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Does the overage of opioid receptors eventually die off after quitting opiates?

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Benway189

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Dec 31, 2010
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Apologies if this question has been answered. I tried searching the forums for an answer; but to no avail.

From my understanding, long term use of opiates causes the body to produce more opioid receptors to compensate for those that are blocked with opiates.

Does the reverse occur? Will the extra receptors my body created while on opiates eventually die off after quitting opiates, eventually?

I went through a crazy H withdrawl back in december......and going through it again.....I have a current thread open about that.

I'm just wondering; I've only used for like 2.5 or 3 years.......Is the damage permenant? or can it be reversed at this point?

Anyone have any answers on this issue?

Benway189
 
Ok, I'll give it a go, but only because nobody else has answered your question. I doubt that this qualifies as advanced discussion, and I suppose the mods will move or delete this thread.

I'm sorry, but you've got it all backwards. Opiates (opioid agonists) do not block your opioid receptors, they stimulate them. Chronic opiate use will lead to internalisation and downregulation of opioid receptors - quite the opposite of what you're thinking. After quitting opiates, the number of receptors will gradually revert back to normal, but it takes a while.

Your reasoning isn't that bad, but you've got your facts wrong.
 
I think you misunderstand the matter. As far as I know its the other way around. When you are constantly ingesting opioids then there is a surplus of opioids to bond to opioid receptors so the body counteracts this by producing less endorphins and shutting down opioid receptors. When you stop taking opioids you are left with a deficiency of opioids and receptors so to counteract this deficiency you're body will start reforming receptors and producing more endorphins.

An example of this principle is steroid use. When a juicer shoots up testosterone then there is a suplus of it in his body and as a result his body needs to produce less of it. Since the testicles are the organs that produce the testosterone, they literally shrink. Testosterone is a hormone not a neurotransmitter so I'm not sure if their corresponding receptors get shut down like in opioids.
 
In my case (8 or so years of heavy abuse, 5 years of which was 380mg/day of, methadone). Has rendered me, years later, tolerant to opioids; I never returned to baseline (an iintrasal 0C-80 will only give me a decnt buzz, and no nod). Basically it is a function of dose and time.
 
Interesting, negrogesic. I have used opiates (poppy tea, vicodin, etc.) almost daily for about 6 years now and still get amazingly high every time, even when dosing twice in one day. No increase in the dose has occurred because there is no need for it. Plus, too much opiate makes me nauseous.

One thing that has gotten more noticeable is the dizziness/nausea that occurs when riding in a car or moving a lot while on opiates. Never had that in the beginning but now it's kinda annoying.
 
Alcyone said:
Ok, I'll give it a go, but only because nobody else has answered your question. I doubt that this qualifies as advanced discussion, and I suppose the mods will move or delete this thread.

I'm sorry, but you've got it all backwards. Opiates (opioid agonists) do not block your opioid receptors, they stimulate them. Chronic opiate use will lead to internalisation and downregulation of opioid receptors - quite the opposite of what you're thinking. After quitting opiates, the number of receptors will gradually revert back to normal, but it takes a while.

Your reasoning isn't that bad, but you've got your facts wrong.
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thanks sooo much for this response. I understand now, almost the same principle but just reversed. I've always been told withdrawl is similiar to an allergic reaction. LOL. Okay, so hard abuse actually causes receptors to die? wow. Got it!. Seriously, Thanks a million for that input, totally gives me hope that i'll get back to normal eventually.
 
Not die, many opiates won't even cause internalization, but internalization is not death. They will cause signal transduction at the receptor, and down-regulation leads to less endorphin production, your body also increases tolerance in many ways not directly related to the actual mu-receptor.
 
Coolwhip said:
Not die, many opiates won't even cause internalization, but internalization is not death. They will cause signal transduction at the receptor, and down-regulation leads to less endorphin production, your body also increases tolerance in many ways not directly related to the actual mu-receptor.
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wow. I guess this discussion is just over my head. But what I am getting is that one day my body will eventually reach an equilibrium or homeostasis, whatever it is. ????
 
That's a difficult question for anyone to answer about anybody.

No, you will never return to exactly how you were.

Yes, you should heal, over time, to a state that you can handle. Things will be wired differently, but the net effect should be about the same.
 
word up. that's what i mean......i don't mean normal in terms of opiate tolerance, i know that will never return to 0. but just, getting back to normal in terms of not hurting, not having RLS, and being able to sleep like a normal non-addict does?
 
Yes. And I didn't mean tolerance, I just meant you will be able to lead a normal life eventually. Your brain just won't be wired the same as it once was.

Of those symptoms, abnormal sleep will be the last thing to leave. The rest should fade fairly quickly.

I don't know what caused/causes my depression. I know it had to have been made worse from daily, long term use. But I was depressed before I started using. I've never been able to escape the depression after quitting, no matter what I do/try, or how long I've waited. I don't know if abstaining from opiates for long enough would make it liveable, I'm afraid I will never find out.
 
