Opioids Never been sick while using opiates..something to this?

[uno22]

If anything opiates are suppressing your immune system, which is why you don't ever feel sick, infections are running rampant but your body is ignoring them. Most of the symptoms of feeling sick are caused by your body fighting the infection, not the infection itself(think fever, runny nose, sputum in your lungs, sore throat from inflammation, vomiting and diarrhea to expel infections from your GI tract, etc. etc.) these are all triggered by your bodies immune system in an attempt to fight the infection, not the infection itself.

dammit

 

[VisceralChems]

So my question to the posters claiming that it is suppressing your immune system and that virus / bacterial infections are running rampant through our body, why then does it not seem to take a toll on our well being? Why can we have viruses that cause other people to miss work and be bed ridden run "rampant" and unchecked by an immune system to fight it, and still be OK? I don't get it.

 

[spacejunk]

^ the post above yours makes a pretty good stab at explaining what you are asking. I don't have a good enough understanding of how the human immune system works to give any better response, but I can share my (contradictory) experience.

When I used opiates habitually - for 8 years - I got sick a lot. Bacterial and viral infections, cold, flu. Most frequently the common cold, but fairly regular bouts of influenza - something i had only really experienced once or twice before becoming opiate dependent.

I can deduct thst this was partly caused by my workplace at the time (dealing with members of the public) possibly my lifestyle and chronic insomnia - but I am starting to think that it was (at least in part) the effects of opiates on my immune system. The longer I went on using, the more susceptible to every illness around me I became.
I never really blamed my drug use at the time - but if I came into contact with an obviously sick person, it was quite rare for me not to catch whatever contagion they were suffering.

Since I got clean about a year ago, I've not had a single cold or flu.

I have heard this theory - which was indeed famously espoused by Keith Richards - many times before, but in my case it was the complete opposite.
I don't believe opiates eliminate all pain and discomfort - part of their action is to lessen the impact of pain, but it is not totally numbing or (typically) dissociating.
I'm sure this thead has come up at least once or twice before.