Opioids What causes opiate hangovers?

[dokomo]

i wouldnt call it a hangover. i would call it an afterglow, it feels awesome. so relaxing and kind of twitchy too the way you can still kind of move around and feel it tingle a little bit sometime. if i did a bunch of heroin the only hangover effect ill have is a little nausea maybe. nothing bad tho, i just might not want to eat right away when i wake up.

Its strange--I've felt both things the day after opioid use. I've felt the "hangover" effect where I just feel kind of foggy and I get upset/feel hopeless really easily and I've also had what I also call an "afterglow" where I still feel a tinge high and blissful the next day.

My opioid use is infrequent, maybe once a month if that and usually hydrocodone.

 

[monstanoodle]

I only seem to get hangovers when I come back to it after not using it for a few weeks and use a large amount, and it only consists of a nasty headache. I assumed at first that it was to do with dehydration, but I guess not after reading all this here. I take Ibuprofen and stay hydrated to try combat it but it doesn't seem to help all that much.. A little maybe.

As for the Q's:

1) Do you have any history of migraines or headaches that aren't caused from drugs/alcohol? Nope
2.)Do you have any sinus problems? Nope
3.)Do you drink alcohol much? With opiates at all? Only very, very rarely and it usually consists of 1 glass of wine or cider
4.)Is the hallmark factor the 'braincrushing' headache? Yes, if not the only factor

 

[Deadhead420]

Well, it's not impurities as it happens after a night of eating pills as well, (unless you're counting filler as impurities.) And its not dehydration because I always drink a ton of water when I'm high.

Another symptom I always get is a bad taste in my mouth the next morning, from pills, dope, poppy tea you name it. It's a gross, chalky taste. anybody else notice that?

I don't think the hangovers are caused by simply a loss of the high or the bodies return to normal. They are far too horrific for that.

It's interesting that not everyone seems to suffer from them. Well, I'm hungover right now and let me tell you, they are worse than 99% of the alcohol hangovers I've had in my life.

Wow I've only had opiate hangovers the first couple times I did them and they've never even been close to an alcohol hangover.

 

[Artificial Emotion]

I've had my blood oxygen saturation monitored whilst being very intoxicated on opiates and it was consistently low (sometimes dangerously low, even though under normal circumstances I wouldn't consider myself to be overdosing). Perhaps this is the cause of nausea and other unpleasant symptoms like headaches the next day?

 

[SZodiac]

I'm more likely to get a hangover after one day when I have a low tolerance, not after days and days. Again, during the times in my life when I've had a habit, hangovers weren't a problem.

Exactly right. It's almost always after getting blasted after not using for a while that I get the hangover. Not using long enough to wake up the sleeping receptors or you haven't grown them yet (if you've never had a habit). I always drink allot of water when I'm high just because I love cold water when I'm blasted. So dehydration is not a part of it IMO. I think it's just the big dose after nothing for a spell that does it. I never get hangovers when I'm using continuously (get sick though!) Happens more to me on Oyx Contins (doing 3-4 80's in a day) than doing good dope. But some good fire dope can do it too if I haven't done any in a spell.

 

[The Straight Dope]

Exactly right. It's almost always after getting blasted after not using for a while that I get the hangover. Not using long enough to wake up the sleeping receptors or you haven't grown them yet (if you've never had a habit). I always drink allot of water when I'm high just because I love cold water when I'm blasted. So dehydration is not a part of it IMO. I think it's just the big dose after nothing for a spell that does it. I never get hangovers when I'm using continuously (get sick though!) Happens more to me on Oyx Contins (doing 3-4 80's in a day) than doing good dope. But some good fire dope can do it too if I haven't done any in a spell.

Makes total sense, I'm feeling like total shit right now. I kinda wish that I'd sniffed instead of IV'ed, cause I think it was just too much for my body to handle. Oh yeah and doing more dope definitely does NOT help.

 

[CMK1356]

I know the symptoms you are describing as your opiate hangover, but I've only had those after taking tramadol (when it wears off - i.e. hangover.) I don't have that after other narcotics, other than the bad taste in the mouth and a little grogginess. I assumed I was over-sensitive to the tramadol and switched to another drug at the time. It actually also caused my jaws to ache along with my head. I've since called it an allergy thinking something was really wrong with my reaction to it.

 

[PinK~cloud]

i've had what you describe a few times. just raging head aches. its usually from morphine or opiates that are combined with tylenol.

