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Opioids Do opiates delay healing?

S

SaY4cT

Bluelighter
Joined
Jan 30, 2013
Messages
118
Stuff that leaves marks like wounds, burn marks, black eyes - would those heal slower while on opiates?

Thanks
 
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I don't believe so; they would have to change your bodies metabolism to do that, and I really don't think opiates do. If they did, maybe they wouldn't be so widely used in hospitals?
 
Opioids shouldn't affect the healing rate of tissue.
 
No, they do not delay healing.

Tidbit of info though..if you smoke cigarettes it constantly depletes Vitamin C in your body which is necessary for healing process. If you have wounds that need to heal, take extra Vitamin C and Zinc...you can never get too much Vit C especially if you are a smoker. Also, you can't take too much because it is a water soluble vitamin rather than fat soluble so any excess you get your body just eliminates.
 
Is that why I always wake up in the middle of the night with an intense craving for sweet things? (I'm a heavy smoker).
 
opiates themselves do not delay healing.
opiates are given to patients after surgery or while experiencing pain because opiates promote rest/sleep/relaxation. The body will have a much tougher time healing from anything if the patient is experiencing constant pain. The body heals itself best when at rest/asleep.

I have no idea what kind of opiate use you are referring to here; if you're an opiate addict and neglectful in your sleep patterns and your nutrition habits, then it's likely that a burn or cut will heal much slower (compared to somebody who gets adequate sleep and decent nutrition.)

but no, as most here have stated - opiates themselves do not delay healing.
 
littlepenguin said:
opiates themselves do not delay healing.
opiates are given to patients after surgery or while experiencing pain because opiates promote rest/sleep/relaxation. The body will have a much tougher time healing from anything if the patient is experiencing constant pain. The body heals itself best when at rest/asleep.

I have no idea what kind of opiate use you are referring to here; if you're an opiate addict and neglectful in your sleep patterns and your nutrition habits, then it's likely that a burn or cut will heal much slower (compared to somebody who gets adequate sleep and decent nutrition.)

but no, as most here have stated - opiates themselves do not delay healing.
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Absolutely true and well stated.
 
Of course, they're such good pain-killers it's possible to have something seriously wrong with you and not even notice it. Pain is a very good thing, even though it's painful, after all.

I guess it's true opiates cause cravings for sweet things; I and every one of my addict friends are all completely mad for sweets. (I like the really, really sour shit myself).
 
I used to be able to burn food off without trying; now I gain weight very quickly. Possibly an age thing....
 
opiates do lower body temperature slightly , so I don't think they will have a positive impact on the body's ability to fight off infections.
 
dopemegently said:
Of course, they're such good pain-killers it's possible to have something seriously wrong with you and not even notice it. Pain is a very good thing, even though it's painful, after all.

I guess it's true opiates cause cravings for sweet things; I and every one of my addict friends are all completely mad for sweets. (I like the really, really sour shit myself).
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Yes, most pain serves a purpose as long as it is ACUTE pain, pain that occurs after a fresh trauma or other disease process. But chronic pain is often considered a bad thing, not helpful as long term pain changes your norioceptive pathways and just serves no purpose except for causing more problems. Sometimes we need pain to tell us something is wrong but when it becomes a long term things it is considered a disease process itself only to be further dterimental to ones health!
 
Absolutely right, it amazes me the way some terminally ill patients live with such terrible pain. I'm a coward for pain myself, I just have a very low tolerance for it.

So pain is necessary for survival, but it can also destroy your quality of life; it's the ultimate catch-22...nature can be a bastard.
 
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no, not at all.

in fact opiates boost the pituitary gland's production of human growth hormone, which in turn will = quicker tissue regeneration. i'm pretty sure this effect is negligible however.

haha funny story... back when i was extremely OCD over everything that had to do with powerlifting, i tore my ACL and meniscus and underwent one of the most painful surgeries there is (old school acl reconstruction and a meniscus removal). the next couple of days they had to keep me on morphine and demerol IV's, i kept refusing to take the full doses, so instead of 10 mg of morphine i'd tell them to keep it at the bear minimum, 2 mg.

the docs and nurses were surprised when they found out i went through the smallest amount of narcotics for an ACL surgery they'd ever seen lol. (i was screaming bloody murder when they pulled the hemo-vac tube out of my leg while sober though)
 
That's probably a good idea you had in avoiding opiates in hospital; forming a dependence on them can really complicate the recovery process. After all, the pain-killing properties of opiates only offer short-term benefits, and people can end up paying a massive cost for them.
 
Apologies for digging up an old thread, I just found this on Google.

But I've got wound that's taking too long to heal, and I am wondering if codeine is one of the culprits. My research yielded this study which suggests that chronic administration of morphine actually does inhibit the body's natural healing process:

Morphine treatment resulted in a significant delay and reduction in both neutrophil and macrophage recruitment to the wound site. The delay and reduction in neutrophil reduction was attributed to altered early expression of keratinocyte derived cytokine and was independent of macrophage inflammatory protein 2 expression, whereas suppression of macrophage infiltration was attributed to suppressed levels of the potent macrophage chemoattractant monocyte chemotactic protein-1. When the effects of chronic morphine on later wound healing events were investigated, a significant suppression in angiogenesis and myofibroblast recruitment were observed in animals that received chronic morphine administration. Taken together, our findings indicate that morphine treatment results in a delay in the recruitment of cellular events following wounding, resulting in a lack of bacterial clearance and delayed wound closure.
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So I would not be so quick to say that opiates have no effect on healing.

Note that this study talks about chronic use, so I imagine short term or PRN use of opiates for pain would not be much of an issue especially if you have a good diet and take vitamin C + zinc supplements, but daily use does appear to have negative effects on the healing of wounds.

Even NSAIDs can cause complications as they interrupt the inflammation phase which your body requires in order to form new tissue at a wound site, so it's not only opiates you need to be wary of.

From what I've researched it seems like plenty of things can interrupt the body's wound healing. Alcohol does it do, both acute and chronic use. Anything that acts as a vasoconstrictor (e.g. stimulants) will also cause problems as your body needs to increase blood flow to the wound site, and like smoking, stimulants also deplete your body's vitamin C and zinc supply.
 
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