How Does Opium Affect Your Heart

When people talk about opium, they usually talk about the brain: the calm, the drowsiness, the addiction. The heart gets far less attention, and that is a mistake, because opium does serious harm to the heart and the blood vessels too. The heart is a muscle that never rests, beating around a hundred thousand times a day to push blood to every part of the body. Anything that interferes with that steady work, even a little, adds up over time. Opium interferes in several ways at once: it changes blood pressure, it strains the blood vessels, it disturbs the heartbeat, and it slows breathing so the heart gets less oxygen. None of these effects is harmless on its own, and together they put the heart under a strain it was never built to carry.

This article explains, in plain words, how opium affects your heart: what happens to blood pressure, why the heartbeat can race or become uneven, how the blood vessels suffer, what warning signs to watch for, and what changes when someone stops. It is general information, not individual medical advice. Opium is illegal in most countries and it is one of the most addictive substances in the world. If you are worried about your heart, or about someone you love, a qualified health professional is the right person to talk to, and chest pain or severe breathlessness always needs urgent help.

What Opium Is and How It Reaches the Heart

Opium comes from the seed pods of the opium poppy, and it contains morphine and other active chemicals. Once it enters the body, these chemicals travel in the blood to the brain, where they attach to docking points called opioid receptors and slow the brain’s activity. But the brain does not work alone. It controls the heart and the blood vessels through a network of nerves, and when the brain is slowed by opium, the signals it sends to the heart change too. The heartbeat can slow down, speed up, or become uneven. The blood vessels can tighten or relax in ways that push blood pressure up and down. The heart, in other words, feels what the brain feels.

The blood itself carries the drug to the heart muscle, and the heart is sensitive to it. Opioids affect the electrical signals that keep the heartbeat steady, and they can disturb the rhythm in ways that a person may feel as palpitations, a fluttering in the chest, or a heartbeat that seems to skip or race without reason. These changes are not always felt at first, which is part of the danger. A person can have a disturbed heartbeat for months without knowing it, until the day it causes dizziness, fainting, or something worse.

There is also the link through breathing. Opium slows breathing, and when breathing slows, less oxygen reaches the blood. The heart then has to work with less oxygen than it needs, while at the same time being asked to cope with changing blood pressure and an unsteady rhythm. A healthy heart can cope with a short period of low oxygen, but a heart that faces it again and again, day after day, becomes weaker. The damage is not caused by one thing alone. It is caused by several harms working together, and that is why it is so hard to undo once it is established.

Blood Pressure Rises and Falls

Blood pressure is the force of the blood pushing against the walls of the arteries, and it is meant to stay within a fairly steady range. Opium disturbs that steadiness. In the first hours after taking it, blood pressure often falls, because the drug relaxes the blood vessels and slows the heart. The person may feel dizzy when they stand up, light-headed when they walk, or faint for no clear reason. Standing up too quickly can make the room spin. These are signs that the blood is not reaching the brain as strongly as it should, and for an older person, or someone whose heart is already weak, a sudden fall in blood pressure can be dangerous.

But the pattern does not stop there. As the drug wears off, blood pressure can swing the other way, rising sharply as the body reacts to the withdrawal. The person may feel their heart pounding, their head aching, and a sense of restlessness that will not settle. Over weeks and months of regular use, the blood pressure can swing up and down again and again, like a door being pushed open and shut. Blood vessels do not cope well with this constant swinging. They are built for steady pressure, and repeated swings wear them out, making them stiffer and less able to adjust when the body needs them to.

High blood pressure on its own is often called a silent problem, because it causes no pain and no obvious symptoms for years, while quietly damaging the heart, the brain, and the kidneys. When opium adds its own swings to that picture, the damage happens faster. The heart has to push harder against stiffer vessels, and pushing harder, year after year, makes the heart muscle thicker and less efficient. A thicker heart is not a stronger heart. It is a tired heart, and a tired heart is more likely to fail when it is put under stress.

