Do Opioids Cause Acute Pain?

acute pain-a protective mechanism that alerts the individual to a condition or experiece that is immediately harmful

According to surveys, up to 80% of patients reported moderate to severe post-surgical pain, which can sometimes be left undertreated (Sinatra et al., 2005). Postoperative pain is generally managed with opioids, which carry numerous side effects. Side effects can be bothersome and possibly cause a delay in the postoperative healing process (Beard, Leslie, & Nemeth, 2011). IV acetaminophen can possibly decrease opioid consumption, minimize side effects, increase patient satisfaction, and decrease costs (Wininger et al., 2010). The purpose of this paper is to dive further into the research to present data on the effectiveness of IV acetaminophen in decreasing opioid usage and whether it produces an additive effect causing more effective pain management in the postop patient.

The CDC conducted a study to test the effects of longterm opioid use in adult patients dealing with chronic pain. It is estimated that 11.2% of adult patients suffer with some form of chronic pain lasting 3 months or more. The study utilized two styles of methodologies to assess and reach their findings, Meta-analysis and GRADE, Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation. Drawing information from patients being treated on a continues bases; palliative (hospice/nursing homes) and end of life care excluding those with an active cancer treatment. The study is meant to be an aid for clinicians as a guide that

Pain can be categorized as acute or chronic pain. Chronic pain is described as pain that is both long-term and continuous, or is pain that persists after the expected healing time following an injury (British Pain Society, n.d.) Acute pain can provide a warning signal that an illness or injury has occurred. It is defined as pain that lasts less than three months and lessens with healing (Briggs, 2010). Acute pain can then be described in more detail by the following categories; somatic, visceral and neuropathic pain. Somatic pain is a localized pain described as sharp, burning, dull, aching or cramping. It is seen with incisional pain and orthopedic injuries or procedures. Visceral pain refers to an injury to the organs and linings of the body cavities. It produces diffuse pain and can be described as splitting, sharp or stabbing. This is pain that be described from patients with appendicitis, pancreatitis or intestinal injuries and illnesses. Injuries to the nerve fibers, spinal cord and central nervous system cause neuropathic pain. This pain can be described as shooting, burning, fiery, sharp, and as a painful numbness. This can be seen after an

The opioids produce analgesic effects no matter is endogenous or synthetic, including morphine, codeine and methadone. (3)Endogenous opioid peptides such as endorphins, enkephalins and dynorphins activate opioid receptors including mu-receptors (mainly), delta-receptors, kappa-receptors and ORL1 receptors to produce different effects. One of the non-analgesic effects is the disruption of sleep-wake behaviour by the opioids’ actions on the ventrolateral preoptic nucleus (VLPO). The differences of the pharmacokinetic properties between the 3 opioids mentioned and the possible mechanisms of sleep-wake regulations will be discussed below.

Opioid medications are frequently prescribed for severe pain. Opioids includes the pain medications like oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, and fentanyl as well as the illegal drug heroin (American Society of Addiction Medication, 2016). Many people rely on these drugs to relieve their pain from surgery, active cancer, chronic pain and end of life care (WebMD, 2017). Studies from the 2012 National Health Interview show that over 11% of adults report having chronic pain (Dowell, Haegerich & Chou, 2016). The opioid epidemic is a significant issue for nursing on the main respect that there is currently a problem with over- prescribing of narcotics and the millions of people addicted to opioid medications

Prescription pills have not been much of a harmful substance until this decade. The recent increase in those prescribed with pain and given very high doses of pain medication has been astonishing. Although these substances are intended to target the pain, most

As the difficulty of analgesic therapies rises, establishment of the priorities of care must be forced in order to avert or diminish adverse events from occurring and to ensure that high quality and safe care is followed through. Opioid analgesia, in particular, remains to be the main primary pharmacologic intervention for managing pain in hospitalised patients. Although, while opioid use is generally safe for most patients, it may be associated with adverse effects, the most serious and severe opioid-related adverse event being respiratory depression (Davies et al.

Pain, as IASP defines is “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential damage to tissue, or described in terms of such damage." The person perceives pain due to different nociceptors present at the peripheral and central nervous system. Pain due to corrosive chemicals and temperature are detected through Transient Receptors Potential Vanilloid receptors like TRPV1(Caterina et al., 1997) and Mechanical pain is detected through receptors like TRPVA1(Lennertz et al., 2012) these are present at the periphery and are present at the axons of first order nerve fibers. These nerve fibers are of two kinds Aδ fibers (myelinated and fast conducting) and C fibers (non-myelinated and slow conducting) which are in the

Opioid drugs are some of the most widespread pain medications that we have in this country; indeed, the fact is that opioid analgesic prescriptions have increased by over 300% from 1999 to 2010 (Mitch 989). Consequently, the number of deaths from overdose increased from 4000 to 16,600 a year in the same time frame (Mitch 989). This fact becomes even more frightening when you think about today; the annual number of fatal drug overdoses in the Unites States now surpasses that of motor vehicle deaths (Alexander 1865). Even worse, overdose deaths caused by opioids specifically exceed those attributed to both cocaine and heroin combined (Alexander 1865).

1. The difference between acute pain and chronic pain is based on their characteristics such as causes, function, and neuron structure. Acute pain travels along the spinothalamic tract to the sensory-motor cortex, as chronic pain is less localized in the anterolateral pathway to the brainstem. The fibers that are used in acute pain are myelinated fibers that carry signals rapidly, and when there is no stimulation the signal stops. Unlike chronic pain where the fibers are unmyelinated, carry signals slowly, and the signal does not stop when stimulation stops. In chronic pain, there is also continuing tissue damage, as the nociceptive pathway neurons become more sensitive. In acute pain, there are tissue damages, but it is not continuous as

Introduction The experience of acute pain is a primal way of understanding and responding to potentially hazardous environmental cues. The fundamental process underlying the conscious experience of pain is nociception (Boron and Boulpaep, 2017; Silverthorn and Johnson, 2016). This involves the transduction of chemical or physical stimuli into electrical signals which travel to the pain centres of the brain; namely the somatosensory cortex for perceiving the location and severity of pain, and the cingulate and insular cortex, which associate emotional unpleasantness to pain. Nociceptors are primary afferent sensory neurons located in peripheral tissues that can detect changes in their local environment. They are responsible for the initial

Acute pain is the response given by a potentially harmful stimulus, is temporary in nature, and is often described as sharp, stinging, or throbbing. Common methods at inducing this response during experimentations with a model organism is through pricks of a needle or a hot plate.

Chronic pain management is a public health concern with substantial increases in the use of opioids for pain relief. There is a consistent growth in the number of opioids prescribed in the United States and the overdose from those drugs. Primary care providers play a vital role in balancing patients’ pain management needs with the risk of drug misuse and abuse. Today, medicine has made many significant advances to eliminate diseases, cure people and extend life, however, the cause of chronic pain is still struggling to understand and improve. Living a full and active life with pain is difficult. Therefore, it is important to reduce the sense of suffering to increase the level of functioning and quality of life. For that, one need to have the

This article is about the administering of opioid drugs into the vein for recreational use. The article discusses three powerful drugs, which were design for oral use to reduce pain. However, these three drugs oxycodone, hydrocodone and morphine were being abuse without physical dependency. The authors felt that the use of opioids were more prevalent in the United States than the use of cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamine (Stoops, Hatton, Lofwall, Nuzzo and Walsh 2010). The author points out to a study done by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which concluded that 4.7 million individuals over the age of 12 were using nonmedical prescription opioids, whereas 1.9 million, 200,000 and 314,000 individuals were using cocaine, heroin and