Opioid Use Among Those with Depression

[Jabberwocky]

Iddunno? if a person had a constant free suply of the best Heroin in the world, it would be hard to be depressed....... Its always the skeeming and sickness that comes along with dope that makes me depressed.

ive got a constant supply of pharmaceutical grade morphine and sometimes the thought of that is depressing enough. dope can definitely get depressing, dypshoric, etc during periods of deeper depression than youre used to going through.

 

[phr]

Opiates can certainly work as antidepressants(I'm thinking along the lines of low dose bupe, especially), but the risk of abuse and addiction are higher than that risk is with traditional antidepressants. That should certainly be taken into consideration by the patient, and certainly the doctor. Considering how difficult they are to obtain even legally for pain, I can't see them being prescribed for depression unless there are major changes to our drug laws.

 

[jspun]

The prescription of opiates for pain goes back for years, maybe neturies. I remember reading a study conducted in the 50s discussing oxycodone, codeine, or some other opiate that was used for refractory depression. I am convinced that the endogenous opioid system is definately involved in affect disorders. I'm busy but I'll adress this more later. In my experience, bupe is promising (and I know tramadol has been used.) Bupe has less sexua; side effects IMO than SSRI and the SSRI discontinuation syndrome is underappreciated in medicine. Anyway found an interesting link with case studies and bupe but can't find it. Gotta run but will post more because this is an important subject for me.

 

[Jabberwocky]

^im interested in reading them

Considering how difficult they are to obtain even legally for pain, I can't see them being prescribed for depression unless there are major changes to our drug laws.

i remember a guy in OD a while back being prescribed bupe for depression but cant remember if he elaborated any more than that. ive had great results using tramadol and low dose bupe for depression. the anti-depressive part of low dose bupe is another reason why i want to get on it to control my pain.

 

[Pegasus]

I'm interested more in this idea of bupe as an antidepressant as well. I used it daily for around a year and never noticed any of the depression I would get if I used other opiates that consistently, but definitely still noticed all of the opiate "confidence" I enjoyed so much. I thought this was a personal reaction to the drug, but I'm glad to hear it does similar things in others.

 

[tathra]

bupe works wonderfully as an antidepressant, but after a while, i got the depression from it as well.

i've got a hunch that the depression doesnt manifest until you've had periods where you've quit and relapsed a few times... but there's nothing but a hunch from my own experiences to back this up.