Oxycodone is an opioid painkiller that’s sold under the brand names Percocet, OxyContin, Roxicodone, Tylox, and others. People can be prescribed oxycodone medications for intense acute and chronic pain, including post-surgery pain. Because it’s so powerful, it’s usually not a first-line prescription, but for those who’ve been resistant to other options. Although it’s a prescription drug, people do abuse oxycodone.
Can You Smoke Oxycodone?
Oxycodone medications are sold as small tablets to be swallowed. However, people also smoke oxycodone. Why? Some people prefer to crush and smoke their tablets for personal reasons. However, most commonly, people smoke oxycodone because this method provides a fast high. Opioid abuse cases continue to be rampant, and oxycodone, with its powerful effects, is a favorite illicit drug. To elaborate, opioids produce positive feelings in the body because they trigger the reward system in the brain. An opioid-induced high feels euphoric, calming, relaxing, and dissociative from any pain or stress.
How Does Oxycodone Affect the Body?
How do opioids produce these results? Your brain has opioid receptors, which are responsible for releasing positive chemical messengers. These include norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin. In order to relieve pain, opioids act on the opioid receptors to flood the system with more positive chemicals. However, abusing opioids releases unstable amounts that your system slowly adapts to and then craves. Over time, you become dependent on opioids to function.
Taking opioids in different ways changes how your system feels them. Pills come in different doses and have different absorption rates. But crushing and snorting oxycodone bypasses any safety restrictions. Instead, you will feel results quickly, but they may also wear off faster, so you take more. And injecting oxycodone into your veins is the quickest and most dangerous way to administer it.
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Risks of Oxycodone Abuse
Because oxycodone is so powerful in your system, it doesn’t take long to develop a severe addiction. Even after the first time you abuse an opioid like oxycodone, you will likely want to experience another high. But every time you continue the pattern, you dig yourself into a hole. The addiction cycle is truly a repetition of getting high and feeling low when it fades. Then, you’ll start experiencing painful withdrawal symptoms that push you back to opioids. Both short- and long-term, opioids will devastate your life. Additional risks include physical and mental health problems, such as mental disorder symptoms, stroke, heart attack, and death.
Signs and Symptoms of Opioid Use Disorder
Opioid use disorder (OUD) is the most intense version of opioid addiction. At this point, it is imperative to seek professional help. Here are some signs to watch for in yourself or a loved one, warning you that it might be OUD:
- Cancelling plans to use opioids
- Disheveled appearance
- Withdrawal symptoms
- Inability to quit using opioids
- Always thinking about your next dose
- Mood swings
- Memory problems
- Changes to sleeping patterns
- Irritability
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Secretive behavior
- Spending time and money sourcing more opioids
- High tolerance to your original dose
Finding Professional Help for Oxycodone Addiction
If you recognize any of the common signs and symptoms of opioid abuse, there’s no time to waste in getting help. When a person takes too much oxycodone, they can overdose. If not helped on time, they have a high risk of dying. Hundreds of thousands of people die every year from opioid abuse. And because addiction leads to high tolerance, people with OUD will continue to increase their dose to receive any kind of effect.
Please take the important step to get help for yourself or another. We’d love to welcome you to our drug rehab center.
