Cocaine and Crack Abuse (cont.)
What Adverse Effects Does Cocaine Have on Health?
Abusing cocaine has a
variety of adverse effects on the body. For example, cocaine constricts blood
vessels, dilates pupils, and increases body temperature, heart rate, and blood
pressure. It can also cause headaches and gastrointestinal complications such as
abdominal pain and nausea. Because cocaine tends to decrease appetite, chronic
users can become malnourished as well.
Different methods of taking cocaine can produce different adverse effects.
Regularly snorting cocaine, for example, can lead to loss of the sense of smell,
nosebleeds, problems with swallowing, hoarseness, and a chronically runny nose.
Ingesting cocaine can cause severe bowel gangrene as a result of reduced blood
flow. Injecting cocaine can bring about severe allergic reactions and increased
risk for contracting HIV and other blood-borne diseases. Binge patterns of use
may lead to irritability, restlessness, anxiety, and paranoia. Cocaine abusers
can suffer a temporary state of full-blown paranoid psychosis, in which they
lose touch with reality and experience auditory hallucinations.
Regardless of how or how frequently cocaine is used, a user can experience
acute cardiovascular or cerebrovascular emergencies, such as a heart attack or
stroke, which may cause sudden death. Cocaine-related deaths are often a result
of cardiac arrest or seizure followed by respiratory arrest.
Added Danger: Cocaethylene
When people consume cocaine and alcohol together,
they compound the danger each drug poses and unknowingly perform a complex
chemical experiment within their bodies. Researchers have found that the human
liver combines cocaine and alcohol to produce a third substance, cocaethylene,
which intensifies cocaine's euphoric effects. Cocaethylene is associated with a
greater risk of sudden death than cocaine alone.1
Next: What treatment options exist for cocaine addiction? »
- Abdominal Pain - Learn about abdominal pain (pain in the stomach / abdomen) including causes, symptoms, how abdominal pain is diagnosed, and how abdominal pain is treated.
- Headache - Learn about the different types of headaches, migraine, tension, cluster, menstrual, and spinal headaches; and their causes, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment.
- Anxiety - Read about anxiety (generalized anxiety disorder, GAD) causes, physical symptoms and signs, medications and treatment. Learn about symptoms (worry, fear) and other types of anxiety disorders.
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