drug tolerance

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does drug tolerance go away? such as if someone was on narcs for a long time and needed high doses for the med to work and then went off the drugs would the eventually get back to having "normal" doses that would work?

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It would have to be a very long time, but the danger is that it wouldn't take nearly as long as the first time for the tolerance to build up again.

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Specializes in pure and simple psych.

Heroin addicts will tell you that it takes very little time to get back to the earlier "need" level. Some will "clean up" in order to drop their daily dose, but it never lasts long. The longer they were on high doses, the faster they get back to the earlier dose. I suppose all narcs are similar.

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Specializes in Trauma/ED.

Had an ETOH detox patient tell me one time that he was at the hospital getting cleaned up because it was getting too expensive to get drunk.

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As far as the ETOH....My dad get sober for a year or so and rest the old liver etc...when he would go back, it would only take few to get drunk as opposed to the case or so.

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so I guess it is the same for all drugs? My orignal question was asked because of a patient that was becoming resistant to benadryl.

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It can be, yes.

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Specializes in Trauma/ED.
so I guess it is the same for all drugs? My orignal question was asked because of a patient that was becoming resistant to benadryl.

I used to take Benadryl for sleep and tolerance is definitely an issue by the time I stopped taking it I was taking 200mgs nightly just to sleep...and yes I was very hung over the next day (this was when I was in high school and didn't know better).

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