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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards | negrogesic

Heroin Why don’t drug addicts get sick?

L

lukeskywatcher

Greenlighter
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
12
Is it just me or do drug addicts rarely get sick vs when I’m clean and sober I get a cold or something wayyy more often? Does anyone have any scientific facts that back that up? I can never find anything on google without it being taken over my drug rehab places. A truly curious question I have especially with this whole covid 19 going around! (Not to say I won’t get it) but still just an observation I’ve made over the years and other addicts have too who I’ve talked to!
TIA!
 
I think we invite illness in. Someone I knew had a panic attack but kept telling people he had a mini stroke. He kept saying that over and over for a few years until he actually had a true TIA. He kept perpetuating it. The only thing a "drug addict" (broad term) invites in is his next fix. :D

Keep the immune system healthy. Take some shots of good apple cider vinegar ever few days and sleep good. Sleep is the best defense. That is the reason someone could get a virus and not feel it too much. If your body is healthy it will eliminate germs and viruses. I mean once you get one your body does it's thing anyway. Keep it healthy and nothing will touch you.

Get a little info on covid19 but don't dwell on it. I really believe people bring on some of their own illness through worry and dwelling on things. Stay in that becoming state. The becoming state is this: you get a cut and then are in the process of becoming healed. Stay becoming healed.
 
There does seem to be some correlation, while on opioids I rarely seem to get sick... or I do get sick and just don't realize it?idk

I've really noticed this over the last few years especially with daily kratom and/or Tianeptine. A bug will go through everyone in the house except for me. Or I do get sick but don't notice the symptoms...



I think there is also something to what jackaroe said, people do bring on sickness on themselves sometimes, for example:

At one point I was starting withdrawals from a tramadol addiction. My wife and kids at the time did not know I was an addict, so I lied to them and told them I was coming down with the flu. They watched as I got really sick for about a week, believing it was a bad case of the flu.

A few days in my wife got sick, then my kids too for a couple days. I think they convinced themselves of it happening, so it did? Like a placebo I guess? And this isnt the only time this happened. Many times over the years I've had 'the flu' to cover up withdrawals and several times everyone around me also got sick, lol. So it's either coincidence or they allowed the notion that they could get sick allow them to actually get sick? I don't know.
 
I guess it depends on the drug. I still got a fair amount of colds as an alcoholic/benzo-addict. I also see a fair amount of crack/methamphetamine addicts who seem rundown and prone to colds/viruses, and I know from personal experience that a stimulant bender substantially cutting into my sleep was a good setup for catching a cold of some kind. That said, stimulants do help ease most of the classic cold symptoms, so I could see a certain "masking" effect.

As for opiate addicts, I hear different things. In my experience as one, I've noticed a definite decline in the number of cold-type events as well as a steep decline in the severity of the few colds I do get. It could be just aging, since I definitely aged out of my sickliest period before that, but I tend to credit the drug (addiction) itself with some of the immunity.

Some people say it masks the symptoms, and I get that, since opiates are incredibly good at easing cold symptoms. But personally, I feel like I know when I am sick and not feeling it much, versus when I have not been sick at all. In any event, the misery of having a cold/etc. is knowing you have it. If it never registers with you, do you really even have one? (In the "tree falls in an empty forest" sense...)
 
My theory is they become les sick for the same reasons homeless people do not get sick : they eat less frequently so they enter Ketosis on a regular basis which is the healing state for the body. Most people are sick because they are constantly burning sugar from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep and spend their entire lives in constant glycolisis which is not the way our bodies have evolved to do at all.
 
babooon87 said:
My theory is they become les sick for the same reasons homeless people do not get sick : they eat less frequently so they enter Ketosis on a regular basis which is the healing state for the body. Most people are sick because they are constantly burning sugar from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep and spend their entire lives in constant glycolisis which is not the way our bodies have evolved to do at all.
Click to expand...
Homeless people do not get sick???
Are u serious ?
 
Drugs, especially opiates, cover up illness symptoms. There's a reason they put codeine in cough medicine after all. If you got a habit you won't know when you get ill unless it's really severe. Most of the time if you feel sick you just assume it's withdrawals. Then you take a hit and the drug makes you feel good no matter what's actually going on.
 
Welp now I’m even more worried cause I got a baaad habit right now and coming from these replies I won’t kno until it’s rly bad 🥺 RIP I’ll miss you guys 💔 lol jkjk.. unless
 
MDPV_Psychosis said:
so I lied to them and told them I was coming down with the flu
Click to expand...

The sheer number of "sinus infections" I've had over my lifetime is absolutely staggering.

This last one's been resurging, for a day or two, a couple of times a week for the last month or so.
 
I don't know why but I've only gotten sick once that I know of for a 4-5 year span. About half to 60% of that time was spent on an opioid, the last two and a half years have been basically non stop kratom use.

When I did get a cold I was easily able to work through it because it pretty much felt like a mild version of withdrawal, except without the RLS, so it was 100 times better.
 
I do not have a firm theory on this. I believe the drugs mask a lot of the symptoms of stuff like the common cold or what have you. As as Opioid addict especially, I think it can be hard to differentiate between Max-Force level Opioid withdrawal vs. the same with "a cough". It's a god question for sure. I've been curious of this phenomenon for a long time as well. This isn't necessarily acute Harm Reduction though guys. I'm trying to be less of a Nazi though. Ancestry.com has revealed to me that my Mother is Jewish, so I am quite conflicted at the moment.
 
I was a street heroin user for ten years. Can only remember having strep-throat briefly. I think it's because the body makes itself sick to fight the virus on the same receptors that mask it with opioids.
 
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