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MedHelp Member's Question

Damage from opiates

by whatitistoburn, May 24, 2003 12:00AM
Doc,



Maybe you can help me with this one. I just don't get it, we are all told that we don't have to worry about organ damage from opiate abuse. The brain is an organ, isn't it? And it must be damaged if it takes up to a year or 2 for some people to get through the whole detox process. I quit taking morhphine about a month ago, and my head is so spacy I feel I can hardly think at times, I feel "dumbed down" and am not looking forward to this for many months to come. I feel opiates do damage to this organ, and I think we are getting contadicting messages.



Burn

Member Comments (49)

by suzieneedshelp, May 24, 2003 12:00AM
WEll...whoever said it doesnt damage us physically is evidentally this dayum disease convincing the speaker.  The brain, the liver, the heart, etc.  how about car wrecks, gun shot wounds, knife stabs, well...it goes on and on.  Plz dont anyone fool themselves to think they are not damaging their bodies with opiates!  Also i had very low Blood pressure for allmy life.. now it remains high for this last year or so.  SO...it is much much higher for me than high!  From 90 over 70 to 155 over 90 or more.

Love yas...

Suzie

by vettezr1, May 24, 2003 12:00AM
To: Burn
One-Two years for complete detoxification? Say it isn’t so honey bunch that’s almost one full year past my life expectancy. Now what?

by momonhydros, May 24, 2003 12:00AM
is that true? that opiates raise your blood pressure mine was normal too all 120/75 now its been really high 178/99 heart seems to pound really hard all the time. god what have we done to ourselves. 2 years to feel normal? ill never be able to do it, freakin scares the hell out of me.

by whatitistoburn, May 24, 2003 12:00AM
To: Vette
That's right, you old goat.

by vettezr1, May 24, 2003 12:00AM
To: momonhydros,Everyone
Ok a little clarification is in order here.  I was just teasing Burn. I am no expert but I am pretty sure the Blood pressure thing is only acute during CT, WD. And not for very long

It only affected me (Heart pounding High Blood pressure) for a few days. As far as anything else e.g. (long term damage) I don’t know for sure but I was on a very high dose of Morphine for over a year and I have no damage none. I am a little mental but I had that before I started the Morphine. If you are concerned get checked out by a doctor.

Good luck.



by twiceain'tnice, May 24, 2003 12:00AM
when I was in detox i had a clonodine patch and had it for three weeks after till things got stable.  It helped and then my blood pressure got back to normal.  I'm 48 and have used and abused for a looong time.  Clean seven days and very happy.

by momonhydros, May 25, 2003 12:00AM
To: vettezr1
sorry vette didnt mean to sound so dramatic, im still using so i cant say the withdrawl is making my bp high. thanks for the clearification. you did make me laugh about the mental thing though.:) have a good day!nancy

by tracer3, May 25, 2003 12:00AM
Hi all. Just want to add some inspiration and "light at the end of the tunnel." I used to post here under the name tex. I've been clean off opiates for over a year now - June 1 will be 14 months, actually. And while yes, it does take time for things to get back to normal and there are set backs, bad days that blindside you, gradually the good days will outnumber the bad and eventually you will find that this whole process no longer dominates your thoughts (which is why I don't come here very often - now I mainly do to give back what I got during that awful time that I was getting clean). What the doctor has said about your brain slowly getting back to normal is absolutely true, in my experience. It will happen. It's like coming back to life. Every time I thought how bad I was feeling I reminded myself how bad I'd ALREADY felt and how I was one more day past that. I could be starting over and facing the whole crappy process again, instead of being a week into it, or a month, or a year, or whatever. After a month things really looked up. I still had sad days (still do). I still had cravings off and on. Sometimes so intense I started obsessing. Then I would distract myself, just start doing something else instead of allowing myself to wallow in those cravings or that depression or whatever. Read a book, go for a walk, watch a movie, just whatever, and then the worst would be over. Because once you are through the physical withdrawal, what you are facing is all mental. And even if you can't control that, you can control how you react to it. I won't lie and say I never crave, but I do believe that this is my life and I'm the one who gets to say what I do with it and if I choose to act on that. I've had some major migraines and a root canal in the past year and have been faced with using pain killers for those. I did so responsibly. It also made me crave them terribly. But again, I'm the one who decides what to do about that, and I never want to be a prisoner to pills again, so I choose not to be. I flushed the rest of the bottle down the toilet and stopped obsessing. But now I know if I have to use for something like that, I feel that I can do so. Not everyone can, and that doesn't make any of us better than the others - it just means our bodies might react somewhat differently. For me I'm glad of every miserable moment I spent in withdrawal and before that being chained to the pills, because I remind myself just how awful that was and how I am unwilling to ever experience it again. In a way the horror of withdrawal is a gift - it's a huge deterrent for me. I went through it many times before that happened though. Sorry to ramble just wanted to let you know things do get better, gradually, day by day, although some days you step backward instead of forward. Just keep moving in that direction. Only you can do it, and I swear it is well worth it. I think I still have to struggle with depression now and then, but hell I did that before I ever took a pill - which is one reason I did so in the first place. But that's part of living, the gift of life, and every bit of it makes us what and who we are. I try to channel mine and not wallow in it. I'm a writer so I think, how can I use this in my work? Find something positive to focus on. Most of all, keep in mind that things do get better, and it doesn't take forever. I was pretty much normal after six weeks, certainly by two months, at least physically, sleep-wise, all that. After that, it's your mind that is healing, and you can help that along by remembering you control your response to this situation. Good luck!

