. They are shaped by everything else in a person’s life. Smoking is one of the biggest factors, because it damages the blood vessels, raises blood pressure, and makes the blood more likely to clot. A person who smokes and takes methadone is placing two different strains on the same arteries, and the combined effect is greater than either one alone. Poor diet, very little exercise, and long-term stress add further strain, because they raise blood pressure and blood sugar and encourage the build-up of fatty deposits in the arteries. None of these things is a moral failing. They are common parts of life, especially for people living with addiction, who often have little money, little support, and little time to look after their health. But they matter, and they are worth naming honestly, because they are also things that can be changed, slowly and with support.

Sleep matters too, and this is often overlooked. Methadone disturbs sleep, and poor sleep raises blood pressure and stresses the heart. A person who sleeps badly night after night wakes with a higher heart rate and higher blood pressure, and their heart never gets the deep rest it needs to recover. Over months, that nightly strain adds to the daytime strain, and the heart has no real recovery time at all. Breathing pauses during sleep, known as sleep apnoea, are also more common in people who take opioids, and each pause starves the heart of oxygen for a few seconds. Repeated many times a night, night after night, those pauses are a real burden on the heart.

Finally, there is the danger of sudden change. A person who misses doses and then restarts, a person whose dose is increased, a person who takes an extra amount after a period without it, or a person who mixes methadone with alcohol or another sedative, can face a sudden jump in risk. The heart, which had adjusted to a steady level, is suddenly exposed to a higher level, and the rhythm can fail. This is one of the reasons that methadone must never be taken casually, shared with someone else, or taken in a larger amount than prescribed. The margin between a dose that the body tolerates and a dose that stops the heart can be narrower than people think, and it narrows further when the heart is already weak or when other substances are involved. If someone has taken methadone and becomes very drowsy, breathes slowly, turns blue around the lips, or cannot be woken, that is an emergency. An ambulance must be called at once, and the person should be kept on their side and not left alone while waiting for help.

It is worth adding that the heart does not work alone, and that the rest of the body shapes its risk in ways that are easy to miss. The kidneys, for example, control the balance of potassium and magnesium in the blood, and when the kidneys are unwell, those levels can swing in ways that make the heart’s rhythm more fragile. The liver, which breaks down methadone, also matters, because liver disease can slow the drug’s clearance and leave more of it in the body for longer. Even dehydration, after a hot day or a stomach upset, can change the blood’s chemistry enough to matter. None of these is a dramatic event on its own. They are ordinary parts of life, a fever, a missed meal, a day without enough water, and yet for a heart that is already carrying the strain of methadone, they can be the extra weight that tips the balance. That is why a person who takes methadone should tell a doctor about any new illness, any vomiting or diarrhoea, and any change in eating or drinking, however small it seems. The heart’s safety depends on the whole body, not only on the drug itself.

My Take:

I will be honest with you about how I feel after writing about this. The heart risk of methadone is the part of the drug that I think is most unfairly hidden, because the public conversation about methadone is almost entirely about addiction, and almost never about the heart. People argue about whether methadone is a good treatment or a bad one, whether it helps people or keeps them trapped, and while they argue, nobody mentions that the drug can quietly disturb the heart’s rhythm until the day it stops. That feels wrong to me. A person who takes methadone deserves to know what it can do to their heart, in plain words, before the harm happens, not after it.

What stays with me most is the rhythm problem, because it is so invisible. A person can feel fine, go to work, eat dinner with their family, and then faint in the night because their heart’s electrical system failed for a few seconds. There is something deeply frightening about a risk that gives no warning. With most health problems, you get a signal: pain, a cough, a fever, something that tells you to seek help. With this one, the first signal can be a collapse. I keep thinking about the families who would be left asking how a person who seemed well could be gone so suddenly, and how little they were told about the danger. That is why I think the heart check, the simple tracing that shows whether the recharge time is too long, should never be treated as an optional extra. It is a basic part of safe care, and it should happen before the drug is started and again whenever the dose changes or a new medicine is added.

I also think about the people whose hearts were already weak and who never knew it. A man in his fifties who has smoked for thirty years, who has high blood pressure he never had checked, who starts methadone because he wants to stop heroin, is doing a brave thing. He is trying to change his life. He deserves to have his heart checked first, and to have someone explain that his heart needs extra care, not to be handed a prescription and sent away with no warning. The fact that this does not always happen is not the fault of the person taking the drug. It is a failure of the system around them, and it is a failure that can cost a life. I do not say that to blame anyone. I say it because naming the gap is the first step towards closing it.

