Cocaine increases the blood pressure markedly, causing often fatal brain hemorrhaging as the blood accelerates through arteries at a much greater pace. Another source of cocaine fatalities comes from the changes that occur in the heartbeat as the electrical signal between the brain and the heart becomes distorted. Cocaine can have an affect on skin coloration, causing the skin to have a yellow or grayish cast probably because of damage to the liver. It also stimulates the oil glands in the skin often causing pimples and acne. Cocaine users are often sufferers of bronchitis and coughing.
Cocaine affects the membranes of the openings to the lungs causing mucous to form and inflammation.
Another symptom of cocaine use is its affects on the muscles of the body. Like its overstimulation of the heart muscle, it also overstimulates other muscle fibers causing involuntary contractions. This may result in cocaine users having facial ticks or involuntary jerks of the bodies caused by faulty signals going to muscle fibers. The electrical misfiring caused by cocaine has resulted in convulsions. Emotionally, cocaine users ride a roller coaster of extreme highs in which they feel powerful and in control and extreme lows in which they feel irritable, suspicious and depressed.