Long term brain Damage and health effects from various drugs

I have done too many drugs over the years, now at 27 I feel it may be catching up to me all the stupid shit I did over the years. I had a I don't give a fuck attitude about life and drugs, figured you only live once you should have fun right? I don't feel stupid, I still can work fast and concentrate carry on conversations, etc...I may have slight cognitive impairment but very slight. Recently I have been having major migraines before I go to bed, so bad I can sleep or lay down, it makes my nose burn also for some reason and I feel like throwing up. Sometimes I will have heart palpitations at work, have very weird stomach pains, more of a feeling though of a bad liver or kidney. I urinate quite frequently, sometimes very little.

I can only blame myself, I do not take care of myself, I am not obese or fat but I am not healthy, I am almost afraid to go the doctor to see what I may or may not have. I haven't been in years for this reason.

There are many conflicting factors which may cause my possible health problems it is hard to tell what caused what

1) I have been smoking cigarettes since age 12, everyday since age 14, this is a obviously not good for me but the hardest thing to quit. I have attempted once when I was 16 for a month but I started again and never even attempted to try and quit again.

2) Starting drinking Alcohol at a very young age, 14, and I was doing it almost every night. This has possibly held me back or caused some sort of impairment. I have since learned to control my drinking in the past few years, I barely drink at all anymore nor do I really enjoy it.

3) I starting smoking weed at age 17 and still smoke almost everyday but everyone knows weed is good for you.

4) DXM, oh boy, I have been doing this since again 17 too. Various phases from once a week to once a month, to 3 month binges doing it everyday. I am on a low dose right now but I barely do it anymore. I don't think it has caused me any brain damage but the drinking syrup and all those inactive ingredients including the time when I was younger and I drank guafassien containing syrup, this has more then likely caused some sort of organ or stomach damage. DXM itself has possibly caused me heart problems as well as high blood pressure, again I have never been to a doctor so this remains untreated.

5) Amphetamine, from age 17-18 I think, I used to snort this shit all the time. Mostly before school and then again at night. This has possibly caused some sort of brain damage or dopamine toxicity as well as heart issues. Luckily one night of psychosis scared me away from that forever.

6) Duster, did this maybe 5 or 6 times, obviously not good for you and was fucking stupid.

7) Freon, even more stupid, did this a few times as well, it is like duster but even more intense and bad for you, this also may cause hearts problems as well as irreversible brain damage from what I have read. One time I was huffing freon out of a trash bag and fell head first into the fridge, blacked out and needless to say never did that shit again.

8) Datura, This shit is again fucking stupid don't do it, for some reason it took me 5 times to learn not to do this shit again and a trip to the hospital where they treated me like a moron and didn't do shit to help the situation but told me to sleep it off. Cant blame them though, it was the dumbest shit I ever done, this may has caused me brain, heart, vision you name it damage.

9) MDMA, this is hard to tell, I did this shit for 6 months, at first once a week, and then up to 4 times a week towards the end. It ruined a relationship and caused me to be severely depressed for two months after quitting but other then that I don't know if this really is a factor. Possibly it has lowered my Serotonin but DXM already did that as well.

10) Meth, just kidding, never done that shit.

11) Cocaine/Crack, Did this for a couple years along with DXM, weed, alcohol or whatever was around. Possible Dopamine toxicity/heart problems, again who knows.

12) Oxycodone, a couple years with this and other similar opiates. Possible it made my blood pressure worse as well as my depression but I haven't done that shit for a long time now.

You may think that when you are young drugs aint no big deal if you don't go crazy but they will catch up to you. I have slowed down over the years, now I only smoke pot, cigarettes, and the occasional drink or DXM trip but even if I quit everything I still am fucked.

 

Astute Observation...:2thumbsup:



Cheers Glen.

 

So is this a public service message or something?

Yeah kids don't do stupid shit.

 

Still won't stop you from leading a useful life.

 

Go see a doctor, disclose your drug use history.
Also see an acupuncturist/chinese herbalist if you can.

 

Drugs aren't so bad, most people don't die from them. Or get brain damage.

