OPANA ER insuffalation and Silicosis

[bamaplayboy420]

Yes. Silicon causes silicosis of the lungs. The smaller the particles, the more readily this occurs. The silicon in Opana ER is microcrystaline silicon, the smallest particle size there is. All of this I discuss in the first page or so of posts in this threat.



Drug companies design pills that are safe when taken orally. Snorting microcrystalline silicon causes silicosis (in theory), not eating it. Is oxy or morphine safe to crush and inject? No, they can cause all sorts of problems due to the fillers and binders in the pill, which is why people have to resort to micron filtering them.




Would they tell their doctors they've been snorting it? Scroll up a few posts to read first hand why people might not be discussing it with their doctors. By the time you develop silicosis it's too late to do anything about it -- you're going to die. If you're going to die anyway, why bother risking having your pain medication cut off due to suspected abuse?

Quote:
even if it i supposd, supposed, to develop over 5+ years............ first off has't this drug been out for at least 2-4 years? maybe 5? I'm positive there are people who snort 50 of these every single day, for every sigle year that it's been released. believe me, somewhere somehow it exist. and everyone ha a different body. everything, reacts differently.... I'm saying you can't possibly predict how...... this drug will interact with everyones body, in theory, with no proof or results already to speak of.


Opana has been on the market since 2006. That's 5 years as of right now.

 

[enewshan]

misconception about silica in Opana ER

According to the manufacturers of the silicified microcrystalline cellulose it is composed of 98% microcrystalline cellulose and 2% colloidal silicone dioxide. Colloidal silicone dioxide is considered an amorphous silicon which is extremely different from the crystalline silicon that is know to cause silicosis. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) conducted an in-depth evaluation of the potential carcinogenicity of silicon dioxide. They found that there is inadequate evidence to link amorphous silica with cancer effects in humans or test animals. If you research colloidal silicone dioxide (aka amorphous silicone dioxide) you will find multiple articles and material hazard sheets that state there is no dangers of inhalation and thus there is no link to silcosis. The most hazard that I can find from inhaling colloidal silicone was as follows:

"If exposure limits are exceeded, the respiratory tract may become irritated.
May cause shortness of breath, coughing, and/or chest tightness due to temporarily physically overloading the lungs."

http://www.westsystem.com/ss/assets/MSDS/MSDS406.pdf

There is also a study conducted on rats attempting to compare the effects of inhaling crystalline silica and amorphous silica. This study showed that crystalline silica was high in toxicity and causes irreversible damage. In contrast they found that amorphous silica produced a transient (temporary) pulmonary inflammatory response and returned to normal following exposure.

Abstract http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8929682

Now i'm sure that inhaling any inactive ingredient is not going to be good for your longs after long term use but as for the silicone dioxide in Opana ER I would not be too worried about it. I have just started doing Opana over the last 3 weeks and although I have only done 40mg a day during this time period I was extremely worried after reading the discussions about this topic. This led to me to research as much as I can find on the topic and try to get to the bottom of it. Please feel free to question my theory.

 

[arthunter888]

^^ So it looks like the silicone risk has been debunked? I am very happy to read it.

Does anyone see holes in this discovery?

 

[Barack_Opana]

Man, what a releif. This thread scared the hell out of me.

 

[Smokey McPot]

I used to snort a shitload of hydromorph contin (basically dilaudid ER) and while reading this thread I got curious and looked up the ingredients. The first non-medicinal ingredient listed is colloidal silicon dioxide.

Is this stuff as dangerous as the stuff in opana and am I at risk of developing silicosis now? This was a few years ago and I've recently developed breathing problems that I thought stemmed from an infection as my gf had it too but even after antibiotics I still need to use a puffer sometimes (it's months later now) and I never had breathing problems and never used a puffer before this.

