Concentration On Heroin Treatment

Heroin and Codeine belong to a group of drugs called Opiates. Opiates are inherited from the opium poppy. The people who took Codeine became addicted to it, this was the major problem. They experience undesirable side effects, such as nausea. At the end of the nineteenth century, a German scientist changed the molecules of Codeine, in order to produce a new drug, like codeine, it would relieve pain but that, unlike codeine, would not be addictive. This new drug was named as heroin. Within a year or two of its introduction, most of the medical community came to know that heroin was not only stronger than codeine but that people who used it become more likely to become addicted. By the 1920s, heroin had become the most widely abused of the opiates.

Medical Uses for Heroin: Both Heroin and Codeine act in identical ways on the body. Studies in cancer patients with severe pain shows very tiny difference in the pain relief offered by the two drugs. They also produce similar feelings of euphoria (intense well-being). However, heroin may take effect more rapidly, and it is two to three times stronger when it is injected. This is due to, heroin crosses from the blood into the brain more easily than does codeine. But when the heroin is taken by mouth, its strength is similar to codeine’s. Because heroin has no major advantage over codeine in treating pain it has no approved medical uses in the United States.

Street Heroin: Heroin is available and is used as an illegal "street" drug. The purity of street heroin has many other substances and varies drastically .Drugs are "cut" (mixed with) street heroin. As a result, the user does not know what he or she is buying. This results street heroin is doubly dangerous.

Heroin: Tolerance, Dependence, and Withdrawal: Development of tolerance and effects in heroin is due to by the Users .Chronic, or long- term, because of this they are becoming less sensitive to its euphoric and analgesic (painkilling) actions. Once the tolerance was developed by the users, they are in need to increase doses of the drug to achieve the effects they desire. The users of Heroin also become physically dependent on the drug, and experience withdrawal symptoms if they stop taking it. Heroin's effects remains approximately four to six hours. As a result, drug addicts must take the drug several times a day to prevent the appearance of withdrawal symptoms. The need to continue taking the drug to restrict the withdrawal. It is an important factor in heroin's addictiveness. The withdrawal symptoms that occur after abruptly stopping heroin include:
• eye tearing
• yawning
• sweating
• restlessness
• dilated pupils
• irritability
• diarrhea
• abdominal cramps
• waves of gooseflesh (the term "cold turkey" describes the goose- flesh that follows from abruptly stopping the drug)

Summary: Heroin addiction markedly affects the nutritional and metabolic status and frequently leads to malnutrition. The main objective of our study was to interrelate circulating concentration of adipose tissue-derived hormones leptin, adiponectin and resistin in 12 patients with heroin addiction before and after one-year methadone maintenance treatment with the group of 20 age- and body mass index-matched healthy subjects.

drug rehab

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