The slow build-up is the part I find hardest to explain to people, because human beings are not good at fearing slow harm. We fear sudden danger: a crash, a fall, a fire. We are far less afraid of something that gets one per cent worse each month, even when the total over five years is large. Methadone’s harm to the heart is mostly of that slow kind, and that is exactly why it is dangerous. A person can tell themselves for years that they feel fine, while their blood pressure creeps up, their heart muscle thickens, and their arteries narrow. Then one day they climb a flight of stairs and cannot breathe, or they wake in the night gasping, and they discover that the slow harm has become a serious condition. If more people understood that heart damage is a slow accumulation, I think more of them would ask for checks earlier, and would take warning signs more seriously when they appeared.

I want to say something about blame, because it hangs over this whole topic. People who take methadone are often judged, and that judgement makes it harder for them to ask for help. A person who feels judged will not tell a doctor about chest pain, because they expect to be lectured about the drug instead of being helped with the pain. A person who feels judged will not mention that they fainted, because they fear the drug will be taken away without anything offered in its place. That silence is dangerous, and it is created by the way we treat people who use drugs. I believe that a person who takes methadone deserves the same careful, respectful heart care as anyone else, and that a doctor’s first job is to listen and to check, not to lecture. Shame has never made a heart healthier. Honest information and regular checks have.

Money and daily life are part of this too, and I think they are worth naming. A person whose heart is under strain cannot work as hard, cannot walk as far, and cannot play with their children the way they used to. That loss of strength affects their income, their family, and their sense of who they are. It is not only a medical problem. It is a life problem. When I think about a father who used to carry his child on his shoulders and now has to sit down after a short walk, I feel the weight of that change, and I understand why heart health is not an abstract topic. It is about whether a person can live the life they want to live, and whether they will be there for their family in the years ahead.

I also think about the people around the person taking methadone, because they carry a burden that is rarely acknowledged. A partner who notices the breathlessness first, a daughter who notices her father needs extra pillows to sleep, a friend who sees someone faint and calls an ambulance: these people are often the first to spot the danger, and they are often the ones who push for a doctor’s visit. They deserve clear information too, in words they can understand, so that they know what to watch for and when to act. If you live with someone who takes methadone, I would ask you to pay attention to the signs in this article, and to act quickly if you see them. Your attention could be the difference between a warning that is caught in time and a warning that is missed.

There is a temptation, when writing about a drug’s dangers, to sound as if the drug has no value at all, and I do not want to do that, because it would not be honest. Methadone treatment has helped many people to stop using heroin, to rebuild their lives, and to stay alive long enough to recover. That is a real achievement, and it matters. But the fact that a treatment helps in one way does not mean its risks should be hidden. The honest position is to hold both truths at once: methadone can help people leave heroin behind, and methadone can harm the heart. Both are true, and a person deserves to know both, so that they can make informed choices with their doctor, get their heart checked, and take steps to reduce the risk while they continue treatment.

If I could change one thing about how methadone is talked about, it would be this: I would make heart checks a normal, expected part of the conversation from the very first day. Not a special test for special cases, but a routine step, like checking blood pressure. I would make sure every person starting methadone knows the warning signs of a rhythm problem, and knows to seek help at once if they faint, feel their heart fluttering, or feel severely dizzy. I would make sure every doctor and pharmacist knows about the methadone, so that no new medicine is added without checking whether it also affects the heart. These are simple steps, and they are not expensive, but they could prevent deaths that are currently happening quietly, without headlines.

I want to end with something practical, because a long article about danger can leave a person feeling helpless, and helplessness helps nobody. If you take methadone, ask your doctor for a heart tracing and a blood pressure check, and ask whether your potassium and magnesium levels should be tested. Tell your doctor about every other medicine you take, including anything you buy without a prescription, and about alcohol and any other substances you use. Learn the warning signs: chest pain, breathlessness that is new or worse, swelling in the ankles, fainting, a racing or fluttering heart, and severe dizziness. If any of those happen, seek help the same day, and call an ambulance if someone faints, has a seizure, or cannot be woken. These steps will not remove the risk entirely, and I will not pretend otherwise, but they will make it far more likely that a problem is caught early, when something can still be done.

And if you are reading this because someone you love takes methadone, I would say this to you: do not look away from the heart risk because the addiction feels like the bigger problem. The heart risk is part of the same picture, and it deserves the same attention. Talk to your loved one about getting checked, offer to go with them to the appointment, and keep an eye out for the warning signs. You cannot fix their heart for them, but you can make sure the danger is not faced alone, and that is worth more than it sounds. A heart that is checked, watched, and cared for is a heart that has a far better chance of carrying a person through recovery and into a longer, healthier life, and that is what we should all want for the people who are trying to change.

