Medically users prescribe opioids to “deaden pain, control coughing, and stop diarrhea” (Power Point). Let’s talk about pain shall we? For example, “For me it started off for pain… It went from pain to, I had really bad anxiety… When I took this medication, I didn’t have it anymore” (Inaba 4.12). In her case, the medication did exactly what it was supposed to do, which was deaden the pain. But is that always the case, regarding to pain? “Well once I started abusing pain medications and became dependent on them… Like a normal person would take Tylenol… Only thing that would work for me is pain killers” (Inaba 4.14). This shows that being effected by pain can lead to obsession, or even worst addiction! Did you know that 80% of our supply is based off of prescription opioid painkillers? (Inaba 4.14). Some painkillers to keep in mind are, Hyperalgesia, Hyperpathia, Allodynia, and Hyperkatifeia. To sum all of these pain killers up in a nut shell, this is what happens when someone decides to “extend their opioid use, which increases their sensitivity to pain” (Inaba 4.14). The next effect that I am going to talk about is, how opioids can control coughing. It is known to control coughing by “Suppressing coughs desensitizing the cough center in the brainstem.” …show more content…
Tolerance mostly occurs when, “speeding up metabolism (liver), desensitizing the nerve cells to the drug’s effects, excreting the drug more rapidly through urine, and sweat, and it also alternates the brain and body chemistry to compensate for the effects of the drug” (Inaba 4.19). Far as everything else goes, it is known that tolerance has no limit to the development of an opioid. Also it is a must for people to continue to increase their amount of dosage, so they can have the same effects. Alongside tolerance there comes dependence, which basically revolves around the desire the use the drug again. According to people at YU (Yale University) “when chronic morphine use is stopped, the body’s ability to produce its own dopamine stopped, the body’s ability to produce its owns dopamine decreases” (Inaba 4.19). After dependence comes cross-dependence, and cross tolerance. Cross dependence is defined as “one opioid (predominately heroin), which is replaced by one that is not considered