Health - Heroin and Healing

[hijaQr]

Has anyone noticed whether or not it takes their body longer to heal a wound or cut while using Heroin? I'm talking from small cuts and grazes to post surgery wounds and more serious examples. Does sleep effect healing, and does Heroin effect sleep? I always feel like even though I sleep for long periods of time I am not getting good quality sleep for alot of it. Maybe this has something to do with it?

[Sib]

Being a chef SWIM has recently had a few bad cuts but they took a while to stop bleeding and with some care eventually healed. The sleep business seems to be true though.

[teddybearpicnics]

Never really thought of it, but swim has noticed that cuts do take a verrry long time to heal, he has been on the junk for so long though he doesn't even remember what a cut felt like before he started using. Damn needles take away the response to small sharp pains real quick. Swim has had a cut from a mandolin :licing kind, not music:: on his palm for like 2 weeks and it did bleed for a long time. Weird.

As far as the sleep business, Does your brain really get REM sleep when you're nodded?? Anyone with input on this would be greatly appreciated.

.teddy

[InstantKarma]

Yeah it seems to take much longer for small cuts and scrapes to heal when using. Not sure about post-op wounds though.

[Katie]

Opiates/opiodes have been shown to have an effect on the immune system, and so it's quite possible that they can be directly responsible for effects like reduced healing and increased susceptibility to infection. However there's also the lifestyle factors to take into account - poor diet, stress, and lack of sleep can reduce healing times (as you suggested in your post).

There's quite a bit of information on the effects of sleep, stress, etc on healing times. I tried to post this with links but realised new members can't do that. You'll probably find better info searching google anyway as I'm feeling a but sleep deprived myself and not up to thorough searching and reading.