 

When seeing this thread I was actually worried that drugs by themselves do all this damage.

Thank god it was just a stupid drug user...

Now back to searching for ayahuasca...

 

As far as wasting something of your life. Our lives are of indefinite proportions, that is there is no way to tell how long we live regardless what we do. There is an average lifespan of so and so years discounting all the eventualities in between. But who wants to be average?

 

I am living proof that "long term" damage is not nearly as common as some people would have you think.
Then again, even though I have, at times in the past, made like a trash can
...I have also always during the times kept my mind sharp with reading daily (and other activities that work the brain)...
anyway, as far as I can tell I have no long term damage, which makes me think it's not that common.

 

Done way more long term damage working, and all too common.

 

Good point.

 

Just going to work is more dangerous!

 

no substance that is "mind altering", is completely harmless. that is correct. and this includes alcohaul.

with many the effects accumulate, and for this reason it is not good to become addicted to any of them.

however, laws banning possession of controlled substances, created in a misguided attempt to prevent addiction, are equally responsible, for a great deal of social and even physical harm.

this is why i would ban the ban, but avoid over endulging in any substance.

 

Work can be very dangerous?

 

A friend of mine got his brain fried by doing dirty pot. Dirty because someone treated it with Lord knows what. Fried his brain, and now on disability and unable to hold a job. So fucked up man.

 

I wholly concur with AmericanTerrorist on this one: memory atrophy comes from not exercising your higher mental faculties. It's well-established that reading actual books - a.o.t. info snippets online - trains your semantic memory. One of the primary reasons the culture at large has gone apeshit ADHD scatterbrain, is because people have ceased to read recreationally. You don't need 'drugs' to turn into a postmodern zombie - a daily dose of crap TV, Twitter and Facebook will more than suffice to make you a drooling moron.

However the good news is it's never too late to unplug from the idiot system. All you really need to do is start a habit of 'recreational' reading. Try to see it as a psychoactive supplement. Start with a little bit of light reading, then work your way to the heavy duty stuff. Soon those higher mental faculties will be back in action.

Now whether you strictly need these particular mental faculties to hold down an average job, or have an average conversation with an average human being, is another matter entirely.

 

well there's a bit of misinformation and ending with "including alcohol" is hilarious, considering alcohol is the most used/abused substance known AND is just about one of the most damaging to the body and mind.

Not all substances that are mind altering cause physiological harm. LSD, Psilocybin and Marijuana have NO record of causing ANY physiological harm when used in standard doses. Even with outrageous overdoses in the order of multiple thousands of times the "normal" amount being digested, there has been no lasting harm from these substances.

Alcohol starts to damage tissues immediately, with prolonged exposure you develop symptoms of alcohol abuse.

Of the "street" drugs around the most damaging are the amphetamine based substances; MDMA, Meth, Cocaine and a few others. The thing that sets them apart is they produce results by initiating a huge release of dopamine in the brain and over time with repeated exposure, the dopamine receptors literally "burn-out" and can no longer function fully. When that happens the person literally loses the ability to experience joy or elation and is cursed to an existence of blah, flat-line moods.
Ann Shulgin stopped using MDMA for that exact reason, she was beginning to notice the lasting effects.

Opiates are actually pretty safe in and of themselves, except of course for the whole respiratory suppression and all. The majority if not all the problems associated with opiate addiction has more to do with availability of clean/safe drugs and a safe means to get them.

In every study I have seen that treated opiate addiction as a health issue rather than criminal and gave people access to safe clean drugs, they were very, very often able to turn their lives back on track and get free of addiction because they no longer had to devote so much time and energy into procuring drugs and eliminated any health issues related to getting impure drugs.
EVERY TIME that has been done it has amazing results.

The biggest problem with drugs and drug abuse in the world today is because it is treated as a criminal matter rather than a health matter.

 

I experimented with drugs a lot when I was younger and came out unscathed... I'm really glad I never tried that spice shit though. Now that stuff damages peoples brains... I've seen it.

 

This

I mean, I'm fukt in the head, but no more so than before I started using drugs.