Could the colloidal silicon dioxide be contributing to this and am I at risk? I also snort h, Oxys, I've had opana once or twice and I smoke quite a lot(big factor apparently)

If I am at risk is there anything I could do? Any kind of medical intervention or test I could have done to see if there is any damage? I'm in Canada so health care is free and it would be good to catch something like this now before it becomes a bigger problem if i can treat it.

I should mention that when I had a lung infection (we think this is what we had but am not sure, could be bacterial or viral, antibiotics helped a bit I guess but it's still a problem although not as big of one. When it was going in u could barely breathe sometimes like my throat was closing an I would still smoke like an idiot and make it worse. It has gotten much better since but still gives me problems and I still cough up phlegm that is sometimes clear, sometimes yellowish/white/greenish, but before i was coughing up loads of *clear* sticky (think flubber- was that the movie with the green goop?) it's a weird consistency compared to most stuff that comes up and me and my gf both got it bad when snorting a lot of brownish h that came from the same source that we suspected to cause all these problems, since switching sources we have gotten better but not fully well.

Anyway I'm rambling and way off point now but my original tldr question about the colloidal silicon dioxide in hydromorph contin stands. Am I at risk? I was snorting 30mg 3-4 times a day by the end of it for for months. If I am at risk is there anything I could do or ask the doctors to look for? They just threw antibiotics at us and it helped significantly but I'm still a long way from how my breathing/lungs/phlegm output used to be

 

[Smokey McPot]

Sorry for the long previous post, I didn't even bother to read this page before I posted and now that I have read enewshan's post am I to understand that colloidal silicon dioxide does not carry the same risks as the microcrystalline stuff in opana?

And again, is there any way I can be tested to see if I am at risk/ how much damage I've done to myself? What kind if tests could be done? What should I tell the doctors? Sorry if this is too many questions too fast I'm just extremely worried after discovering this.

 

[Barack_Opana]

Man, I just don't know about this.

eneushan's post seems to settle the volatile concept that a dangerous, silicosis causing agent is being used as a binder in a pill.
To me, it seems unlikely that a pill manufacturer would design a pill with something so dangerous in it.
It has to be obvious to the makers of the pill that their products are abused. Isn't that why so many Extended Release pills exist in the first place?

Then again, it's also not inconceivable that the makers of the pill took an approach more akin to, "well, we put a warning on the bottle, we did our part, if your going to abuse the substance, it's not our fault." This is America after all. Cigarettes, asbestos, etc.

The thing is, Opana is pretty common where I'm at. I know a lot people that do it a lot. They all seem fine. In fact I've seen someone first hand cook and shoot the stuff directly into their bloodstream. As far as I know, the nose does a pretty good job of filtering out foreign dirt/dust/objects etc, where as when you shoot up anything, the foreign, non-soluble stuff always ends up in your lungs and accumulates there. . If an individual is shooting up Opana, and if it's as dangerous as the worst posts on this forum suggest, said individual could not be long for this world. And yet, there is no proof, anywhere, whatsoever, that snorting Opana causes a end game, you just fucked your life up, too bad you're gonna die situation.

When I think things over, it seems to me that the chances of contracting silicosis from snorting Opana is more unlikely than likely.

Keep in mind a few seemingly obvious things:

1. The nose is designed to prevent dust, dirt, and what have you from entering the lungs.
2. The moisture in the nose and air ways would help prevent the crushed pill from entering your lungs.
3. The unique 'gelling' attribute of Opana would help prevent the crushed pill from entering your lungs.
4. The fact that Opana doesn't really crush that well, and that most people don't use a hose clamp, keeps the particles from getting too small. Wikipedia lists "fine respirable dust, less than 10 micrometers in diameter" as the culprit. I figure that when most people get their hands on a pill, they use a knife or a credit card on a book or something, and then up the nose it goes. This method seems unlikely to produce something so tiny it would make it to the terminal pathways of the lung.
5. enewshans's research into just what colloidal silicone dioxide is, seems to suggest that amorphous silica is being used. Which, according to his research, doesn't really lead to silicosis. As far as I know, someone has yet to call the manufacturer's of Opana and confront them directly, but regardless, it seems like if there's a type of silica out there that's safer, it would be the type of silica that a pill company would use in their pill.

