What Does Cocaine Do? | West Palm Beach Detox Center

What Does Cocaine Do

The high you can get from using cocaine has a tendency to be short-lived; often leads to a binge pattern or the repeated use of the drug in larger doses and in more frequency. Cocaine can raise your risks of developing serious heart ailments and can even result in a sudden death due to the effects on the cardiovascular system. It can include a sharp increase in your heart rate and the constriction or narrowing of your blood vessels.

  • Every mode of administration of cocaine also comes with its own risks.
  • The more common ways to use cocaine include “shooting” the drug into your bloodstream or injecting cocaine, smoking crack cocaine, and inhaling the drug via the nostrils or snorting.
  • The high you can get from snorted cocaine tends to last longer than any other way for about 15-30 minutes.
  • Shooting cocaine may have a quicker onset but shorter duration for around 5-10 minutes.
  • Snorting cocaine may lead to your loss of smell even with occasional use.
  • You may also experience frequent nosebleeds and have trouble swallowing.

Cocaine can stimulate your central nervous system and have a negative impact on your circulatory system as revealed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Mayo Clinic revealed that the human heart is able to pump around 5 quarts of blood per minute. The blood carrying oxygen then goes to tissues and vital organs to keep your body alive and well. Without a proper flow of blood and a healthy heart, your body is in danger of collapse.

Studies at Harvard noted that even minimal cocaine use can constrict the flow of blood to your brain. Constricted blood vessels may lead to an increase in blood pressure, heart rate, and body temperature that can be extremely dangerous.

United Kingdom’s “Daily Mail,” for instance, revealed that cocaine can be the perfect drug for getting a heart attack.

Aside from the constriction of blood vessels, cocaine can also increase the level of stress that is placed in your heart to pump blood and oxygen to the body. After the death of “I Have Nothing” singer Whitney Houston, ABC News revealed that a lot of those who suffer from a preexisting heart condition are more susceptible to heart attacks when they get into cocaine use.

One of the symptoms of cocaine is high blood pressure with which many other medical conditions can stem from.

High blood pressure can affect your kidneys, brain, and heart and increase your risk of stroke. High blood pressure can even lead to atherosclerosis, which hardens the arteries of your heart to a point where it ceases to function correctly.

If you want to make sure that you do not develop or quickly mitigate the overall health risks of cocaine abuse and addiction, you should consider getting help as fast as you possibly can. Many treatments for addiction to cocaine are effective. All of the time, they often save lives.

Help is always available and the best rehab clinic might just be around your area.

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Anna Villanueva

Hi I'm Anna. I am an addiction treatment blogger for Detox of South Florida. I often spend time outdoors, shopping, or watching my favorite TV shows. Let's connect and see if we can help end addiction.

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