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Describe the general situation at the present with the addicted person.
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Heroin effects take place quickly. This drug works by depressing the user’s central nervous system. It does this by depressing nerve transmission in sensory pathways of the spinal cord and brain that signal pain. This explains why heroin is such an effective pain killer. This drug also inhibits the user’s brain centers that controlling coughing, and breathing.
Heroin is a highly addictive drug. It quickly produces tolerance and dependence in those who use it. Although heroin is even more effective as a painkiller than morphine and codeine, because it is so highly addictive its use is illegal.
Short Term Heroin Effects
- Analgesia (reduced pain)
- Brief euphoria (the "rush" or feeling of well-being)
- Nausea
- Sedation, drowsiness
- Reduced anxiety
- Hypothermia
- Reduced respiration; breathing difficulties
- Reduced coughing
- Death due to overdose - often the exact purity and content of the drug is not known to the user. An overdose can cause respiration problems and coma
Soon after injection (or inhalation), heroin crosses the blood-brain barrier. In the brain, heroin is converted to morphine and binds rapidly to opioid receptors. Abusers typically report feeling a surge of pleasurable sensation, a "rush." The intensity of the rush is a function of how much drug is taken and how rapidly the drug enters the brain and binds to the natural opioid receptors. Heroin is particularly addictive because it enters the brain so rapidly. With heroin, the rush is usually accompanied by a warm flushing of the skin, dry mouth, and a heavy feeling in the extremities, which may be accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and severe itching.
After the initial heroin effects, abusers usually will be drowsy for several hours. Mental function is clouded by heroin's effect on the central nervous system. Cardiac function slows. Breathing is also severely slowed, sometimes to the point of death. Heroin overdose is a particular risk on the street, where the amount and purity of the drug cannot be accurately known.
Long Term Heroin Effects
One of the most detrimental long-term heroin effects is drug addiction. Addiction is a characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use, and by neurochemical and molecular changes in the brain. Heroin also produces profound degrees of tolerance and physical dependence, which are also powerful motivating factors for compulsive use and abuse. As with abusers of any addictive drug, heroin abusers gradually spend more and more time and energy obtaining and using the drug. Once they are addicted, the heroin abusers' primary purpose in life becomes seeking and using drugs. The drugs literally change their brains.
Common Heroin Addiction Terms
- Tolerance: more and more heroin is needed to produce the euphoria and other effects on behavior.
- Addiction: Feel they need the drug psychological and physiological. They will go to any length to get more heroin and feel ill if they are unable to obtain it. They will also experience cravings for heroin.
- Withdrawal: About 8-12 hours after their last dose of heroin, addicts' eyes tear, they yawn and feel anxious and irritable. Excessive sweating, fever, stomach and muscle cramps, diarrhea and chills can follow several hours later. These withdrawal symptoms can continue for 1 to 3 days after the last dose and can last 7 to 10 days. In some cases, full recovery can take even longer.
Other Heroin Effects
- HIV/AIDS - due to sharing of needles
- Poisoning - from the addition of toxin to the drug
- Hepatitis - liver damage
- Skin infections - from repeated intravenous injections
- Other bacterial and viral infections
- Increase risk of stroke
- Collapsed veins
- Lung infections
Medical consequences of chronic heroin abuse include scarred and/or collapsed veins, bacterial infections of the blood vessels and heart valves, abscesses (boils) and other soft-tissue infections, and liver or kidney disease. Lung complications (including various types of pneumonia and tuberculosis) may result from the poor health condition of the abuser as well as from heroin's depressing effects on respiration. Many of the additives in street heroin may include substances that do not readily dissolve and result in clogging the blood vessels that lead to the lungs, liver, kidneys, or brain. This can cause infection or even death of small patches of cells in vital organs. Immune reactions to these or other contaminants can cause arthritis or other rheumatologic problems.
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