Now of course there's probably still a good chance, no matter what, that when you snort a powder of any kind, you are putting your lungs at risk. But this forum is all conjecture. No one knows for sure. And this forum is also full of dead ends. There seems to be a particular breed of posts on this particular forum that suggest they're going in to the hospital because they snorted Opana, and not one of them ever "got back to us" to confirm anything. I'm going to say that chances are, silicosis is not something to worry about, but that somebody should really contact Opana Inc. and see what sort of information they can collect from there. Maybe I'll do it. Or maybe I'll just go on with my life. Or maybe I'll stop breathing. Fuck, who knows.

 

[zodiusracemosis]

Ok guys, swim just debunked this shit once and for all because it was scaring the shit out of swim as well. Swim has been snorting 80 mg of opana ER a day for almost 2 years. Swim called endo and talked to one of their pharmacists directly. Swim told her about all the forums online and people going ape shit. She read off the ingredients of opana ER and there is NO SILICONE, and she said that directly. She also said there has been NO REPORTS of any lung related problems or illnesses and she looked in the report data base where she can see ALL individual reports, so were not talking major reports either, and out of ALLLL the problems listed, none had to do with anything respiratory. The only problems reported were memory loss and a couple other things but these are extreme isolated incidents. You can be ASSURED that at least 50% of people on the drug are snorting it. Snorting pain killers is just as common if not more common than taking them orally this day and age. So there is definitely plenty of people out there who have been snorting these pills since they came out, and if this silicosis was true, theyd all be fuckin dead right now and the drug community would DEFINITELY know about it. Now the only thing swim has is when he wakes up after a long sleep 10 hours or more and swims in deep withdrawl, taking a really deep breath is painful, but as soon as swim gets situated he feels fine and has no problem taking deep breaths at any other part of the day. Also swim said that he thinks hes had this for a long time anyway, and swims friend said he had the same problem of painful deep breaths when in severe withdrawl. I dont know about you guys, but swims thinks this rumor is bull shit.

 

[Iodjini_dk]

Silicone has very little to do with silicon dioxide. At least in terms of physical and chemical properties. There is indeed silicified microcrystalline cellulose ie. cellulose containing colloidal silicon dioxide in Opana ER. But as someone mentioned this is not likely to be very harmful. At least not compared to microcrystalline silicon dioxide which is quite nasty stuff outside a fume hood.

 

[SaosinEngaged]

What about the 2 pages of research I did on the topic?



It takes 5-20 years for this condition to manifest. This isn't conjecture it's a medical fact [I'll be an MD in 4 months].

Sorry Raybeez, I'm not buying it. Sounds like conjecture to me. Please don't take offense to what I have to say:

I don't care if you're Dr. fucking House, no one doctor states an unproven theory as medical fact. Sure, your explanation for how Silicosis manifests and damages the lungs may be fact, but the missing element is the NATURE of the silica in the Opana ER. You simply CANNOT state with any degree of certitude that it reaches the lungs upon insufflation of the pill as you claim. If years of research performed by a fellowship of experienced doctors came to the conclusion that snorted Opana ER can cause silicosis, that's another can of worms. But at the moment we have one person stating hypotheticals as "medical facts" and another self indulgent alarmist telling everyone who's snorted an O-ER that they're GOING TO DIE OF SILICOSIS TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW GOODBYE AND WRITE THOSE WILLS.

Nah, I'm sorry.

Is it cause for alarm? Absolutely. Is it eye-opening? Absolutely. Should you think twice before snorting that stash of Opana ER you have? Absolutely.

Are you definitely going to die from silicosis and can we say for certain it will happen as outlined? Absolutely not.

Don't be one of those people that tells smokers they ARE going to DIE from lung cancer, 100%. It doesn't work that way.