by vettezr1, May 25, 2003 12:00AM
To: momonhydros
Don’t be sorry. I forget how scary it can be. That’s my insensitive side it’s a guy thing.

So when I joke around which I shouldn’t do here I realized I might have frightened or at a minimum caused some confusion, I will restrain myself in future posts. But

I was serious about not having any damage from the Opiate use not that I encourage anyone to have a license to indulge. I followed doctor’s instructions (even if he was a quack) and ate right and took lots of vitamins and had many blood tests.



by whatitistoburn, May 25, 2003 12:00AM
To: Doc
I didn't say I thought addiction was a diseae, I don't know if it is or not. I didn't say I was getting conflicting messages from this forum, I meant conflicting messages from all that I have read or heard from some other addicts. I am a chronic pain patient, but had decided I would live with the pain no matter what because morphine took away my life. Thank you for your excellent insight's.



Vette...I did not mean that everyone who has taken opiates is brain damaged, but that the opiates do affect the brain pathways and neurotransmitter's,that the brain is an organ, and I have read and heard all over the place that opiates do not damage the organs in the body, when obviously it does. I guess I should have been more clear.



Burn

by MethMan, May 25, 2003 12:00AM
To: Tracer3
That was a great post, Tracer.

It is a long haul to feel better.  I've got 7 months clean time now from a methadone habit and you're right, it is a day by day thing.  Some days are better than others, but the worst day of being clean beats the best day of being a prisoner to our drug of choice.  That crappy obnoxious saying, "It didn't take a day to get this way and it won't take a day to get out of it." rings true.  It sucks, but it is true.  But when I'm having a rough day, I always take a minute and remember the first week of coming off that ****.  No sleep, RLS, no energy.  Kind of puts things in perspective.

For me, it took going inpatient.  But I knew that I had the monkey beat the day I walked in the place.  It wasn't easy to say the least, but its not impossible either.

While inpatient was a good thing, looking back, I STILL don't believe the "disease" hype; all the "powerless over your addiction" stuff.  Who's powerless?  The only part that seems incideous about this whole thing is that once you're in the throws of the problem, it seems easier to stay where you are instead of taking the scary, uncertain steps to help yourself.  At least I know it was that way for me.  Everyone is different to be sure.  And for the people that have to endure chronic pain, man... those are the strong ones.  And when you look at it in those terms, did I have it bad?  Hell no.  

by tracer3, May 25, 2003 12:00AM
To: methman
Well said, methman. I couldn't agree more. I finally knew when I was really ready to quit, and it was when things just weren't fun anymore - but that's not to say that I didn't know that after a period of abstinence I would get a short "honeymoon" with the pills again. I'd quit enought times before to get to that point, but the last time was strictly for me. But knowing it can be "fun

again is when you have to suck it up and not indulge, which is hard to do. Sounds like you managed that, and I applaud you. Congratulations on your accomplishments! I agree we are not powerless, and buying into that sells us short. In a way we are lucky - if this is a disease, at least we can control our own recovery, unlike people dying from cancer. In that way, things could be a whole let of a lot worse. I think this is a very individual thing and no one can judge anyone else based on their own experiences, but at the same time we all go through a lot of the same ****, and it really helps to know that. Thanks for reaching out, and congratulations again.

by mrmichael67, May 26, 2003 12:00AM
I don't recall seeing anywhere that opiate ABUSE doesn't harm any organs of the body.  Who's saying that?

by Thomas050, May 26, 2003 12:00AM
To: Tracer
That was one of the most inspirational posts on opiate addiction i ever read. I would like to print it out and frame it and put it on the walls of opiate addiction treatment clinics everywhere. Kudos to you and your success and best of luck with your writing career!

T050