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Psychosomatic Medicine 67:341 (2005)
© 2005 American Psychosomatic Society

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

USE OF HEROIN TO COPE WITH STRESS CAUSED BY A NEGATIVE LIFE EVENT IN A PATIENT WITH LUPUS ERYTHEMATOSUS

József Gerevich, MD, PhD, Erika Bácskai, PhD and Lajos Farkas

Addiction Research Institute; Drug Policy Group; Budapest, Hungary

In their study, Peralta-Ramírez et al. (1) showed that daily stress, and not stressful life events, worsened the clinical symptomatology perceived by patients with lupus erythematosus. This is an extremely important finding, because it draws attention to the practice of the systematic treatment of daily stress. However, this cannot be taken to mean that life events do not play an important part in the exacerbation or remission of lupus and other autoimmune diseases. We had a young female patient with lupus erythematosus sine lupo who was led to heroin use by negative life events; her lupus symptoms diminished under the "heroin schub," presumably due to the immunosuppressive action of heroin (2). When she experienced positive life events, the patient stopped using heroin. The lupus symptoms subsequently reappeared. This vicious circle was broken by methadone treatment. The case draws attention to self-medication with heroin as a way of coping with stressful life events.

DOI:10.1097/01.psy.0000156941.34984.b2

REFERENCES

  1. Peralta-Ramírez MI, Jiménez-Alonso J, Godoy-García JF, Pérez-García M. The effects of daily stress and stressful life events on the clinical symptomatology of patients with lupus erythematosus. Psychosom Med 2004;66:788–94.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  2. Gerevich J. Compulsive heroin use: comorbidity, syndrome or self-medication of lupus erythematosus? Acta Psychiatr Scand 2001;103:78–9.[Medline]




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