Don't be the news anchor reporting on a Cambodian study of chap-stick stating 3% of users developed a rare melanoma of the lips, with no indication of causality.

DO tell people, "Hey, this may be cause for concern, but there's no reason to go off the deep end just yet."

I just can't stand fear-mongering and hysteria when we don't even know if the silica in the pill is capable of reaching the deep membranes of the lung as stated. If someone from the pharm. company stated as such, that's different. If a case of silicosis comes about, definitively linked to Opana ER insufflation, that's different. If a team of medical experts publishes a research paper indication statistical significance of Opana ER causing lung damage, that's different.

Right now, it's all speculation and should be treated as such. And in general, snorting pills is not the best idea. I've had several sinus infections from blowing Roxi's over the years. I've definitely calmed that practice down in recent months; eating them works well enough for it not to be compulsively unavoidable. In general, I tell everyone I know (who uses Oxy) to just eat the shit, and that even though you'll probably be fine putting it up your nose, it's partially a waste and also potentially problematic.

Oh and seriously, Paingame....*facepalms over and over*. I know your heart was in the right place (I think), but you went around this thread in the beginning like the soccer mom who saw the news piece about the chap stick "study" who subsequently forms the group "mothers against lip balm" and advocates the government ban the dangerous lip ointment.

Concern within reason, people.

 

[SaosinEngaged]

According to the manufacturers of the silicified microcrystalline cellulose it is composed of 98% microcrystalline cellulose and 2% colloidal silicone dioxide. Colloidal silicone dioxide is considered an amorphous silicon which is extremely different from the crystalline silicon that is know to cause silicosis.

Knew I should of read through the last page. Meh.

This is exactly as I would have predicted. An overlooked tidbit of information that would discredit all the research presented earlier in the thread.

Not that I have some personal vendetta against raybeez or Paingame, but I was rolling my eyes a bit at all the exaggeration and premature "facts."

Ironically, I think the early part of this thread represents both the good and bad of Bluelight. The good in the sense that we have some incredibly intelligent individuals on the site that will figure things out about drugs that no typical doctor, politician or soccer mom ever will. And the bad in the sense that sometimes information may be inaccurate or the person giving it may not be 100% certain, which could certainly cause problems. I.E "yeah sure, you'll be perfectly fine taking 60mg of Oxy with no tolerance. I was!"

 

[raybeez]

Sorry Raybeez, I'm not buying it. Sounds like conjecture to me. Please don't take offense to what I have to say:

Is it cause for alarm? Absolutely. Is it eye-opening? Absolutely. Should you think twice before snorting that stash of Opana ER you have? Absolutely.

Are you definitely going to die from silicosis and can we say for certain it will happen as outlined? Absolutely not.

Don't be one of those people that tells smokers they ARE going to DIE from lung cancer, 100%. It doesn't work that way.

I agree with you 110%. You took my quote out of context. Please allow me to clarify so that there is no misunderstanding on your part, or the part of other readers of this thread.

When I said:

It takes 5-20 years for this condition to manifest. This isn't conjecture it's a medical fact

It should be read as:

It is a medical fact that when a person is exposed to enough silicon to cause silicosis, it takes 5-20 years for them to actually develop the disease.

Meaning: It will be impossible to provide a definitive answer to the question "Does insuffilation of OPANA cause silicosis" for a long time. Therefore everyone should be informed of any potential (theoretical) risks so that they can make informed decisions about using OPANA in this manner, and take any necessary precautions.

 

[ShaunG]

According to the manufacturers of the silicified microcrystalline cellulose it is composed of 98% microcrystalline cellulose and 2% colloidal silicone dioxide. Colloidal silicone dioxide is considered an amorphous silicon which is extremely different from the crystalline silicon that is know to cause silicosis. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) conducted an in-depth evaluation of the potential carcinogenicity of silicon dioxide. They found that there is inadequate evidence to link amorphous silica with cancer effects in humans or test animals. If you research colloidal silicone dioxide (aka amorphous silicone dioxide) you will find multiple articles and material hazard sheets that state there is no dangers of inhalation and thus there is no link to silcosis. The most hazard that I can find from inhaling colloidal silicone was as follows:

"If exposure limits are exceeded, the respiratory tract may become irritated.
May cause shortness of breath, coughing, and/or chest tightness due to temporarily physically overloading the lungs."

