What is an Opioid Painkiller?

The skilled drug product lawyers at Stern Law, PLLC, are currently investigating opioid painkiller cases. If you are an individual, state government, municipality, or insurance company with a potential claim for damages, contact us today about filing a lawsuit against the opioid manufacturers.

What Are Opioids?

Prescription opioids were developed to treat severe pain that was nonresponsive to other pain medications. Many of these drugs were developed and approved specifically for treatment of pain in cancer patients who frequently presented to their doctors with unmitigated breakthrough pain. Other opioids were also approved for treatment of patients with physical trauma (such as from an accident injury), intense chronic pain, and postoperative pain.

When a person takes an opioid painkiller, it travels through the bloodstream and attaches to proteins in the body called mu opioid receptors. When the drug finds these receptors, it triggers a number of different responses inside the person’s body:

1. At the spinal cord, the opioid reduces pain messages going to the brain. If the pain signal never reaches the brain, a person will never feel it.
2. At the brainstem, the opioid slows automatic body functions, like breathing, and reconfigures the way a person experiences pain.
3. In the limbic system, the opioid painkiller manipulates a person’s emotions, producing feelings of relaxation, euphoria, and pleasure.

The combined effects of the opioid cause the person to experience less pain and less intense pain than before taking the opioid. They can also achieve a more relaxed state, which helps them feel decreased pain sensations.

Common Types of Opioids

You are probably familiar with numerous types of opioids, as these painkillers have become very popular prescriptions for even mild pain. The most commonly known opioids include:

• Hydrocodone – Hydrocodone brand names include Lortab, Vicodin, Lorcet, and Zydone. This drug usually comes in a pill combined with acetaminophen. In 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning about prescription drugs containing both hydrocodone and acetaminophen, stating these drugs increased a person’s risk of liver injury.
• Oxycodone – Oxycodone brand names include Roxicodone, Roxicet, Tylox, OxyContin, Percocet, and Percodan. As reported by the FDA, more than 5,000 oxycodone-related deaths occurred between 1998 and 2005, surpassing deaths from every other opioid painkiller. The manufacturer of OxyContin, Perdue Pharmaceuticals, has admitted that it misled the medical community about the propensity for consumers to become addicted to the opioid painkiller. It marketed the drug as less potent and safer than morphine when it was actually stronger and more likely to lead to addiction.
• Methadone – Methadone brand names include Dolophine. It can come in a dissolvable tablet, a pill, or liquid. While methadone accounts for a small percentage of opioid prescriptions, it is responsible for a significant number of deaths. The number of methadone-related deaths increased by six times between 1999 and 2009.
• Morphine – Morphine brand names include MS Contin, Kadian, and Avinza. In 2009, the FDA sent a letter to the manufacturer of a morphine drug called Embeda, stating that the manufacturer had failed to disclose all of the risks associated with taking the opioid painkiller.
• Codeine – Codeine brand names include Fioricet, Fioinal, Phenaphen, and Tylenol #3. It is used for pain and sometimes in cough syrup. Taken for too long or inappropriately, it can become habit forming.
• Fentanyl – Fentanyl brand names include Subsys, Onsolis, Lazanda, Duragesic, Actiq, Abstral, and Fentora. Fentanyl comes in a pill or in a patch. It is an extremely powerful pain killer, about 100 times more powerful than morphine. On the black market, it is often mixed with heroin, causing people to overdose more easily because they do not know how strong a drug they are taking.

Some of the above opioid painkillers, like morphine, are derived from opium poppy, and some are completely synthetic, like fentanyl. Each opioid painkiller has the potential to lead to serious side effects and injuries, many of which manufacturers did not warn doctors or the public about.

If you are interested in moving forward, please take action now by learning more about your opioid lawsuit options and contacting us today!