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Opioids opioid effects on weight gain/weight loss. anybody know about this?

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Phat5o

Bluelighter
Joined
Sep 15, 2012
Messages
167
i'm very curious and having a hard time finding any info about this online so i figured all you guys with first hand experience might be able to help me out a bit here....

everybody here that takes opioids on a day to day basis, how has opioid use affected your weight? granted diet and activity levels stayed the same, did you lose or gain weight for any unknown reason? and what opioid was this on?

i've read a lot that tramadol in particular made people loose a lot of weight, but as i understand tramadol is more of an ssri in the first place.

since opioids are notorious for slowing down your body, central nervous system and digestion i'm inclined to think that they would make regular users gain weight as their body might become a bit inefficient at burning calories and and handling nutrients. of course this is where it gets kinda tricky too as so many people just stop eating right when they begin to use a lot. they'll forget their meals, throw up or feel too sick to eat so of course many of them will loose weight.

on the other hand i've read that it stops your body from producing cortisol which could possibly cancel out the above

any experiences would be appreciated
 
poppy tea made me gain a lot of water weight, shit loads and fat. Dilaudid and oxycodone don't really make a difference, i'll often skip a meal just so i dont lose my buzz.

i just know that i gained like 20-30lbs on poppy seed tea after 18 months, not sure what was in it that did that but it sucked/s. It wasn't just that i was holding water weight only, even now after 6 months of no poppy tea i still have fat where there wasn't any before but that could just be because i am getting older and not as active (tho i am 27).
 
From experience opiates have always made me lose weight. Ever sence I got hooked I lost like 25 lbs but that's over the course of a couple months.

They just lower my appetite wich is the number one reason for me loosin all the wight. Sometimes id go a day without eatn and I won't even be hungry the next day. Even though they lowered my motivation to work out an eat healthier it don't matter id still lose weight. I mean if yer only eatn less than a 1000 calories ina day yer bound to drop a few. An yes they do lower yer metabolism an decrease testosterone so that can lead to weight gain but by goin with the simple cals in - cals out equation an barely eatin yer gonna lose weight.
 
^ I'm the opposite, I usually gain 5 or so pounds when i start taking opiates daily. I put them right up there with cannabis and benzos when it comes to causing munchies. Although when I detox I usually lose twice as much as I gained. When in w/d the sight and smell of food makes me cringe.
 
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for me, when i'm on oxy, hydro or tramadol i don't really notice a difference at all. i have been on codeine and morphine as well and i think these make me gain weight a bit, might be cause they just kill your digestion

since we're on this topic, please feel free to let me know about any weight changes on other medicines as well. like somas, benzos, barbs, amphetamines etc
 
If using high doses, weight loss for sure.
I went from 117lb to 102lb in less than a month while on IV morphine because I just never felt like eating.

I'm on oxycdone/contin now and at small doses it makes no difference but at recreational doses I lose my appetite and often just forget to eat.

Having said, that I recently gained almost 15lb (a good portion of it water weight) while on MScontin and oramorph.

Sorry, I realise I've not been helpful at all. Basically if you eat as normal you'll probably gain, if you take enough to lose your appetite you'll lose.
 
benzos don't make you gain weight at all; antipsychotics and some antidepressants (well quite a few do). Barbs shouldn't either but i forgot another opiate before; methadone. You will gain weight with methadone if you fucking love sugar and chocolate.

amphetamines definitely make you lose weight, no question about that. You could lose up to 10 lbs per week no problem on stims. Won't be healthy tho.
 
All opiates make me gain weight after a while. Constipation + water retention + slowed metabolism + sugar cravings = weight gain. Some people who shoot heroin become skinny waifs, so it definitely varies.
 
It depends on the tolerance and DOC. Iv'ing drugs replaces the socially ingrained construct of the meal with the substance/habit ingrained dose. Methadone, no matter the ROA, seems to mean weight gain, with almost no exceptions. Black, on the other hand, seems to make people lose weight without hardly any exceptions. This might also have to do with ROA though.
 
For me luckely opiates tend to promote a bit more weight; I'm not easily affected by the nausea so I eat normally when on them and even in withdrawals but the slower metabolism makes that gaining weight. at 103 pounds for 5'9 though I'm very happy about that.
 
Oxycodone and Suboxone for two years - gained 50 lbs. However, I stopped exercising and have major sugar cravings. When I detox I can lose up to 10 lbs a week.
 
