Originally posted by blahblahblah:
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Soviet-
"But perhaps I should ask, are my seemingly harmless nods really so harmless and even with all my experience should I have more concern if I'm periodically passing out for short times over the course of 4-6 hours after an injection?"
Its would seem to me that they are perfectly harmless. Most OD's occur in the minutes after an injection, I have never known anybody personally (and I know quite a few dopers) that have OD after a significant period of time elapsed. One of the effects of Heroin in higher doses (maybee not even in high doses, I should say recreational dose) is nodding out. I cant really see any reason at all that nodding out is unhealthy. Its just a common characteristic of the drug. I am the same way (if I do enough dope to nod) I will nod out periodicaly through out the day. It seems I tend to nod out as the high progresses, i.e. 3-4 hrs into the high. When I start nodding in the minutes after getting high, I know either A)I got real good dope B)I might have done to much C)My tolerence is real low. Whenever I start to nod real early an OD is a possibility, and will usually try to force myself to move or do something so I say "in it" and dont drift off into the unconscious...
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My expeirence mimics Soviet's description almost verbatim, and I lean towards definitley agreeing with blah's reply. Of course, I'm not a daily habitual opiate user like some here, so I don't have much of a tolerance to speak of, but I tend to nod almost everytime I bang opiates. And I typically tend to nod more frequently as time progress after the inital rush. This has been going on in all my years of using opiates...
Though I disagree with one thing, even though most OD's occur relativley quickly, I have seen OD's occur outside the first inital minutes of use with smack, particulary one fatal OD (Hours later), but even then, other drugs were involved, alcohol and benzo's. Thus, around here, we take extra effort to make sure people stay awake, even if they are nodding, but just as an extra precaution and if others are around.
Anyways, in regards to the constant nodding out, this is also not uncommon amongst all the people I know who do opiates, a bit of nodding out is pretty much a normal part of things, and not particularly an alarming warning sign in and of itself that OD'ing is inevitable. It acts as more a dynamic of the drug and seems like a natural biological response to the intorduction of mass amounts of opiates to the body.
Personally I'm going to lean towards it being largley harmless. Shooting up heroin makes you a bit drowsy. Imagine that...