Essay Sample on Research on Opioids

Opioids are also known as narcotics. They are medications that are exclusively prescribed by the doctor to act as painkillers. They are best known to relieve severe pain which has existed for a duration of time. Opioids are always given to people recovering from surgery, headache, or even backaches. People with different kinds of pain, for instance, the ones attached to cancer, footballers who suffer from an injury, or even pain as a result of the accident. Opioids can also get used in other medical applications. For instance, it can suppress diarrhea or even coughs. Even though opioids fall under powerful drugs used to relieve pain, it cannot treat the cause of that pain. But only decrease its perception.

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Opioids as well can be grouped into subclasses when referring to their chemical structure. The subclass of opioids includes opium alkaloids, which is the natural derivatives of alkaloids. There is also anililopiperedines and also a derivative of diphenylpropylamine as well as an opioid antagonist. There is another subclass based on their primary use, for instance, anesthesia, chronic pain, and severe as well as moderate Pain (Saver, 2019). Cough and diarrhea still fall under the above category. Finally, opioids can be grouped based on their activities as full agonists. In this category, we have a mixed agonist, which is also known as a partial agonist. Under the same type, there is also an antagonist of opiate receptors. The same plays a role in reversing the activity of opioids, more so in overdose cases.

How Opioids Work

Opioids are easily absorbed in the body via the gastrointestinal tract. After which, the drug gets attached to one or more of the opiate receptors in the brain. There are always four types of opiate receptors in the nervous system. These receptors then get stimulated and reduce the pain without doing away with what causes the pain. As these drugs work, they bring about dizziness. Similarly, opioids can produce depression of the respiratory as well as euphoria. When these operations work, the medicine also tends to slow gut function and hence result in constipation; it is the same reason why it is used to suppress diarrhea. When opioids drug get administered through an intravenous injection, the peak effect commences after ten minutes. When injected through the muscle, the impact reaches its peak after an average of thirty to forty minutes, but when orally, it takes ninety minutes to get active.

Effects of Opioids

As much as opioids are helpful, they are also dangerous and can even cause death. The reason is, the difference in the amount required to give a positive effect and that needed to kill a person is minor and unpredictable. Depression of the respiratory is the primary hazard linked with opioid drugs (Abdallah et al., 2019). Similarly, alcohol, as well as sleeping pills, accelerates respiratory depression enhanced by opioid drugs. If someone takes a drink or even sleeping sickness as the usual dose of opioids, the person can die quickly. Mixing of long-acting opioids drugs can be deadly. The same happens since the respiratory effect reaches its peak very first hence exceeding the relieving pain function, therefore death.

Conclusion

In conclusion, opioids drug are best pain relievers and should be handled with a lot of care as per the physician prescription since they are as well dangerous and can lead to death.

References

Abdallah, S. J., Faull, O. K., Wanigasekera, V., Finnegan, S. L., Jensen, D., & Pattinson, K. (2019). Opioids for breathlessness: Psychological and neural factors influencing response variability. European Respiratory Journal, 1900275.

Sarver, C. (2019). Opioids. In pain (pp. 225-230). Springer, Cham.