Blood Vessels Under Pressure

The blood vessels are the pipes that carry blood from the heart to the rest of the body, and opium puts them under strain in several ways. First, the constant changes in blood pressure stretch and tire the vessel walls. Second, opium use is often linked with poor diet, little exercise, and smoking, all of which damage the vessels further. Third, the low oxygen that comes with slowed breathing makes the lining of the vessels more likely to become inflamed, and inflammation is the first step toward the fatty deposits that narrow arteries. A narrowed artery is a serious problem, because it means less blood reaches the organ it serves.

When the arteries that feed the heart itself become narrowed, the heart muscle does not get enough blood, especially when it is working hard. This is what causes the chest tightness that many people who use opium describe. The heart is asking for more blood and not getting it. When the arteries that feed the brain become narrowed, the risk of a stroke rises. When the arteries in the legs become narrowed, walking becomes painful and slow. The damage is not limited to one place. It is spread through the whole system, because the blood vessels reach everywhere, and opium harms them everywhere.

There is another, less obvious way that opium damages the vessels, and that is through infection. People who inject opioids face a high risk of infections that reach the heart, and one of the most serious is an infection of the heart valves, the small doors inside the heart that keep blood flowing in the right direction. An infected valve can be damaged beyond repair, and the infection can spread through the blood to other organs. Even people who do not inject are not safe from vessel damage, but injection adds a risk that is entirely its own, and it is one of the most dangerous consequences of opioid use of any kind.

A Heartbeat That Races

A racing heartbeat is one of the most frightening effects of opium, and it is also one of the most confusing, because opium is known for slowing things down. The racing usually happens as the drug wears off, when the body goes into a state of alarm. The brain, which has been slowed for hours, suddenly wakes up and sends urgent signals to the heart. The heart responds by beating faster, sometimes much faster than normal, and the person feels it pounding in their chest. They may feel panicky, sweaty, and unable to sit still. They may think something is badly wrong with their heart, and in a sense, they are right: the heart is being pushed hard by a body in distress.

A racing heart is not just uncomfortable. It is tiring for the heart muscle, and it is inefficient. When the heart beats too fast, it does not have time to fill properly between beats, so each beat pushes out less blood than it should. The body gets less blood even though the heart is working harder. Over time, repeated episodes of a racing heart can weaken the muscle and make it more likely to slip into a dangerous rhythm. For a person whose heart is already strained by high blood pressure or narrowed arteries, a racing heartbeat can be the event that tips the balance toward a serious problem.

The racing is also a sign of dependence. When the body has become used to opium, the hours between doses become a time of withdrawal, and a racing heart is one of the clearest signs of that withdrawal. The person learns, without thinking about it, that taking the drug again will calm the racing. That lesson is powerful, and it is one of the reasons addiction is so hard to break. The heart is not just a victim of the drug. It becomes part of the cycle that keeps the person using it, because the drug is the only thing that seems to quiet the racing it caused.

Rhythm Problems and Palpitations

The heartbeat is kept steady by a careful sequence of electrical signals, and opium can disturb those signals. The result is a heartbeat that is no longer regular: it may skip a beat, add an extra beat, or fall into a pattern that feels uneven and unpredictable. Doctors call these rhythm problems arrhythmias, and they range from harmless to life-threatening. Many people who use opium feel these as palpitations, a fluttering or thumping in the chest that comes and goes without warning. Sometimes the palpitations are brief and pass on their own. Sometimes they last longer and leave the person feeling dizzy, breathless, and afraid.

The danger of an uneven heartbeat is that it can become much worse without warning. A heart that beats irregularly does not pump blood as well as a heart that beats steadily. Blood can pool inside the heart and form clots, and a clot that travels to the brain can cause a stroke. A heart that slips into a very fast or very chaotic rhythm can stop pumping effectively at all, and that can cause a person to collapse. These are not common events in a single day, but the risk grows with every month of regular use, because the heart’s electrical system becomes more disturbed the longer it is exposed to the drug.

