Recreational use of antidiarrhoea drug leading to severe cardiotoxicity, doctors warn
Reports of chronic mega-dosing by patients with opioid use disorder are on the rise, research shows.
Clinical toxicologists are warning that misuse of the antidiarrhoeal loperamide is leading to prolonged ECG intervals in patients with opioid use disorder.
Some patients are taking massive doses of the OTC medication over months or years, say researchers led by the NSW Poisons Information Centre.
“Cardiotoxicity and the risk of adverse cardiac events may persist for many days in patients with loperamide overdose,” they have written in Clinical Toxicology.
This is because both loperamide and its metabolite N-desmethyl loperamide have a prolonged half-life and the effect on the heart appears to depend on the serum concentration of both.
