Opioids Opiate Tolerance Max Limit?

[anterogradient]

Does tolerance just basically keep increasing, or does it eventually reach a plateau?

I read on erowid that the highest dose known to an opiod addiction researcher was two grams a day. However, it wasn't clear if the two grams were pure or not.

I'm wondering if anyone could say the highest known dose they knew of, and how high people think tolerance can go.

 

[TheUltimateFixx]

Tolerance isn't unlimited, for the simple reason that there's a threshold to how much CNS suppression the body can handle. Plus your tolerance to the euphoric effects builds faster than that to the sedating effects.

 

[Quasimoto]

I think the highest dose of morphine ever prescribed to a patient was 2000mg of morphine (per day), due to extreme tolerance. 2 grams of heroin is believable as well, but probably not pure.

Theoretically and semantically, there is no limit to tolerance. Tolerance is inexhaustible, it's only your body that gets exhausted. You only have so many cells and neurons. Your body can only take so much of anything, be it heroin or oxygen or water.

 

[TheUltimateFixx]

there is no limit to tolerance. Tolerance is inexhaustible

The limit is DEATH, my man. The human body doesn't have an endless capacity to adjust to sedation, even if the odd individual can push it further than most.

 

[Quasimoto]

The limit is DEATH, my man. The human body doesn't have an endless capacity to adjust to sedation, even if the odd individual can push it further than most.

"Only the body gets exhausted", and the rest of my post, was a metaphor for death. I'm wax poetic.

 

[Halif2]

Your body can only take so much of anything, be it heroin or oxygen or water

Add in 'ice-cream' and you've just listed my holy tetralogy.

 

[Cult315]

Theoretically, with enough naloxone couldn't tolerance be endless? Or does Naloxone effect opiate tolerance in a way that I don't get? I'm kind of disappointed in myself that I don't know the answer to that, but found this:

Ultra-low-dose naloxone suppresses opioid tolerance, dependence and associated changes in mu opioid receptor-G protein coupling and Gbetagamma signaling - PubMed

Opiates produce analgesia by activating mu opioid receptor-linked inhibitory G protein signaling cascades and related ion channel interactions that suppress cellular activities by hyperpolarization. After chronic opiate exposure, an excitatory effect emerges contributing to analgesic tolerance...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I haven't slept and trying to make sense of that made my eyeballs hurt. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's stating that ultra-low-dose Naloxone will suppress opiate tolerance/dependence among other things. But what about ultra-high-dose Naloxone? Or ultra-just-enough Naloxone to go punch for punch with Morphine/H? In theory, couldn't you push the limits and go where no tolerance has gone before? Other than severe WD and a full-time babysitter or two, what's stopping somebody from doing a boatload of H, ODing and getting Narcan'd up just to do it again and again?

I by no means am suggesting anybody try it, I'm just being dumb. But in the name of science the person with the largest known tolerance should at the very least consider it. How long can one person sustain a 2000mg habit without pushing boundaries? Tolerance rises fast and they'd have to be in a constant, at least minor state of withdrawal to not hit the point of no return and finally succumb to an OD anyway. If I was in enough pain that I required 2g of Morphine daily I'd be doing every damn thing I could to escalate the process, can't imagine you'd still feel good on a dose like that.

 

[entheologian]

I read somewhere years ago that tolerance maxs out at 400mg pure heroin per day