Coolwhip said:
Yes. And I didn't mean tolerance, I just meant you will be able to lead a normal life eventually. Your brain just won't be wired the same as it once was.

Of those symptoms, abnormal sleep will be the last thing to leave. The rest should fade fairly quickly.

I don't know what caused/causes my depression. I know it had to have been made worse from daily, long term use. But I was depressed before I started using. I've never been able to escape the depression after quitting, no matter what I do/try, or how long I've waited. I don't know if abstaining from opiates for long enough would make it liveable, I'm afraid I will never find out.
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Mannnn, I hope you do find out eventually. Lots of things can cause depression. I know I am most depressed when I'm doing what I came here to do.....djaying, mixing records, or anything that sparks my interests.

Anesthesia from multiple serious can also lead to depression issues as well. It's hard to say.

BUT:

I can look back and realize that I was never depressed before I started using any drugs.....I think weed was the biggest cause of depression and anxiety for me......I got a dui and couldn't really smoke for a year (and i was a daily smoker)....I did feel way better and less depressed after not smoking weed for nearly a year. Shit definitely messes with you seratonin levels for shure!....ON the flip side, being on probation & not being able to smoke trees actually is what led to my heroin usage ultimately. Since (at the time) it would be out of my system in just a few days and I could dodge testing positive on a drug test. I know that's not the case these days w/ my extreme tolerance though.

Finally; thanks for you advice and giving me hope that I will return to some kind of normalcy from quitting for good.

peace;
Benway189
 
Most of these post-acute withdrawal symptoms tend to go away, particularly in cases not complicated by issues such as chronic pain or serious psychiatric ailments. If you were 'depressed' before, you could expect to be 'depressed' again in the future.

Realize however, that for the population as whole, any strict application of the DSM criteria could easily lead to a positive classification or diagnosis determination. I would guess that most individuals who possess the sufficient literacy and intelligence to post intelligible remarks on this particular site have been, at one time, diagnosed of an 'axis I' disorder (or, suspected/diagnosed of an axis II) that was made independent of/or not directly related to a substance abuse issue.

In other words, we are all (by some standard) mentally-ill..........Opioid addiction and withdrawal will exacerbate these predispositions, but in most cases,this 'magnification' effect will gradually to return to something resembling '1x', if not slightly greater (crude analogy).

Issues such as withdrawal-related pain or RLS should fade away as well, if not desist entirely....

Personally, in the case of methadone, it took me around 8 months to return to some form of homeostasis as a whole (no distress attributable to the withdrawal). This number is however, a rough estimate, as one does not one day wake up and realize, "Today I completely free of opioid withdrawal".

With heroin, the time to reach a 'relative' homeostasis felt ~3 months after cold-turkey; but this is clouded by the use of benzo's and barbs at the time,and was ultimately unsuccessful (the heroin withdrawal preceded the eventually 'successful' methadone-maintenance withdrawal).
 
negrogesic said:
Issues such as withdrawal-related pain or RLS should fade away as well, if not desist entirely....

Personally, in the case of methadone, it took me around 8 months to return to some form of homeostasis as a whole (no distress attributable to the withdrawal). This number is however, a rough estimate, as one does not one day wake up and realize, "Today I completely free of opioid withdrawal".

With heroin, the time to reach a 'relative' homeostasis felt ~3 months after cold-turkey; but this is clouded by the use of benzo's and barbs at the time,and was ultimately unsuccessful (the heroin withdrawal preceded the eventually 'successful' methadone-maintenance withdrawal).
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Thanks a million for you input man. I seriously appreciate it. I kicked H 3x's cold turkey and went 90 days before relapsing because I still had RLS and ish.......Now i'm withdrawling from suboxone; but I jumped off 4mg daily.....yeh, i know, i should have tapered lower....i was just sick of all the side effects caused by the naxalone. uggghhhh.....I had no side effects on subutex.
 
this is an older thread, but my counselor mentioned this phenomenon, over abundance of opiate receptors in opiate users. He I will be asking him your question, as I was a little shocked and quit paying attention for long enough for him to drone into something else, or ask a question. I do know that he said the reason suboxone is so effective is that with all those extra receptors, the brain feels like a depression over the long-term.. and he said suboxone is like wood filler on a scratched floor. WOW THANKS HA. Yeah, I really hope it's not permanent!
 
Now, I must ask: is this "homeostasis" merely the state of a tolerable amount of WD symptom relief, a "good enough to feel almost normal, but not 100%" type of state? Or is it a total return to a pre-opioid dependence level of opioid receptors?

I have wondered about this for a very long time. It is one thing to have endorphins upregulated, but do mu-opioid receptors fully downregulate/die off to a opioid naive level if the abstinence is sustained?
 
Been abusing opiates off and on for 20 years or so, sometime's Ill go 12-18 months clean from them, and I will never get as high, as cheaply, as I did when I was 14 years old. Maybe going clean for 5 years or so would change this, but I wouldn't know. "Permanent tolerance" is a shitty fact of life I guess.....
 
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