Palpitations are a warning sign that should never be ignored. Anyone who notices their heartbeat becoming irregular, especially if it comes with dizziness, fainting, chest pain, or breathlessness, should seek medical help promptly. It is easy to explain palpitations away as stress or tiredness, and sometimes that is all they are. But when they happen in someone who uses opium, they deserve to be taken seriously, because the drug is a known cause of rhythm problems, and the longer the problem goes unnoticed, the more dangerous it becomes.

The Heart Over Months and Years

When opium use goes on for months and years, the heart changes in ways that can be seen and measured. The muscle becomes thicker, because it has spent years pushing against stiff blood vessels and coping with swings in blood pressure. A thicker heart is a stiffer heart, and a stiffer heart does not fill with blood as well as it should. The person may notice that they get breathless more easily, that their ankles swell, or that they cannot do the things they used to do without stopping to rest. These are the early signs of heart failure, a condition in which the heart can no longer pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs.

Heart failure does not happen overnight. It builds up slowly, and the early signs are easy to miss or to blame on something else: getting older, being out of shape, having a bad week. But the direction is steady. Each year of regular opium use adds to the strain, and the heart’s reserve, its ability to cope with extra effort or illness, gets smaller. A person whose heart is already weakened is far more vulnerable to a chest infection, a fever, or any other stress on the body, because their heart has nothing left in reserve.

There is also the risk of a heart attack, which happens when blood flow to part of the heart muscle is blocked. Opium raises this risk in several ways: through narrowed arteries, through high blood pressure, through disturbed rhythms, and through the low oxygen that comes with slowed breathing. A heart attack is a medical emergency, and it can happen without warning, even in a person who felt fine the day before. The risk is not the same for everyone, and it depends on many factors, including age, family history, and other health problems. But the overall picture is clear: the longer opium is used, the higher the risk becomes, and the risk does not go away on its own.

Strain During Exercise and Effort

A healthy heart responds to exercise by beating faster and pumping more blood, and it does so smoothly, without complaint. A heart that has been strained by opium does not cope nearly as well. The person may find that walking up a flight of stairs leaves them breathless, that carrying a heavy load brings on chest tightness, or that a short walk feels like a long one. They may need to stop and rest far more often than they used to, and they may feel their heart pounding in a way that frightens them. These are signs that the heart is struggling to meet even an ordinary demand.

The problem is made worse by the low oxygen that opium causes. When breathing is slow and shallow, the blood carries less oxygen, and the heart muscle, which needs a constant supply of oxygen to work, gets less of it. During exercise, when the heart needs more oxygen than usual, the shortage becomes obvious. The heart strains, the person feels breathless and tight-chested, and the body cannot do what it is being asked to do. Over time, the person may start avoiding effort altogether, because effort has become unpleasant and frightening. That avoidance makes the problem worse, because a heart that is never exercised becomes weaker still, and the person becomes less fit, which makes every effort harder.

This loss of fitness is one of the quiet costs of opium use. It affects work, because most jobs need some physical effort. It affects family life, because playing with children, walking to the market, or doing chores all need a heart that can cope. And it affects the person’s sense of themselves, because being unable to do ordinary things is humiliating and depressing. The heart is not just a pump. It is the engine of a person’s daily life, and when it cannot keep up, the whole life slows down with it.

Chest Pain and Warning Signs

Chest pain is the warning sign that should never be ignored, and it is one of the most important things to understand about opium and the heart. The pain is often described as a tightness or heaviness in the centre of the chest, as if something is pressing down on it. It may spread to the arm, the jaw, or the back. It may come on during effort and ease with rest, or it may appear suddenly, without any clear reason. It may last for a few minutes or for much longer. Any chest pain that is new, severe, or does not go away needs urgent medical attention, and anyone who has it should call emergency services rather than waiting to see if it passes.

