Bucklecroft Rudy
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2011
- Messages
- 467
I for one very nearly had a grand mal panic attack after hearing that opiates caused brain damage. Ive been scouring google dilligently searching for something to contradict that or at least some stray ray of hope. Had I known that it was even a remote possibility I would have kicked opiates looong ago. As it is ive been a DHC addict for 4-5 years pod addict for 1 year and am currently on bupe which I plan to curb stomp next summer. Here are those stray rays:
Brain cells regenerate:It was thought that brain cells were finite and unregenerate. However scientists have found that brain cells do divide and regenerate even in areas associated with learning and memory (areas thought to be most affected). Curcumin (when modified to cross the bbb) Omega 3 oils and anything which increases brain blood flow will help accelerate this.
Its by no means wholesale and there clearly werent any controls for poly substance abuse lifestyle or comorbidity.
Only around 20-30% of users had any measurable cognitive deficits which may have been a consequence of age,strokes,brain injury and hundreds of other factors. Those figures dont indicate massive irreverisble damage
Overall the brain damage caused by opiates can be serious but is reversible and by no means as serious as that caused by alcohol cocaine et al.
Brain cells regenerate:It was thought that brain cells were finite and unregenerate. However scientists have found that brain cells do divide and regenerate even in areas associated with learning and memory (areas thought to be most affected). Curcumin (when modified to cross the bbb) Omega 3 oils and anything which increases brain blood flow will help accelerate this.
Cognitive functioning was examined in people with a current or past history of opiate abuse using a range of neuropsychological tests. Sixty percent of those currently abusing opiates showed impairments of at least two standard deviations from the published norms on two or more neuropsychological tests, a significantly higher incidence than found in matched controls with no history of drug abuse. The drug free group of recovering addicts fell between the other groups without significant differences. It was concluded that the risk of neuropsychological impairment is greater in opiate abusers, and that recovery may occur during abstinence.
Its by no means wholesale and there clearly werent any controls for poly substance abuse lifestyle or comorbidity.
Neuropathological studies were carried out on 180 human immunodeficiency virus-seronegative intravenous drug addicts. The findings in victims of acute heroin intoxication (n = 116) were congestion (99.1%), capillary engorgement (68.1%), and/or perivascular bleeding (68.1%) – hemodynamic processes attributable to toxic primary respiratory failure. In a high percentage of these cases (88%), cerebral edema was also present. In 18 cases of acute heroin intoxication who survived for periods of hours or days, the sole postmortem finding was ischemic nerve cell damage, resembling that typically seen in systemic hypoxia. Semiquantitative analysis revealed nerve cell loss in the hippocampal formation and/ or Purkinje cell layer in 26% of the 162 chronic drug abusers. By contrast, in nearly 80% of these cases, the hippocampus showed enhanced expression of glial fibrillary acid protein by astrocytes and/or a proliferation of microglia, demonstrated by CD68 expression. Since such reactive processes are produced by primary neuronal damage, it can be assumed that chronic intravenous drug abuse results in obviously ischemic nerve cell loss. This could be demonstrated in the hippocampus, but it must also occur throughout the whole brain. The demonstration of ischemic nerve cell damage and neuronal loss or secondary reactive alterations has not been described previously.
Only around 20-30% of users had any measurable cognitive deficits which may have been a consequence of age,strokes,brain injury and hundreds of other factors. Those figures dont indicate massive irreverisble damage
Overall the brain damage caused by opiates can be serious but is reversible and by no means as serious as that caused by alcohol cocaine et al.