How do opioids alleviate pain?
By Elisa Nuñez Acosta
Opioids are drugs that can be natural such as morphine, which is extracted from the poppy plant. Other opioids are synthetic, fentanyl for example, because they are made in a laboratory. Some of them are legal and are used to alleviate pain, for instance oxycodone.
Once you take opioids it reaches the blood circulating in your body and then travels to your brain as well other body components connected to the brain. What do the brain and such components have in common? They are formed by cells called neurons. These cells have specialized receptors able to ´catch specific molecules from your blood. Opioids circulating in your body bind those receptors.
When you experience pain, these neurons activate and handle the body pain response. If you take opioids, they reduce this neuron activity resulting in pain relief.
Opioids trigger a domino effect. They lead not only to pain relief, but to some other body reactions. For instance, they activate the system in your brain that make you feel pleasure when you eat or have sex. It happens because the production of a substance called dopamine rises and makes you feel pleasure.
Other domino effect responses could be slow breathing or abnormal heart beats. This happens when opioids reach areas of your brain regulating your breath and heart functioning. These last side effects depend on the opioid doses and individual reactions.
And this is how opioids attach to receptors in neuron cells causing pain relief.
