Opioid medications areSera Labs CBD Oil Review prescribed for patients with painful conditions and the response is typically excellent pain relief. There are side effects which may include constipation, tolerance, depression, and sedation. With chronic pain affecting 15% of the US population, doctors are prescribing narcotic medications with alarming frequency.
Is it possible for chronic opioid therapy to make patients worse? The answer is yes, and it is termed opioid-induced hyperalgesia (OIH). It is a paradoxical condition whereby patients become oversensitive to acute pain. There is a scarcity of literature on the subject of how often it occurs, what presents risk factors for its occurrence, and whether or not there is a dosing relationship for narcotics towards developing OIH.
Most importantly, no known strategies exist for the prevention of OIH or exactly how it should be managed once it develops.
Opioid induced hyperalgesia is not just having a patient develop a tolerance to medication. If that occurs, the dosage may simply be increased to achieve desired effect. With OIH, this will not be the case since it is a form of sensitization induced by the drug and increasing the dose would only worsen the pain.
A patient with OIH might actually become more sensitive to certain painful stimuli from the medication. The type of pain that the patient experiences may be the same as the underlying pain or quite possibly could be different than the original pain.
It is unknown exactly why patients develop OIH. There is some research showing that genetics may be a predisposing factor, however, it has not been explored sufficiently. Other studies have shown an association between opioid metabolites and hyperalgesia (increased sensitivity to pain).
Numerous observations have shown most often the OIH occurs with chronic opioid exposure. The main thing it needs to be differentiated from is simple tolerance or clinical worsening of the patient's baseline pain with need for higher dosing.
OIH typically produces diffuse pain, which often extends to regions that were not painful before. OIH tends to mimic opioid withdrawal with some of its symptoms along with increased pain. Additionally, if the patient is dealing with tolerance, an increase in dose would lessen the pain. This does not happen with OIH, in fact, the pain would be worsened.
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