AIDS

As if anyone doesn't know this: AIDS is an acronym for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. And it is believed to be caused by HIV which is another acronym of Human Immunodeficiency Virus. AIDS destroys your immune system. This makes you very susceptible to infection. This is because HIV invades your white blood cells and destroys their ability to fight infection.

HIV is a retrovirus which means that it carries its genetic information via RNA instead of DNA. What does this mean? Nothing. Nothing, at all. What matters is this: if you get AIDS you will die within about a decade. Once infected with HIV, it will lay dormant for two to eight years. Once symptoms develop you are said to have AIDS. These symptoms are: weight loss, enlarged lymph nodes, diarrhea, fever, and night sweats.

If you experience any of the symptoms of AIDS you should, of course, see a doctor. But generally, a doctor will not be able to do much for you if it is caught after becoming full blown AIDS. For this reason, you should get tested for HIV infection as often as is reasonable. This means every six months if you are involved in dangerous activities such as sharing needles or having unprotected sex. If you are living a reasonably clean life then you should test for HIV every two years-if you're doing heroin, you aren't living that clean a life.

Various drugs and therapies can prolong the life of a person infected with HIV. But by far the best thing you can do for yourself is to get healthy. Your first reaction to finding out you are infected will likely be to submerge yourself in heroin. But this will only put added pressure on your body and cause you to have a shorter, and more important, sicker life. Try to look on the bright side: you might live longer with AIDS alone than you would have with heroin alone.

Leukoencephalopath

Leukoencephalopathy is a neurological disease that adversely affects the material that surrounds neurons in the brain and spinal cord--helping them transmit messages and protecting them from electrical activity from other neurons. It was first noted in the 1930s in children suffering from leukemia. The first case associated with heroin use was documented in 1982.

The symptoms of the disease include mental deterioration, vision loss, speech difficulty, loss of coordination, paralysis, and, ultimately, coma and even death in as many as 25% of those with the disease.

The most common way that heroin users get this disease is by infection when the immune system is weak due to AIDS. A relatively small number of people contract the disease directly as a result of smoking heroin. The mechanism is still not understood, but it is believed to result from contact with an uncommon adulterant used to cut street heroin.

The earliest symptoms of leukoencephalopathy are slurred speech and difficulty walking. Any heroin smoker showing these signs (which may come on many days after the last use), should see a doctor immediately. If treated quickly recovery is possible. This disease is treated at length in our article leukoencephalopathy.

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http://www.heroinhelper.com/user/health/disease.shtml#endo