While heroin relaxes the systems in the body, slows breathing, and causes the user to feel drowsy, cocaine causes an adrenaline rush, speeds up breathing, and gives the sought-after “high”. Polysubstance abuse complicates addiction treatment because you need to treat more than addiction. However, at Buckhead Behavioral Health, we offer treatment programs that address several types of addiction.
Drug & Alcohol Detox
This mixed bag of reviews isn’t surprising since a lot of factors determine how a substance will affect you. Effects become even more unpredictable when you start mixing substances. Heroin (in theory) is supposed to cut down the home remedies for opiate withdrawal cocaine-induced agitation and jitters. On the flip side, cocaine is supposed to dampen some of the sedating effects of heroin so you don’t nod off. In theory, heroin is meant to reduce cocaine-induced agitation and jitters.
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Has been an expert in addiction medicine for more than 15 years. In addition to managing a successful family medical practice, Dr. Hoffman is board certified in addiction medicine by the American Osteopathic Academy of Addiction Medicine (AOAAM). Dr. Hoffman has successfully treated hundreds of patients battling addiction.
Short-Term Side Effects of Heroin
Speedballing can lead to uncontrolled and uncoordinated motor skills. It also increases the risk of significant health issues like stroke, heart attack, aneurysm, and respiratory depression or failure. The two drugs have opposite effects on the body and can increase the risk of adverse effects and fatal overdose.
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Speedballing can create a push-pull reaction as the depressant and stimulant work against each other in your body. This is why you might experience drowsiness, confusion, uncontrollable movements or anxiety and agitation. In today’s medical settings, this mixture is known as a “Brompton cocktail” and is obsolete. Using speedballs puts you at risk of overdose, multiple drug dependency, and addiction. If you want to stop using opioids or stimulants, the opioid and cocaine addiction rehab center in Tacoma, Washington, at Bayview Recovery can help. In today’s medical settings, this mixture is known as a “Brompton cocktail” and is obsolete.
Long-Term Side Effects of Speedballing
And withdrawal symptoms can occur within a few hours of the last dose of heroin taken, making it very easy to develop a tolerance to. Heroin is a highly addictive opioid and is classified as a Schedule I drug in the US. It is derived from morphine, a naturally occurring substance found in the opium harvested from the poppy plant. Cocaine is a stimulant that increases your respiration and heart rates. When taken together with heroin in a speedball, the effect can be deadly.
What Does a Speedball Feel Like?
However, it can also cause uncomfortable side effects like anxiety, jitteriness, and insomnia. Zaryab Khan has built a solid four-year career in medical writing, covering a wide range of topics from nursing to mental health and healthtech. By blending her writing skills with healthcare knowledge, she develops clear and accessible manuals for readers. She intends to deliver easy-to-understand information to allow readers to take good care of themselves.
In other words, they believe the combination of stimulants and depressants helps to cancel out negative effects. This combines the stimulating effects of cocaine with the sedative effects of heroin. Other drugs are sometimes substituted, such as using crystal meth as the stimulant and other opioids, like fentanyl, instead of heroin. Aside from cocaine and heroin combinations, the term speedball is also being used as a loose term to describe any mixture of a depressant and stimulant. This includes the combination of methamphetamine and heroin or morphine, crack cocaine and fentanyl, or even prescription opioids like oxycodone and amphetamines.
It is also harmful in other ways, such as inducing seizures, hyperthermia, or stroke. Calling 911 instantly is very important so that appropriate medical intervention is administered and the overdose is reversed. Speedball poses a ton of hazards, including death by overdose. On the other hand, speedball is less pleasurable for some people, and the high may be more agonizing than amazing.
- Additionally, speedballing increases the risk of addiction and overdose, as the user may develop a tolerance to one drug and use more to achieve the desired effect.
- There are still questions about exactly how the two drugs interact and impact one another’s effects.
- It can be more fatal and may not be pleasurable for everyone.
- Heroin and cocaine commonly come in powdered forms and can be dissolved into a liquid.
Stimulants can take heart rate to a dangerously high level, while opioids can bring heart and blood pressure to a fatally low level. As mentioned above, speedballing is the phenomenon of mixing a stimulant and the best way to detox from weed an opioid. Opioids are central nervous system (CNS) depressants, which means that they slow down the brain’s functions. To illustrate this further, cocaine is a stimulant used to increase energy and alertness.
This worrisome concoction often involves combining a high dose of stimulants and depressants (i.e. cocaine with heroin or prescription opioids). However, most stimulants and depressants come with extreme risks of addiction if abused, are there drops to reverse eye dilation and none of them are ever prescribed to be taken together. Most people who take or want to take speedball drugs are unaware that combining opposite substances does not cancel each other out or create “middle ground” effects.
It may involve a gradual tapering of the drugs, a rapid detox under anesthesia, or a medically assisted detox with medications. There are no official statistics about speedballing specifically, as it is often classified as a type of polydrug use. For informational purposes only, a link to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Open Payments web page is provided here. Our science-backed approach boasts 95% of patients reporting no withdrawal symptoms at 7 days. If given in time, naloxone can reverse an opioid overdose.[12-14] There is no serious harm in giving naloxone if it isn’t needed.
It is a practice that is likely to damage your body, mind, and quality of life if it doesn’t kill you. Jessica Plonchak serves as Executive Clinical Director at ChoicePoint. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Social Work.
Follow the operator’s instructions, and stay with the person until help arrives. A person speedballing is essentially turning their body into an amateur chemistry experiment where marginal failure could lead to serious problems, and serious failure can lead to death. The line at which this occurs is blurry and varies from person to person. It’s thought that the drugs may combine to offer the same euphoric effects while counteracting their individual effects. For instance, heroin is thought to counteract cocaine’s anxiety and overstimulating side effects, while cocaine is thought to counteract heroin’s drowsiness and fatigue.
