If you or someone close to you has struggled with heroin use, you may have wondered how long does heroin stay in your system? The answer can depend on various factors in actuality, but it is still important to ask and understand before seeking treatment.
Thankfully, facilities like Total RMH can help you find a Beverly Hills detox program, which is often needed at the start of a heroin addiction treatment program.
What Are The Effects of Heroin?
Heroin use can cause a multitude of short-term and long-term effects. Heroin addiction can result in psychological, physical, and behavioral problems, as well as legal and financial issues.
Firstly, heroin is an opioid. As with any addiction, knowing answers to questions like how long does heroin stay in your system can be important in understanding the stages of addiction.
With heroin use, when you first use heroin, the effects of the drug bind to your opioid receptors, diminishing any feelings of pain, and increasing feelings of pleasure. Heroin leaves you feeling relaxed as it slows down your breathing rate. It causes you to feel high and drowsy at the same time. Your brain identifies these feelings as positive.
Then, your brain’s reward system gets hijacked by these positive feelings. Your brain starts to change how it works and what substances it naturally produces to bind it to your opioid receptors. As your brain continues to experience those positive feelings from heroin use, the anticipation of the positive feelings and your complete cognitive preoccupation with experiencing those positive feelings repeatedly, change your brain structure over and over.
As this happens, you become addicted, and if you don’t get more heroin, your body experiences withdrawal. Those withdrawal symptoms can be so severe that you are motivated beyond anything else to find a way to get rid of those symptoms. And in almost all cases, the only way to get rid of those symptoms is to use more heroin.
Beyond that, you also have short-term and long-term effects like behavior changes and finances. As you get into that third phase and nothing becomes more important than getting more heroin and alleviating your withdrawal symptoms, you are more likely to engage in risky behavior or criminal behavior. You are more likely to steal or get in trouble with the law for driving under the influence.
This can cause problems in your personal relationships with your close friends and family. It can result in significant mood shifts and social changes where you no longer participate in activities you once loved or see the people you once socialized with.
What Are the Symptoms of Heroin Withdrawal?
So now you might ask, how long does heroin last in my system, and what are the symptoms of heroin withdrawal that I may face during detox?
Heroin withdrawal symptoms can include:
- Shaking
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Muscle pain
- Stomach pain
- Restlessness
- Sweating
- Depression
- Nervousness
- Depression
These symptoms can fluctuate, meaning you might experience shaking and nausea at the start and, within a few hours, add to that vomiting, stomach pain, and muscle pain. At some point, the shaking might go away only to be replaced with sweating and restlessness.
How Long Does Heroin Stay in Your System?
So oh, how long does heroin stay in your system? This depends on many factors like your metabolism, your genetics, how much you took, what other drugs you took heroin, and whether you were also on any types of medications.
In general:
- Heroin can be detected in a urine sample up to 24 hours after you last used heroin
- Heroin can be detected in a blood sample up to 72 hours after you last use heroin
- Heroin can be detected in your hair follicles up to three months after you last use heroin
This can seem like quite a long time when you consider the fact that the initial high starts just a few minutes after taking heroin but doesn’t last for more than a few hours.
Unfortunately, your withdrawal symptoms from heroin use will typically start within 24 hours of the last time you used heroin. The timeline for withdrawal detox can be up to 1 week, with the most severe symptoms manifesting about three days after you last use heroin.
Even more unfortunate is the fact that while the physical presence of heroin toxicity might leave your body after a week, criminal records, changes to your brain, and damage to any personal relationships can last for months or years.
The best way to tackle your heroin use is to get help from a professional rehab center that not only offers detox or your withdrawal symptoms but can offer ongoing therapy to help you repair your damaged relationships, and restructure your brain.
How to Find Heroin Addiction Treatment in Beverly Hills
We help you target the damage done to your brain and body with things like brain optimization. We provide nutritional information and NAD IV therapy to replenish the vital nutrients and minerals your body may be missing but desperately needs recovery. Let Total RMH help with your heroin addiction today. Contact us to learn more about our addiction treatment programs in Los Angeles, CA.