When I was on heroin I rarley ever ate . I would go threw most of the day without eating than have some type of dinner in the evening an that would be my only meal... of course I took a while of me being addicted to get this way, but I completely lost my appitete when i was all strung out .. Be carefull though If you do choose to get clean I put on fucking 20 pound over a month when I first got clean . My face got super pudgy an I looked about as bad as I did when I was skin an bones running the streets haha
 
I lost 8lb initially on Zoloft/Sertraline but it evened out after a few weeks. I've heard Paxil/Peroxitine makes you chub up.
All anti-psychotics are well-know to cause significaant weight gain.
 
BASIC RULE OF THUMB: uppers make you lose weight, downers make you gain weight.
Although, I was a hardcore alcoholic for 3 years (1.5 liters vodka every day, drinking 24/7) and my BMI was like 15 but I heard alcohol stops your body absorbing caloriesw and nutrients with chronic use.
 
^it's not that alcohol stops your body from absorbing calories and nutrients. it's just that an alcoholic is generally a very malnourished person. they don't eat, they drink. All alcoholics who come into the hospital w/d are given folate and thiamine "just in case" b/c the majority of alcoholics are nutrient deficient. again, it's not the ethanol causing weight loss, it's the fact that you're preoccupied w/ drinking.

same goes with opiates for me. they don't kill my appetite, but when I'm high, I just don't care enough to eat. the only time I'll eat when I'm high is if I'm on benzos and herb together.
 
Yeah, I'm STILL on Thiamine 3x a day, Strong Compound Vitamin B 3x day and a special multi vitamin daily. I'm also supposed to drink 2-3 ensure plus a day but I rarely do 'cause I've gained 15lb of water-weight on oxy anyway.
When I was admitted to hospital for severe alcohol withdrawal (after FOUR seizures in one evening...the last one breaking 5 ribs, slipping two disks in my spine and causing temporary facial paralysis) I was also diagnosed with "severe malnutrition secondary to life-threatening weight loss" but I was also bulimic for 10 years.
Fuck, that's at age 22.
Sorry, it just hit me there what damage I did....didn't even learn my lesson until I later got very severe acute pancreatitis and nearly died in ICU...still, almost 7 months off the booze now :).
 
When I was abusing oxy, I lost weight quickly: within a year I went from 130 to 95 pounds. Even stopped my monthly cycle.
Eventually the weight and periods came back when I switched to percocets and hydros.
 
I find that steady use of Codeine, oxycodone, morphine, dilaudid or fentanyl (the latter always in patch form) caused me to gain weight overtime as it increases my appetite and i tend to eat alot more junk food because i get cravings for fatty and sugary foods. Opioids with atypical effects like tramadol and Demerol (meperidine, pethidine) actually make me loose weight if i take them for very long because they reduce my appetite which sucks. If i use up my opiates before i can get more i will loose weight pretty damn fast though because between the sweating, diarrhea and vomiting really makes you loose water weight fast. Not to mention i find it almost impossible to eat anything substantial for atleast 5 days after stopping opiates because i'm so sick even drinking soup is a chore.
 
This topic has piqued my interest. I've been on MMT since August and this has become a large problem for me. I swear I gained at least 20 kilos (35-40 lbs) in a matter of, well, 8 months of daily methadone use. Now, lemme clarify something. Even on methadone I was always chasing the euphoria, and so I'd take my weekly dose (once a week), save it, and take it only twice a week, half a week's dose worth... in only one day. That's about 240mg of methadone a day, twice a week. Needless to say, the tremendous weight gain is exactly what caused me to stop taking it. My last dose was about 280mg, and I took it on 4th of April. Now I'm almost 1 month methadone-free and I've already lost a few kilos I think.

While codeine and oxy, on the contrary completely killed my appetite. Codeine especially made me LOSE about 20 kilos. Being quite overweight and all, it was a welcome change. I had finally reached my optimal weight through opiate addiction. Still, there's only so long you can get high with codeine, so the rest is history. I think every opiate affects the body differently, or everyone is just different, in the end.
 
i've always lost weight when using any opiate for any amount of time. the sole exception is when I was also (concurrently) prescribed an AAP (atypical anti-psychotic); my weight ballooned. opiates do slow you down so one would be inclined to think that, everything else being equal (eating, working, exercise habits), one would gain weight. not in my experience; everything else becomes secondary, or dropped along the way. puking your guts out, either with anticipatory vomiting, or 'oh shit i did too much' vomiting, and you say (to yourself) 'blergh!, that was nasty, dont want to do that again', so you slow down/stop eating, and regardless of how much your digestive system slows down, it's not moving at a zero rate, so you lose weight. not to mention you (read:I) can lose 20+ lbs in one day thru sweat/vomiting/diarrhea when in WD.
 
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