Meth, or methamphetamine, is a drug that has already destroyed millions of lives across the globe and is still doing the same.
The illegal drug is being mostly made in Asia, the United States, and Australia, from where it gets to other parts of the world. According to a survey conducted in 2018, 24.8 million people died due to a meth overdose.
Anyway, when it comes to knowing how long it stays in your system, it usually lasts around 10 hours. Here, in this article, you get all the details about meth, its effects, and its side effects on your body, so keep reading further:
An Overview Of Meth
Meth, or methamphetamine, is a synthesized drug or stimulant abused by people around the world.
It’s one of the most powerful stimulants among others, which targets your central nervous system and alters your brain functions altogether. When you ingest this drug, it usually takes around 10 to 12 hours to get half of it out of your body.
This drug is highly dangerous, and people who abuse it for an extended period of time suffer from mental health issues and severe diseases. There are several names for this drug as well, which are meth, chalk, race, crank, and other names depending on the location.
How Long Does It Take To Get Meth Metabolized From Your System?
Here comes the curiosity to know how long it stays in your system, so as a matter of fact, the half-life of meth is 10 hours. This means that your body metabolizes half of the meth you took in around 10 hours, and the effects can last until around 3 to 4 days after intake.
So, if you are taking this illegal drug, be sure that it can be detected within four days by common drug tests. However, the hair test is a highly advanced type of test that can detect the meth in your bloodstream for at least three months.
What Types Of Tests Can Catch Meth In The Bloodstream?
The amphetamine screen blood test is the most commonly used test for checking meth in your blood. This test is capable of checking all the hyperactivity of your cell membranes and the levels of meth in your bloodstream. As mentioned before, it can trace the exact amount of meth in your blood within 4 days.
Another test is called the hair test, which is an advanced version of meth testing and is capable of detecting meth levels in your blood even after three months of intake. So, if you are taking meth, be sure it can be detected for at least 4 months in your body, and you might get to spend some time in jail.
What Are The Effects Of Meth On Your Body?
When you are taking meth, it directly affects your central nervous system and gives you delusions, among other effects. Taking meth can give you a false sense of being highly energetic and woken up.
However, that’s just the delusion you feel from taking meth, and it’s just affecting your frontal cortex of the brain. In addition to that, if you take this drug for an extended period of time, it can cause you to lose weight drastically and make you look gaunt as well.
Severe paranoia is another effect of ingesting meth, whether you are taking it by smoking or injecting it. Smoking meth has a bit slower effect than injecting it; if you smoke it, meth takes time to reach your bloodstream, but with injections, it gets to your brain almost immediately.
Delusion is the most common effect of meth; as it reaches your brain, it starts to produce neurotransmitters like norepinephrine and dopamine in high amounts.
As soon as these neurotransmitters get released in your body, they start to make you feel euphoric and delusional about being invulnerable.
Not only that, but meth also affects you physically, as it increases your body temperature and heart rate exponentially. This can lead to heart attack and even death.
Permanent And Long-Term Side Effects Of Taking Meth
Methamphetamine is a harsh type of drug that completely affects your physical and mental health at the same time. When you take meth for an extended period of time, not only does it change your physical health, but it also affects your thinking and memory capabilities.
Anyway, here are all the permanent side effects that might stick with you for a lifetime, even after your rehabilitation:
Changes In Brain Function And Shape
According to research and studies on the brains of thousands of people who’ve abused meth, it has been found that it completely changes the shape of your brain.
In the research, it was also seen in the MRI scans that in people who abused meth for years, their brains were shrunken in size as well. It brought their cognitive function close to zero and reduced their memory by half.
- Memory Loss
In some cases, as the meth affects your mental health and shrinks it, meth can also make you lose memory. This is a severe case of amnesia, which is induced by the intense stress on your nervous system and brain cells due to the overdose.
- Weight Loss
When you ingest meth, it makes you lose your appetite altogether and can drastically lead to weight loss. And, if you take it for an extended period of time, it can degenerate your adipose tissue, which is responsible for storing energy for your body and cushioning your organs.
This degeneration in your adipose tissue leads to impaired function of your kidneys and liver at the same time, threatening your life.
Conclusion
When you are taking meth, it can seriously affect your health and even affect your relationships with your family and friends. This illegal drug not only affects your physical appearance but also affects your mental state, making your mood swings worse and more aggressive over time.
Taking any type of stimulant or drug is a matter of individuality, so make sure you are considering all the mentioned things before injecting toxins into your body.
References
- How many people use methamphetamine? (2019).
https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/methamphetamine/what-scope-methamphetamine-misuse-in-united-states - Wagner, D. J., et al. (2017). Interaction and transport of methamphetamine and its primary metabolites by organic cation and multidrug and toxin extrusion transporters.
https://dmd.aspetjournals.org/content/45/7/770
