Heroin: Effects, Addiction, Withdrawal Symptoms, and Treatment

In addition to friends and medical professionals, there are also online resources that can help you during heroin withdrawal. Support groups such as Narcotics Anonymous offer information and resources that can help you during your recovery. People going through heroin withdrawal often experience restlessness, which, coupled with anxiety and insomnia, can make you feel agitated. Heroin withdrawal often causes sleep problems, particularly insomnia (having trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep).

Treatment and management

John C. Umhau, MD, MPH, CPE is board-certified in addiction medicine and preventative medicine. For over 20 years Dr. Umhau was a senior clinical investigator at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Nausea and vomiting can be significant symptoms during the withdrawal process.

Severe Heroin Withdrawal Symptoms: Can Withdrawal Be Fatal?

If you stop or decrease the number of opioids you’re taking, you may experience physical symptoms of withdrawal. This is especially true if you’ve been using these medications at high doses for more than a few weeks. Heroin withdrawal symptoms are among the most painful withdrawal symptoms caused by drug addiction. But they aren’t insurmountable, and people going through withdrawal don’t have to try to power through the symptoms on their own. Help is available to ease the recovery process and prevent relapse.

Understanding Withdrawal and Its Effects

Eventually, you develop a new balance that includes the presence of heroin. Because of these effects, heroin has a high potential for misuse.

• If possible, offer to help with these tasks so your loved one can focus on healing.
• Together you can create a plan to stop opioids slowly, called a taper.
• Calculate how much diazepam is equivalent to the dose of benzodiazepine that the patient currently uses, to a maximum of 40mg of diazepam (Table 8).
• The half-life of a drug can help predict when these cravings will begin.

This article focuses on opioid withdrawal in people with opioid use disorder. Overcoming heroin withdrawal symptoms without professional help is difficult, and most people who try to quit on their own end up turning to heroin when withdrawal becomes too difficult. More comfortable and reliable ways to quit heroin are available if you decide to seek help. We provide our readers with factual, evidence-based content concerning the causes and nature of addiction, as well as available treatment options. However, this informative content is intended for educational purposes only.

This is one of the reasons it is important to have emotional support while you are going through withdrawal. People often experience nausea, diarrhea, runny nose, achiness, tremors, fatigue, chills, and sweats. More severe symptoms can also occur, such as difficulty breathing, depression, anxiety, and insomnia. Some medications used in the treatment of heroin use disorder, such as methadone and buprenorphine, may also cause physical dependence. A healthcare professional can help you determine if what you’re feeling may indicate heroin withdrawal.

This article is meant as a general guideline to help educate people about what to expect during heroin withdrawal. However, it’s important not to take this information and try to detox from heroin on your own. There are many facilities available that are specifically heroin addiction treatment designed to help people withdraw from heroin as safely and comfortably as possible. The risks of continuing heroin use are significant and every hit puts you in danger. Treatment can help you clear your body of drugs and begin a new, healthy life.

Fentanyl’s powerful pull comes from both the potent, rapid euphoria people feel while on the drug and the devastating symptoms of withdrawal. Researchers have now zeroed in on brain circuits responsible for these two forces of fentanyl addiction. A heroin overdose can cause slow and shallow breathing, coma, and death.People often use heroin along with other drugs or alcohol.

Related support groups

Your loved one might need help with practical tasks like preparing meals, going to the bathroom, and getting around. If possible, offer to help with these tasks so your loved one can focus on healing. You may be asked questions about past drug use and your medical history.