Opium can make chest pain harder to recognise, and that is a particular danger. Because the drug dulls pain in general, a person who uses it may not feel chest pain as sharply as they would otherwise. They may feel only a vague discomfort, or a sense of unease, and dismiss it as indigestion or tiredness. The drug can also make a person drowsy and confused, so that even if they do feel pain, they may not act on it. This masking effect means that a serious heart problem can go unnoticed for longer than it should, and by the time the person seeks help, the damage may be much worse.

Other warning signs deserve the same attention. Breathlessness that is new or getting worse, especially when lying flat, can be a sign that the heart is failing. Swelling of the ankles, feet, or legs can mean the same thing. Fainting, or feeling as if you might faint, can be a sign of a dangerous rhythm problem. A heartbeat that is very fast, very slow, or very irregular needs to be checked. Sudden, severe breathlessness, or coughing up frothy fluid, needs urgent help. None of these signs proves a heart problem on its own, but together, and in a person who uses opium, they are reasons to seek medical advice promptly, not to wait and hope.

Opium, Breathing and the Heart

The link between opium, breathing, and the heart is one of the most important parts of this story, and it is often missed. Opium slows the brain’s signal to breathe, and when breathing slows, the blood carries less oxygen. The heart is the organ that suffers most from low oxygen, because it never stops working and it needs a constant supply. When the heart is starved of oxygen, its muscle becomes weaker, its rhythm becomes less steady, and its ability to cope with effort falls. Over months and years, repeated periods of low oxygen wear the heart down, in the same way that a car engine wears down when it is run without enough oil.

Low oxygen also affects the blood vessels in the lungs. When the lungs do not get enough oxygen, the vessels inside them tighten, and the heart has to push harder to move blood through them. This extra work falls on the right side of the heart, which is not built for heavy pushing, and over time it can become enlarged and weak. The person may notice that they become breathless very easily, that their lips look blue, or that they feel tired all the time. These are signs that the heart and the lungs are struggling together, and they need medical attention.

The most dangerous moment of low oxygen is during an overdose, when breathing can slow so much that it nearly stops. The heart, starved of oxygen, can slip into a fatal rhythm or stop altogether. This is how many opioid overdoses kill: not by poisoning the heart directly, but by taking away its oxygen until it cannot keep going. It is a slow, quiet way to die, and it is why an overdose is a medical emergency that needs help within minutes. Anyone who finds a person who has used opium and is hard to wake, breathing very slowly, or with blue lips should call emergency services immediately and stay with them until help arrives.

What Happens When Someone Stops

Stopping opium is hard on the heart as well as on the brain, and the first days need care. As the drug leaves the body, the heart can race, blood pressure can rise, and the person may feel anxious and restless. These are signs of withdrawal, and while they are usually not dangerous in themselves, they can be frightening and uncomfortable, and in a person whose heart is already weak, they need medical supervision. This is why stopping should never be attempted alone, and why medical support matters so much. A doctor can monitor the heart, ease the withdrawal, and make the whole process far safer.

After the first week or two, the heart begins to recover. Blood pressure becomes steadier, because it is no longer being pushed up and down by the drug. The heartbeat becomes more regular. Breathing returns to a more normal rate, and the blood carries more oxygen to the heart muscle. The person may notice that they can walk further without becoming breathless, that their chest feels less tight, and that they sleep better. These improvements are real, and they continue for months as the heart and the blood vessels slowly repair themselves.

Full recovery depends on how long the person used opium and how much damage was done. Some of the harm, such as a badly damaged heart valve or a heart muscle that has become very thick, may not fully reverse. But most people who stop find that their heart works better than it did while they were using, and that the risk of a heart attack, a stroke, and a dangerous rhythm falls steadily year by year. The heart, like the brain, has a remarkable ability to heal when it is given the chance, and stopping opium is the single most important step a person can take to give it that chance. It is never too late to stop, and every day without the drug is a day in which the heart is under less strain.

