Opioid Addiction Treatment

Posted by Daniel Hardman on December 24th, 2022

Opioid withdrawal syndrome is a potentially fatal illness caused by opioid addiction. Opioids are a class of medications used to treat severe pain. They are also widely utilized as psychotropic substances worldwide. Morphine, heroin, oxycontin, codeine, methadone, and hydromorphone hydrochloride are examples of opioids. 

They cause mental relaxation, pain alleviation, and euphoria. Chronic opioid use causes consumers to develop an incapacitating kind of dependence. Opioid addiction affects the drug user as well as society as a whole, raising healthcare expenses, unemployment rates, absenteeism, and premature mortality. According to studies in some nations, the costs of these repercussions might range from 0.2% to 2.0% of a country's GDP.

Etiology

Opioid receptors are classified into three types: mu, delta, and kappa. They are G protein-coupled receptors that inhibit adenyl cyclases in different tissues and cause their therapeutic activities by lowering cyclic adenosine monophosphate levels. The mu receptor is critical for opioid action reinforcement. Opioid withdrawal occurs when an opioid-dependent patient abruptly reduces or discontinues opioid use. 

It can also occur when a patient has an opioid in his or her system and is given an opioid partial agonist, such as buprenorphine, or an opioid antagonist, such as naloxone or naltrexone. Opioid withdrawal has a complicated etiology. Various in vivo and in vitro animal models have shown that opioid withdrawal symptoms are closely related to adenylyl cyclase superactivation-based cerebral excitation pathways.

Epidemiology

The abuse of heroin and prescription opiates has long been a problem in the United States. Opioids are also the most often abused class of pharmaceuticals in Asia, Europe, and Oceania, and global opioid consumption is fast expanding. Globally, there are roughly 15.6 million illegal opioid users, and opioid usage is constantly increasing. 

In 2016, an estimated 11.5 million Americans aged 12 and up abused opioid pain relievers. 1.8 million of those developed a substance use issue as a result of pain medication. Overdoses killed roughly 500,000 people between 2000 and 2015. In 2012, clinicians wrote 259 million opioid prescriptions, enough for every adult in the United States.

Pathophysiology

The locus coeruleus near the base of the brain is the primary location in the brain that causes the onset of opioid withdrawal syndrome. The neurons of the locus coeruleus are noradrenergic and have a high number of opioid receptors. The limbic system, as well as the cerebral and cerebellar cortices, receive NAergic innervation from the locus coeruleus region. 

The opioid receptor-linked mechanism of NAergic activity in locus coeruleus neurons is a primary causal site of opioid withdrawal symptoms. Furthermore, studies have revealed that grey matter and the nucleus raphe magnus are implicated in the presentation of opioid withdrawal syndrome.