No one really commented on this after all this research was done. raybeez, if true, this kinda negates the theory that inhaling some of the pill into your lungs when snorting Opana ER could lead to silcosis in 10-20 years if used too much. What are your thoughts on the statement and data provided by enewshan?

 

[raybeez]

No one really commented on this after all this research was done. raybeez, if true, this kinda negates the theory that inhaling some of the pill into your lungs when snorting Opana ER could lead to silcosis in 10-20 years if used too much. What are your thoughts on the statement and data provided by enewshan?

Enewshan is half right - amorphous silica is way less likely to cause silicosis compared to crystaline/microcrystaline silica.

Yes it is true that colloidal silica is a type of amorphous silica

However colloidal silica is unique (amongst amorphous silica) in that it is still toxic to the lungs when it is a fine particle size as in pharmaceutical formulations.

 

[DooMMooD]

All this conjecture and theory is very good, but real world experience and examples are more important imo.

I know from personal experience that daily opana sniffing had VERY NEGATIVE EFFECTS ON MY LUNGS! in fact i developed asthma out of the blue, the only difference in my life was sniffing those damn yellow pills. Theres a few other threads about all of this, with some people posting their real life anecdotal experience. Yes, nothing by subjective and anecdotal conjecture, but at least they have real life examples vs theory and white papers.

Believe what you want everyone, I will keep telling people to watch out for these fuckers b/c i have never had anything impact my respiratory system in this way before. Could be a number of things, but as I said I will keep the blame on the opanas. Because now that i've stopped sniffing opanas every day? I can breath about 100x better than when I was doin them all the time last year.

http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/573090-Opana-and-lungs?p=9667031#post9667031

http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/572814-!!!Warning-If-You-Snort-Opana-ER!!!?p=9674957#post9674957

 

[RTrain]

I went on a ~month long opana phase before I got heavy into Oxy. And I had very harsh side effects from nasal consumption. My nose would be clogged to the point where there was absolutely no air going through and I would get asthma like symptoms. To the point where I started couging up very thick, stringy looking mucus from my lungs. I do not believe it was silica realted, although, I think it was an allergic intolerance of somesort...Mainly I say that because I had similar but less pronounced effects from Oxy intranasally.

At the time I started these I had been doing heavy exercise and it just started to get freezing temps for the winter. I would jog and after less than 1/2 a mile I was dying like I sprinted unitl I was about to pass out.

Only other thing i will mention about this is I had about a handfull of friends doing the same opanas, intranasally, without any of the effects I had. So I'm thinking people are just more likely to have severe allergic reactions to i than say Oxy.

From my research I don't think it is silica related because it would take longer than a month to notice symptoms of the silicas effect on the lungs.

 

[enewshan]

Silcosis and Opana

I'd like to add that when I did the research above it was when I was using Opana heavily for a month and the reason I started researching was because I developed a cough and was coughing up mucus just like a normal respiratory infection. After I stopped doing them it went away in a few days. This is what I was explaining earlier is that research does not link this type of silicone dioxide to silcosis BUT too much exposure can cause a respiratory infection. So I'm not arguing that it does not effect your lungs because two of my friends devloped coughs as well after a month of exposure. I'm just glad that I only used for 1 month and stopped once I noticed.