 

[bluemorning]

I must be one of the few lucky ones, because I've never experienced an opiate hangover. Hell, I'd never even heard of outside of bluelight.

 

[Cane2theLeft]

^I also had never heard of them before but I don't think we are of the FEW lucky ones, I think most people don't experience opiate hangovers, at least nothing on par with the frequency or severity of alcohol.

 

[GolfR32]

I have never experienced this so called hangover. Only withdrawl.

I think some people confuse long half life opiates as causing hangovers, such as people who take pod tea, methadone or buprenorphine and throw up in the morning. They think its a hangover but they are ust still intoxicated.

 

[ingannilo]

How many people who get the headaches are using pod tea? Other alkaloids in there play hell on vascular tension, right? Could cause migraines....

Never had anything like this happen on heroin. For a while I suspected both poppy tea and suboxone(not together) as a source of headaches but it turned out to be really nasty/dirty hookah coals. Switched to a cleaner brand coal and headaches vanished, even while the habit remained. Could've been a combination of the coals and the drug, or anything else though. They were head-splitting, horrible, can't focus on anything but the pain headaches, for real. Not suggesting hookah coals are the source of your experiences, just offering mine.

Curious about the aticholinergic alkaloids in poppies and vasoconstriction though... anyone?

 

[The Straight Dope]

Hey guys, oddly enough one think I've found out helps and might even cure the nausea and headaches is none other than marijuana!

The experience pretty much changed my whole perspective on medical marijuana, I was too nauseaus to keep anything in my stomach for too long but smoking some pot totally changed that!

 

[subisjustokay]

IMO, the hangovers are just the drug trying to get the brain addicted because if you wake up hungover and you felt fine the day before when you were on the drug... then you would maybe be more inclined to get more of the opiates to get rid of the hangover and enough of this pattern leads you into a full blown addiction. Or that's how it happened for me anyways... Oh how I wish I could have just been a recreational user...

 

[gomorrah]

SWIM has the same problem, he used to use heavily and now he seldom indulges, but whenever he does, the next day he experiences a "short withdrawal." Thats the best way to describe it. It occurs commonly in former addicts.

 

[Ancient_Hippy]

I am not a heavy opiate user but do indulge occasionally. The only opiate that ever gave me a headache (and it was a really bad one) was Kratom - it took me by surprise as I don't normally get headaches not even with a bad alcohol hangover. Anyway four co-codomal tablets (the prescription only kind with 30 mg Codeine) soon cured it. I don’t know what this proves - is the headache part of some sort of withdrawal syndrome?

 

[bluemorning]

weird... now that I'm on suboxone, I feel a positive afterglow after taking my occasional vacation back to heroin, not a hangover.

 

[theotherside]

When I would take opiates with APAP in them, and was too lazy to do a CWE, I would experience a bad headache the next morning. I wonder if the APAP has anything to do with it.

 

[beezer420]

I know what he means by these hangovers, i get them sometimes too. Even after extended amounts of daily use, if i get a little too high before bed time i feel slow and groggy in the morning. Very rarely do i get a headache, but i feel slow and disconnected and all around shitty, but like i said its not every night i do pills, just if i got extra high. A morning pill almost always cures this.
With opiates, the drug sticks to opiod receptors in your brain. Because they are an antagonist not an agonist, they dont really do anything, they just block other signals from your body from reaching the appropriate brain cell. Most cases these are unplesent signals, such as pain, hence why it makes such a good pain killer, the pain signal cant reach the brain cell it is supposed to. When you do a higher then average dose, your body realizes that the signals are being blocked and your brain actually produces more opiate receptors so the signals can get through. Now when the opiate wares off, not only can the signals start getting through again, there is more places from them to go, making you extra sensitive to all the bad shit the opiate was blocking. This is also what causes some of the withdrawl symptoms like sensitivity to pain when you quit, your body winds up with way too many opiod receptors so anything bad pretty much has a free open ride to do its nasyness.
I dont think there is anything you can really do to prevent these "hangovers", but a morning pill will block off those newly developed opiod receptors and you will feel all better again.
Im no bio-chemist, so i cant guarentee that what i said is correct, but from my understanding of how opiates work and the research i have done on the subject, this seems to be the most likely cause of these "opiate" hangovers. But remeber just cause it makes sense to me it doesnt mean its true.
Anyone have a different explaination id love to hear it

 

[w01fg4ng]

smoking opium flake, without coal, sometimes has given me terrible headaches....but eating it never has...