I also think it is worth being honest about how hard it is to get a heart check when life is already difficult. A person who is trying to recover from opioid dependence may be dealing with housing problems, money worries, and the daily effort of staying away from heroin, and a heart appointment can feel like one more demand on top of too many. I understand that, and I do not want to pretend that asking for a check is easy for everyone. But I would still ask for it, because the check itself is simple and quick, and the information it gives can change everything. A heart tracing takes a few minutes. A blood pressure reading takes less than that. A blood test for potassium and magnesium is a routine part of care. None of these is a major undertaking, and none of them requires a person to be in perfect health first. They are the kind of basic steps that should be offered as a matter of course, and if they are not offered, they are worth asking for directly.

The other thing I keep coming back to is the difference between knowing a risk and feeling it. Most people who take methadone have been told, at some point, that the drug has side effects, and they may have nodded and carried on, because side effects sound like a list on a leaflet, not like something that will happen to them. I think the language we use matters here. When a doctor says that a drug can lengthen the heart’s recharge time, that sounds technical and distant. When a doctor says that the drug can make the heart beat in a chaotic rhythm that stops blood reaching the brain, and that a person can faint or collapse without warning, that is a different kind of information, and it is the kind that makes a person pay attention. I would rather be plain and a little frightening than polite and vague, because polite vagueness is what allows a serious risk to be ignored until it is too late.

Finally, I want to say something about hope, because this article has been heavy with warnings, and I do not want to leave a reader feeling that the situation is hopeless. It is not hopeless. Hearts can be checked, risks can be reduced, and people can recover from opioid dependence and live long, healthy lives. I have no doubt about that. But hope is not a substitute for action, and it is not a reason to skip a heart check or to ignore chest pain. Hope is what gives a person the reason to act, and action is what makes hope real. If you take methadone, get your heart checked, learn the warning signs, and tell the people around you what to watch for. If you love someone who takes methadone, help them to do those things. That is not a small contribution. It is the difference between a risk that is faced with open eyes and a risk that is faced in the dark, and it is a difference that can save a life.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does Methadone affect the heart?

Methadone can disturb the heart’s electrical rhythm by lengthening the time the heart needs to recharge between beats, which raises the risk of a dangerous irregular rhythm. It can also affect blood pressure and heart rate, making the heart work harder over time, and it can contribute to the narrowing of the arteries that feed the heart. The effects are often quiet at first and build slowly, which is why regular heart checks matter.

How soon can Methadone start harming the heart?

Some rhythm changes can appear quite early, especially if the level of the drug in the body is high or if other risk factors are present, such as low potassium or another medicine that also affects the heart’s rhythm. The longer-term harm, such as raised blood pressure, a thickened heart muscle and narrowed arteries, usually builds over weeks, months and years of regular use, and the risk grows with the length of time the drug is taken.

Can the harm Methadone does to the heart be reversed?

Some effects can improve when the strain is removed and the heart is given time to recover, such as blood pressure settling and the rhythm becoming steadier. Other changes, especially a heart muscle that has thickened over many years or arteries that have narrowed, may improve only partly or not at all. Whether the harm can be reversed depends on what has been damaged and for how long, and only a qualified health professional who can examine the individual can give a personal answer.

Who notices the harm of Methadone on the heart first?

The person taking methadone may be the last to notice, because the changes are slow and the body adapts to feeling a little worse each month. Family members and close friends often notice first, because they see the breathlessness on stairs, the need for extra pillows at night, the swelling in the ankles, or the tiredness that was not there before. A doctor can also spot the harm early through a heart tracing and blood pressure checks, which is why regular monitoring is so important.

What makes the harm of Methadone to the heart worse?

The harm is worse when the level of methadone in the body is high, when the dose is increased or restarted after a break, and when methadone is mixed with alcohol or other substances that slow breathing and affect the heart. Low potassium or magnesium, other medicines that lengthen the heart’s recharge time, smoking, high blood pressure, poor sleep and an already weak heart all add to the danger. Several risks together can be far more dangerous than any one of them alone.

Where can I read reliable information about Methadone and the heart?

Reliable general information about methadone can be found from public health authorities such as NIDA, the NHS, the WHO, the CDC and the DEA, listed in the sources below. Those sources explain harms, risks and patterns of use in plain language, without selling anything or offering personal advice. For questions about a specific person, the right step is a conversation with a qualified health professional, not an article.

Sources

This article is general information only. It is not personal medical advice. For questions about a specific person, speak with a qualified health professional.