 

[itscomplicated87]

I have snorted almost 500 opana er in the last 2 years... 10mg, 20mg and 40mg.... I am still feeling like gold.... I just highly doubt a drug company knowing tons of people would abuse these pills, would make it so you die from an awful disease... I have found no real cases either... if I start to die from this I'll let you all know.... and a new tamper proof formula is out... and until they make the ir opana again I'll keep going

 

[Zuki-GSXR1000]

I have had some of the most miserable side-effects from Opana, both ER/IR and Brand/Actavis generics. I would be glad to send anyone who is interested a pdf scan of my Mayo Clinic medical records from March of this year. Here's what happened to me:
Last summer I started having strange chest pains and shallow, painful breathing. They scanned my lungs and saw nothing. Two months went by. I woke up one morning in Oct. and my right arm was completely paralyzed. They said it was a problem with my brachial plexus nerve bundle (the nerves that come out of your neck, under your collar bone right next to the side of one of your lung lobes, and out to your arm). The arm came back to life a month later and no one gave me any satisfactory explanation for any of this at that time. Then, in Dec., I started having myoclonic jerks. These jerks are normally associated with neuro-degenerative diseases or progressive epileptic conditions - nearly all of which are deadly. Myoclonic jerks can also be associated with opiate use, particularly heroin and morphine. Well, I went to my pain doc and asked if the Opana could be causing the jerks and he said "absolutely not" and then piss tested me on the spot.
In Jan, my bladder started shutting down; meaning I couldn't void my bladder. Went to a Urologist and he said I am anatomically fine and the problem must be coming from my brain - "neurogenic bladder". At this point, doctors here in D.C. thought I was dying of a neuro-degenerative illness and wanted me to go to the Mayo Clinic, as I was too young to be having these symptoms. I went to Mayo in March, and, long story short, they found out that several doctors in the DC area made several mistakes and that Opana was the culprit all along. My arm went paralyzed because the Opana I was sniffing caused a rare type of pneumonia called cryptogenic organized pneumonia, and this pneumonia created large lesions in my lung lobes, one of which pressed up against my brachial plexus nerve bundle and paralyzed my arm. The myoclonic jerks were, according to Dr. Matsomoto, a Neurosurgeon/Movement Disorder specialist at Mayo, also caused by Opana. He said that although the current literature on oxymorphone and it's metabolites does not indicate any involvement with jerks, he has found plenty of research in the Mayo database indicating otherwise.
As for my bladder, well that was also Opana. As many of you know, opiates slow down the bladder, causing only mild urinary retention for most people. Well, when I started jerking, they gave me high doses of benzos to stop the jerking; and the combo of the benzos and the Opana (40mg 4x/day was my dosage btw) was enough to slow my bladder down to a near stop, end-organ/inert bladder. Moral of the story? Opana can and will f*&^ your world up if you're not careful. I was lucky my arm came back to life; and I was lucky my bladder didn't turn into a dead sack in my stomach, urinating only by cathederization.
I'm not trying to be self-righteous here. Hell, I still snort the stuff, but at a much lower dosage. I just believe that people should have access to all the information, opinion and fact, if they are to make an informed decision about recreational drug use.

 

[raybeez]

^ Hey, that's terrible, sorry to hear this happened to you. What did they say about your prognosis? Will you need to be on immunosuppresant steroids (prednisone) for the rest of your life? Did you disclose to them that you've been snorting Opana? Did they mention if they will publish it as a case report?

To everyone else:

Cryptogenic organizing pneumonia (COP), formerly called bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia (BOOP), is a type of inflammatory (not infectious) pneumonia of unknown origin, but it is thought to arise from the combination of genetics + exposure to environmental particle triggers. It is a milder form of pulmonary fibrosis (which includes silicosis, the disease that myself and others were speculating Opana might cause). Unlike silicosis (which is progressively fatal), COP is fully reversible in 2/3rds of patients, although many require lifelong treatment with drugs to keep it suppressed.

I think this case proves that snorted Opana particles do make their way into the lungs. Unfortunately silicosis develops 10-30 years after exposure to silica, and so this still doesn't rule in/rule out silicosis as a possible long term consequence of intranasal Opana use.