My Take:

I will be honest with you. I think the heart is the forgotten victim of opium, and that bothers me. When people talk about this drug, they talk about the mind, the addiction, and the overdose, and all of those matter. But the heart is the organ that keeps you alive from one minute to the next, and opium wears it down quietly, year after year, without ever making a fuss about it. There is no single dramatic moment when the heart gives way. There is a slow accumulation of strain: blood pressure swinging up and down, vessels stiffening, the rhythm becoming unsteady, the muscle growing thicker and weaker. By the time the person notices they cannot climb the stairs without stopping, a great deal of damage has already been done. That slow, quiet harm is what I want people to understand.

What troubles me most is that so much of this damage is invisible until it is serious. High blood pressure does not hurt. A slightly uneven heartbeat is easy to ignore. A little breathlessness is easy to blame on age or on being out of shape. A person can walk around for years with a heart that is steadily weakening and feel more or less fine, until the day it is not fine at all. That day might be a heart attack, or a faint, or a rhythm so chaotic that the heart stops pumping properly. I think that is a cruel way for a drug to work, because it gives the person no clear warning, and it takes away the chance to act early. If the damage hurt the way a broken bone hurts, people would stop sooner. But it does not hurt, and so they carry on.

The breathing link is the part I find hardest to accept, because it is so simple and so deadly. Opium slows breathing. Slow breathing means less oxygen. Less oxygen means a starving heart. There is nothing complicated about that chain, and yet it kills people every day. A person takes opium to feel calm, and while they are calm, their heart is quietly being starved of the oxygen it needs to keep beating. In an overdose, that chain ends in minutes. But even in ordinary, everyday use, the same chain is at work in a slower form, wearing the heart down a little more each day. I do not think enough people know this, and I think they should.

I am also troubled by the way opium hides the very warning signs that could save a person’s life. Chest pain is the body’s alarm bell for a heart in trouble, and opium muffles that bell. A person may be having a serious heart problem and feel only a vague discomfort, or nothing at all, because the drug has dulled their sense of pain. They may be drowsy and confused, unable to judge whether they need help. That is a terrifying situation to be in, and it is one of the reasons that heart problems in people who use opium are often found late, when they are much harder to treat. A drug that takes away your ability to feel that something is wrong is a drug that leaves you defenceless.

If someone I loved was using opium, the thing I would watch for is the change in what they can do. Can they still walk to the market without stopping? Can they climb the stairs without gasping? Do they complain of tightness in the chest, or of their heart racing for no reason? Do they get dizzy when they stand up? These are not dramatic signs, and that is exactly why they matter. They are the early warnings, and catching them early is the difference between a problem that can be treated and a problem that cannot. I would rather ask about these things and be told I am worrying too much than stay silent and wish later that I had spoken.

I think about the families here too, because they are the ones who notice the changes first. A wife notices her husband cannot keep up on a walk. A son notices his father gets breathless doing chores he used to do easily. A mother notices her child, grown now, complaining of palpitations and dizziness. These observations are valuable, and they deserve to be taken seriously by a doctor. If you are in that position, I would urge you to speak up, to describe exactly what you have seen, and to ask for the heart to be checked. You are not overreacting. You are doing what families have always done: watching out for the people they love, and refusing to look away when something is wrong.

Support is the part of this story that gives me hope, because the heart can recover, and because the help that exists is real. Stopping opium with proper medical care is far safer than trying alone, especially when the heart is already weak. A doctor can check the heart, monitor the blood pressure, and make sure the withdrawal does not put the heart under dangerous strain. After stopping, the heart’s recovery is slow but genuine. Blood pressure steadies. The rhythm settles. Breathing improves. The person can do more, and feel better doing it. None of that happens overnight, but it happens, and it is worth working for. I would say to anyone using opium: do not try to stop alone, and do not be ashamed to ask a doctor for help. Your heart is worth the care.

