Oxygen deprivation and brain damage due to opiates

[Jaredborgetti]

If this is in the wrong section I apologize, here on bluelight is a thread on bluelight here that says that contrary to popular belief that opiates are benign, oxygen deprivation while nodding off can cause brain damage over time, I would like to know if this is true, yesterday I took 30mgs oxycodone and .5mg alprazolam, I monitored my oxygen saturation and while awake and moving I was at 95%+, but if I relaxed and slept in my bed, I would start nodding, and when I nodded my spo2 frequently went down to 88-89% and the lowest was 78!!! During an intense nod, always when I nod I wake up startled not really gasping for air or anything, which I believe is quite common with opiates, I understand people with sleep apena can have their SPO2 go into similar numbers and some people even get to the 60% range with SPO2 with sleep apnea, I know this might be out of the range of knowdledge of many members of the forum but I believe there are a lot of people here who might have some insight. What kind of brain/organ damage could be expected of using opioids and going into these levels of SPO2? If this is truly of significance then someone using opioids daily even medically could be having brain damage over time, there are some studies that apparently report brain damage in heroin users, what does the BL community think?

 

[kleinerkiffer]

I think this would be more suited for N&PD
OD -> N&PD

 

[zagor11]

OP. I have been taking huge doses of opioids for 5 years. 3 months ago I did an MRi and it showed brain damage. 3 different parts of the brain and 3 different names. One part doctor says is due to smoking. Other 2 they don't know. It doesn't affect my functioning but it bothers me because I do not know the cause. As for breathing I cannot tell because I have deviated septum and have difficulty breathing because of that for a long time. BTW I did brain CR scans in the past prior to opioid and they were always normal but never did an MRI. Since the doc told me not to worry I did not look if this damage would be visible on CT