How Long Does Heroin Stay in Your System

Are you wondering, "How long does heroin stay in your system?" There is no straightforward answer; it depends on many different factors. However, you can get an idea if you are in the clear by understanding how heroin leaves your body.

To answer the question, "How long does heroin stay in your system?" it's important to understand how this drug affects your body. Heroin is an opiate. Opiates enter your blood stream easily and will accumulate in your fat tissue. Drugs that remain in your fat tissue will continue to enter the blood stream over time. This is why you may feel the high from opiates longer than other drugs. However, this also means that your system holds on to the drug longer.

While heroin can remain in your system for months, the detection of it isn't as long unless you receive a hair follicles test.

While a urinalysis is the most popular way to test for drug use, testing your hair follicles is also increasing in popularity. The reason for this is that many drugs, especially heroin, will remain in the hair for up to three months.

Generally, heroin can show up on a urine test for as little as two and half hours or as much as three days. However, heavy users can fail a drug urine test for as long as seven days.

Blood tests are another way to detect drug use but it's the least reliable. Many opiates, like heroin, leave a person's blood stream within 12 hours.

Saliva also has a short detection time, six to twelve hours after consumption of an opiate, depending on how much the person digested and for how long.

The above lengths of time that it takes for heroin to leave a person's body are averages. Every individual is different and certain factors influence how long the drug stays in the body:

• Height
• Weight
• Metabolism
• Amount of consumption
• Quality of drug

To detect if heroin is in your system, you may receive one of the following drug tests:

• Urine
• Hair follicles
• Blood
• Saliva

While you may not be able to rid your system completely of the drug, you can take steps to decrease the detectability of it on some drug tests, specifically a urinalysis.

You can help the detoxification process of your body by drinking water, exercising and eating certain foods.

Drinking Water

If you know that you are having a urine drug test in the next two days, you should increase your water intake to at least 12 (8 ounce) glasses a day. This will dilute your urine to lower the possibility of detection. Be aware that clear urine, due to over hydration, can be suspicious to a lab. You may want to consume a diuretic such as coffee a couple of hours before the urine test or take vitamin B-2, which will give your urine a more yellow color.

Exercising

Exercising helps speed up your metabolism, which helps detoxification. It also burns fat, which is holding some of the drugs. You should do aerobic exercise twice a day for at least 30 minutes a day.

Foods to Eat

Avoid caffeine and sugar because these will only temporarily speed up your metabolism, then it will crash and slow down inhibiting detoxification. It's best to keep your metabolism working at a constant rate by eating food that fuels your body throughout the two days before your drug test. This will also help you burn fat, which again, will release some of the accumulated drugs in the fat tissue.

Do not diet because your body will start to hold on to fat because it will go into starvation mode, which will slow down the detoxification process.

Be sure to eat foods high in protein, carbohydrates, and fiber along with increasing the amount of vegetables you eat.

The only sure way to receive a negative drug test is to abstain from using drugs. While you may not have planned to be in this type of situation, it can be a good warning that it's possible to get caught under the influence days or even months after using drugs.

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