I would also say this to anyone who has never used opium: do not start. There is no safe way to use it, and there is no version of it that leaves your heart untouched. The first time may feel like calm and relief, but the cost is measured in years of strain on the organ that keeps you alive. Your heart beats a hundred thousand times a day without ever asking for thanks. It deserves better than a drug that makes its work harder, its rhythm unsteady, and its oxygen supply thinner. If someone offers you opium, or if you are tempted because life is hard, remember what you have read here. The calm is temporary. The strain on your heart is not.

The illusion I want to challenge most is the feeling that my heart is fine. Many people who use opium say they feel all right, and they believe it, because the heart does not complain loudly when it is being damaged. It does not ache the way a bad tooth aches. It does not swell the way a sprained ankle swells. It keeps beating, day after day, while the strain builds up inside it. Then one day it cannot keep up, and the person is surprised, because they felt fine the day before. I think this is the most unfair part of heart damage: it gives you no honest feedback until it is almost too late. The only way to know the truth is to have the heart checked, and I would urge anyone who uses opium to do that, even if they feel fine. Feeling fine is not the same as being fine.

Smoking makes everything I have described worse, and I want to be plain about that, because many people who use opium also smoke. Smoking damages the blood vessels, raises blood pressure, and starves the heart of oxygen, which is exactly what opium does too. Put the two together and the heart faces a double strain, and the damage happens faster than either one would cause on its own. I know that asking a person to deal with two habits at once is a lot, and I am not saying it is easy. But I am saying that the combination is genuinely more dangerous than either habit alone, and that stopping smoking, even while still working on opium, would take a real load off the heart. Every bit of strain removed is a bit of risk removed.

Older people face a particular danger here, and I think their families should know it. An older heart has less reserve than a younger one. It has already worked for sixty or seventy years, and it cannot absorb extra strain the way a young heart can. An older person who uses opium may feel the effects on the heart sooner and more severely: dizziness when standing, breathlessness on a short walk, swelling in the ankles, a heartbeat that feels unsteady. These signs are sometimes dismissed as normal old age, when in fact they are signs of a heart under strain. Age is not a reason to ignore these signs. It is a reason to take them more seriously, and to get the heart checked promptly.

I also think it helps to picture what recovery feels like in the body, because the first weeks after stopping are so uncomfortable that it is hard to believe anything will get better. A few months after stopping, with support, a person can walk further without becoming breathless. They can climb stairs without their chest tightening. They can sleep lying flat without struggling for air. Their heartbeat feels steadier, and the dizzy spells become rarer. These are not small things. They are the signs of a heart that is healing, and they arrive gradually, week by week, like a debt being paid off. The heart does not heal overnight, but it does heal, and every week without opium is a week in which it is under less strain than the week before.

One last point, and it is a practical one. If you are with someone who uses opium and they develop chest pain, severe breathlessness, fainting, or a heartbeat that is very fast, very slow, or very uneven, do not wait. Call emergency services right away. Do not try to drive them yourself if an ambulance can come, and do not give them anything to eat or drink while you wait. Stay with them, keep them as calm as you can, and tell the emergency responders exactly what the person has taken, if you know. That information can save their life, because it tells the doctors what they are dealing with. Acting fast is the difference between a frightening night and a tragedy, and it is a difference you can make.

A heart check-up is simpler than many people fear, and I think that is worth saying, because fear of the unknown stops people from going. A doctor will usually measure your blood pressure, listen to your heart, ask about your symptoms, and may arrange a tracing of the heartbeat or a blood test. None of that is painful, and none of it takes very long. What it gives you is the truth about where your heart stands, and the truth is always better than guessing. If the heart is healthy, that is a relief, and a reason to protect it by stopping. If there is a problem, finding it early is the best possible news, because early problems can be treated far more easily than late ones. I would rather know than wonder, and I think most people would say the same once they have been through it.

