This is true, but I didn’t suggest that it can’t cause brain damage, just that it doesn’t necessarily have to follow. People with sleep apnea or who live at high altitudes don’t all have brain damage either.
Comment on Why are americans taking health advice from a former heroin addict ?
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 12 hours agoAnything that causes respiratory depression lowers available oxygen to the brain and can cause damage over time.
I understand the sentiment of destigmatizing addiction, but let’s not lie and say it can’t cause permanent damage. It’s a disease, right? And diseases can have aftermath.
maccentric@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
deranger@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
If this was true those on chronic opiate medications would be given supplemental oxygen. There would also be studies demonstrating the neurodegenerative effects of opiates.
Opiates are rather safe outside of overdose and sequelae of unsafe injection / smoking. They are incredibly benign in the sense you could take 20-40-80-160mg OxyContin your whole life and not have any issues beyond constipation.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 9 hours ago
Managed prescriptions are taken in safe doses. There’s no way to guarantee someone addicted to illicit opiates will stay below the threshold of dangerous consumption.
Even alcohol in large enough quantities kills brain cells. Stop pretending addiction is harmless, because it’s not helping addicts the way you seem to think it is.
deranger@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
I never said addiction was harmless. However, your claim that opiate addiction causes neurological issues due to oxygen deprivation outside of an acute overdose is unfounded. If this was the case, chronic opiate users (in the strictly clinical sense) would be given supplemental oxygen.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 8 hours ago
I never claimed that it happens outside of an acute overdose. I said it can happen, which is factually true. I also said there’s no way to guarantee an addict won’t take a large enough dose to deprive their brain of oxygen. It happens. Pretending it doesn’t is harmful. The cause of death for most opioid overdoses is literally cardiac arrest.
In the clinical sense, doses are administered to stay within safe limits, so supplemental oxygen is not needed.