Opiates and elimination

sayarsan's picture

A favourite topic amongst junkies this is referring to elimination thru the alimentary tract or bluntly 'out your arse'. Whenever i reached a terminal dose of heroin, usually ~750mg/day i wouldn't shit for nearly a week at times and this must be bad although i still prefer it to the diarrohea that comes when hanging out for the stuff. The need to break it up with the handle of a spoon isn't talked about in polite company but leaves a strong impression on the individual concerned. The interesting thing i noticed is how the body's senses provide an alarm for the organs that operate without thought, our autonomic nervous system. A girlfriend had a hard lump below the rib cage on her L side and eventually complained to me about it and i asked "when did you last take a crap" she didn't know and went to a doctor who said that it could be a tumor but told her to get coloxyl and danthron. I was outraged that he would entertain the idea of a tumor so readily but i'm sure he didn't know she was on smack tho he may have considered it. The few times i tried it produced unpleasant diarrohea but it seemed to be good for her. I prefer sennokot.

Opiates certainly have that not so nice side effect of build up. On the odd occasion when after a period of particularly heavy use and my system tells me it is time for discharge, I sit there for ages when finally it does come, it comes very very slowly and very very wide. The turtle has finally popped it head out but it is one of those huge sea turtles that live a hundred years. Suddenly you realise what it must be like to have a baby. The pain is so great that you are afraid to continue thinking you may very well burst or rip something or even die! That is the point of no return. The turtle can't pop it's head back in but you are in so much pain you are afraid to keep going. Being gay I know there is a "fine line between pleasure and pain" as the Divinyls say, but this is ridiculous! Eventually, after the battleship has been bombed you feel the most endorphin rushed feeling of relief you feel like praying to a deity you don't believe in for thanks for your survival.

Although the experience was extremely painful and you were seriously in fear of your life, immediately after the event you actually do personally admit to a certain feeling of pleasure and achievement (it must be the endorphins). Of course after an experience like that you have to investigate your handy work with a certain amount of pride (Freud would have a field day), only to have your pride replaced with disappointment. Don't get me wrong, it is certainly a whopper, but after the hell you just went through you are expecting a water melon to be wedged in the porcelain wondering how it would ever get past the S bend!

Why am I sharing this extremely private experience? I guess this is probably the only forum one could share something as private as this. Sorry for the imagery everyone. But surely I'm not the only one who has experienced something like this? Am I?

sayarsan's picture

Pain is nature's little message that something is not as it should be. This is nothing new and probably lies at the heart of opiate use. Pain that persists or frequently recurs has often lost its value as a reminder to act so it seems reasonable to avoid it. Since opiates don't actually stop the sensation as much as stopping the distress pain induces they don't interfere with our ability to react to it. The same cannot be said for anaesthetic drugs which do. Barbiturates are often the general anaesthetic of choice because they induce such a deep state of sleep the patient can't interfere during surgery while local anaesthetics block all sensation making it impossible to know what you are doing. Opiates are an excellent choice when you wish to carry out a very painful procedure on yourself. Unfortunately this is not the case when it comes to an excruciating case of constipation coz it's usually the opiate that caused it when you are using every day.
The polite phrase "straining on ones stool" conjures amusing images but can be quite dangerous and the level of pain is not part of some bodily retribution for interfering in its daily routine. I hate to be alarmist but the possibility of a stroke is real and the possibility of bursting a blood vessel somewhere else equally so. When examining my handiwork I look for bright red streaks which indicate mechanical damage due as much to the dryness of the "stool" as its size. To avoid any further damage to the mucous membrane which is by the way an excellent site for the absorption of drugs, it is safer to break the stool up by hand before you end up dead on the floor with a protruding stool. A spoon is an excellent tool to use but a pencil or pen could do but exercise extreme care as it is not difficult to perforate the wall leading to an embarrassing hospital admission or worse. Gently manipulate the probe so that it repeatedly digs into the offending turd reducing it to a pile of rubble instead of the house brick it was previously. A bit of this and the bits usually come out easily.
My first experience of doing this was on someone else when I was a trainee nurse working in an orthopaedic ward where problems of this nature are not rare. In this case the patient was an alcoholic who had not been given the can of beer the doctor had ordered in his notes. Worse still his elimination had not been recorded in his notes daily as it should be. The reason for this oversight was the negligence of the nursing staff who through small minded prejudice about their patient's prior behaviour were putting him at risk of severe discomfort or worse and themselves in the position of carrying out an unpleasant procedure but that's what trainees are for. I accompanied the R.N. to the utility room with the patient and she put him on a commode chair to facilitate easy access before using a teaspoon by holding the broad end as a probe and roughly inserted it into the old man's anus and began moving it around and all this to the man's cries of distress until he demanded "let the boy do it!". The nurse happily looked at me, proud of herself it seemed and asked "would you like to do this?" as if I could say no. I took the spoon/probe and proceeded carefully with only a bare idea of what I had to do but it wasn't too long before the man could eliminate the offending matter without pain or distress. As I returned him to his bed I made a point of telling him that his doctor had prescribed him a can of beer to be taken in the evening and he should ask for it as he was entitled to it and unlikely to get it otherwise. He didn't even know about it which says something about the care drug addicts receive in hospital.
Having learned the procedure I was able to perform it on myself instead of enduring the pain of constipation but the best method really is to take something orally that will loosen the stool and prevent the problem ever occurring. In my first entry on this I mentioned Colloxyl and Danthron which is a bit too strong for me whereas Sennokot does the job nicely. If the problem isn't so severe attention to diet can be sufficient and is a better approach in general.

sayarsan's picture

For some reason i am finding elimination has become easier but not necessarily more comfortable and it seems there must be a middle path for this as for most if not all things. It may have to do with a packet of dried peaches or maybe the butter that is the vehicle i use to eat pot but instead of spending time waiting for the crap to make its way sometimes after squatting on the dunny seat like a normal person should the crap slides through easily without any help from abdominal muscles. The drawback of course is in the amount of dunny paper i use. A loose stool is often a messy stool and i anxiously await the release of a new drug that allows us to fine tune the texture of our stools.

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