One more thing I want to say, and I say it because I think it matters. A person who uses opium is still a person, and their heart is still a heart worth saving. They are not beyond help, and they are not beyond recovery. I have no patience for the idea that people who use drugs deserve what happens to them. Nobody deserves a failing heart, a heart attack, or a stroke. What they deserve is honest information, real medical care, and a chance to get their health back. If this article gives one person, or one family, the push they needed to ask a doctor to check a heart, then it has done its job. And if you are that person, I would say this to you directly: your heart can heal, your life can be rebuilt, and the help is there whenever you are ready to reach for it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can Opium really cause chest tightness and worry?

Yes, it can. Opium strains the heart in several ways, and one of the commonest results is a feeling of tightness or heaviness in the chest. This happens when the arteries that feed the heart become narrowed, or when the heart is working with less oxygen because breathing has slowed. The tightness may come on during effort, such as walking uphill or carrying something heavy, and ease with rest. It is often accompanied by worry, because a tight chest is frightening, and because a racing or uneven heartbeat can make the person feel anxious. Any chest tightness that is new, severe, or does not go away needs urgent medical attention.

Is a heart that recovers slowly from Opium dangerous?

A heart that recovers slowly after opium use can be a sign of real damage, and it should be taken seriously. When the heart muscle has become thick and stiff, or when the blood vessels have been damaged over years of use, recovery takes a long time, and the heart remains vulnerable in the meantime. A slow recovery does not mean the situation is hopeless. It means the heart needs time, rest, and medical care, and it means the person should be checked by a doctor rather than assuming things will sort themselves out. Anyone who feels their heart is not recovering well after stopping opium should seek medical advice.

Does a higher heart risk from Opium go away after stopping?

It falls steadily, but it does not vanish overnight. After a person stops using opium, blood pressure becomes steadier, the heartbeat becomes more regular, and breathing returns to normal, so the heart is under less strain. Over months and years, the risk of a heart attack, a stroke, and a dangerous rhythm continues to fall. However, if the heart or the blood vessels were badly damaged during years of use, some of the extra risk may remain. Stopping is still the single most important step, because it prevents further damage and gives the heart its best possible chance to heal.

Who is most at risk of extra strain during exercise from Opium?

People who use opium often or in larger amounts face the highest risk, because their hearts and blood vessels are under the most strain. Older people face extra risk, because their hearts have less reserve to begin with. People who already have high blood pressure, narrowed arteries, or another heart condition are at much greater risk, as are people who smoke or who inject the drug. People who are unfit, who eat poorly, or who have another illness that affects the heart also face extra strain during exercise. The risk is not the same for everyone, but no one who uses opium regularly is free of it.

What should I do if Opium is causing a higher heart risk?

The safest step is to stop using opium and speak to a doctor or a local health service about the heart risk and the other effects you have noticed. A health professional can check your blood pressure, listen to your heart, and help you plan a safe way to stop, because stopping suddenly on your own can be very uncomfortable and, in some cases, unsafe. Support services can help with stopping and with recovery. If you have chest pain, severe breathlessness, fainting, or a very irregular heartbeat, call emergency services immediately rather than waiting for an appointment.

How soon can a racing heartbeat appear after using Opium?

A racing heartbeat can appear within hours of a dose, as the drug wears off and the body goes into withdrawal. The heart responds to that withdrawal by beating faster, sometimes much faster than normal. For some people, the racing starts after only a few days of regular use, once the body has begun to depend on the drug. For others, it appears after weeks or months, as the heart’s rhythm becomes more disturbed. The timing varies from person to person, but a racing heartbeat is a sign that the heart is under strain, and it should be checked by a health professional.

Sources

• National Institute on Drug Abuse — https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/opioids
• U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration — https://www.dea.gov/drug-information
• Mayo Clinic, Drug addiction — https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/drug-addiction/symptoms-causes/syc-20365112
• World Health Organization, Substance abuse — https://www.who.int/health-topics/substance-abuse
• NHS, Drug addiction: getting help — https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/addiction-support/drug-addiction-getting-help/

This article is general information only. It is not medical advice. If you are worried about your health or about someone else, speak to a qualified health professional.