Why do painkillers alter the mood of the person.?
This question is for educational purposes only. I do not nor will I ever do drugs.
Now being said, how do painkillers such as lets say common pain medications given by a doctor after surgery (IE Vicodin morphine ect). alter the mood of the person. Obviously we know how addicting these things can be because it alters the persons mood giving a euphoric feeling or a false since of well being. Why does this occur? I know that the opiates block pain receptors now is it possible that people with an addiction are in pain always (to some degree) and the drug relives the pain to the point that the body is able to relax and feel happy. Now two questions, would it be possible to obtain this feeling like through another drug or surgery or some type of alteration if it wasn’t due to physical pain such as depression. Anti-depressants to more harm then good in most cases. Now I have talked to a friend who has taken both anti-depressants and painkillers (not at the same time) and she said that anti-depressants have never helped but when she was on painkillers (for a short time not a drug user and still doesn’t do drugs) that it helped with her mood. Much more then any mix of psychiatric drugs have ever done. She was more clear minded in school work and it almost changed her life for the better in the short time. Now knowing that this might be addiction she flushed the pills and never asked for any more because of all the bad things it can do. Now over long periods of time cant seoquil (one type of med she was on) do more harm then good? Such as causing diabetes? So I’m wondering if this type of feeling could be done to find the property in the opioid to maybe come up with an antidepressant. Not to get high or euphoric but to just benefit from the positive side effects of the drugs. Secondly is there a way medication surgery that can work just as good as an opiate but not have those types of side effects such as addictiveness and long term harmfulness on the body.
I have seen my friend suffer from depression, bi-polar ect for so long that the only time i can recall her happy is when she was on those types of pain medications so through a long amount of thinking I was wondering if there was any research being done on this subject or if there are any answers out there already about my questions.
I know that it isn’t addiction that made my friend "better" because she was only on the medication for about 10-14 days and the reaction was instant. She like most Americans have tried other addicting things like alcohol and doesn’t drink accept on a special occasion (because of the medication she is on) also she was able to flush the drugs with out becoming depressed or running out drug seeking though doctors or other illegal ways.
Thank you for any answers and please do not judge her she has had a hard life and was responsible enough to stop as soon as the pain was manageable though Tylenol. Also (as she is here with me right now) said that she did pot when she was a teen (she is now in her 30’s) and didn’t have the same effects as the pain killers.
Well, let me just start this out by first saying that any drug that effects or alters the brain chemistry and function is always going to be unpredictable and this is simply because we still know so very little about the human brain and how it works. At this point we do not even have an accurate instrument to measure things such as pain, depression, etc. in a quantifiable way. This is why we have to use what are known as qualitative scales, such as the VAS scale in pain management, where you basically have a range of 1-10, with 1 being the least pain and 10 being the worst pain. This is considered qualitative because it is just a descriptor and not an actually quantitative number like when a doctor measures your blood pressure or heart rate. Since everyone experiences feelings so differently, what may be a 5 on the VAS scale to me, could be a 9 on the VAS scale to you. Therefore, it is extermley difficult to manage and treat patients because it is so very much trial and error.
The other thing to consider is that all people respond to medications differently, especially those that are used to treat pain, depression, and other issues where the brain has a significant amount of involvement. There are a number of patients when given opiates will actually get a stimulant type effect, and it will make them feel energetic, happy and seemingly clear headed. Then there are those who can take the same medication and feel extremley calm, relaxed and euphoric. Then you have another group who cannot tolerate such medications at all, and in their cases they experience severe nuesea, dizziness, vomiting, lethargy, etc. So, why is it that you can take on drug compound like hydrocodone and give it to three different patients all the same age, sex and in the same medical situation and get three completley different systemic responses? The truth is, no one can tell you this for any certainty. If they could, then we would have a much better handle on pain management, psychiatric medicine and even neuroscience.
Also you must consider that even though you have a group of drugs called "pain killers", it does not mean they are all the same from a structural standpoint. Take for instance the drug Tramadol. This drug actually has two components that function to control and manage a patient’s pain. One component is a gamma opioid blocker which works very similarly to traditional opioid agonists, and the other component is an SNRI, which helps to adjust serotonin and norephenephrine levels by reuptake inhibition. It is the SNRI component to the medication that can give many patients the feeling of having extra energy, extra clarity, feel better, etc. Many anti-depressants are based on this same type technology.
Basically it is all about finding the appropriate medication combination and dosage combination that works for each individual patient. This is part of the problem with those who suffer from depession and bi-polar disorder, the trial and error portion of the treatment. It just can take sure a long time to find the right fit for each specific patient and even once you find that fit, you still will eventually have to make adjustments and modifications to maintain the efficacy of the treatment.
In the end, all of those drugs attach to receptors or bind with receptors to eithe block them or partially block them in an effort to change the way the brain precieves signals or produces chemicals. It is a result of those mechanisims of action that you end up with what is known as the systemic effect, which is the effect that the patient feels.
Most doctors are not very keen on using opiates to treat for depression. The main reason for this is because of the massive rate of abuse, as well as growing DEA regulations on prescribing phycians. The DEA is keeping a much closer eye on doctors and performing more audits, and when they see numbers and notice certain doctors outside of the pain management and surgical areas prescribing a lot of opioid pain medications, then it can throw up a red flag. Also, studies where using opioid agonists in tandem with other pysch drugs are still very much ongoing and investigational, and again a lot of the reasoning behind that is because of the above regulations.
I can tell you that Tramadol is being studied and researched on, to see the effectiveness of the compound on patients suffering from depression, and I do believe there have been some pretty sucessful numbers there, but again, it will be a slow road, as even Tramadol is becoming widley abused and will probably have a DEA schedule change in the near future.
I would say from my own experience that someone suffering from depression is not going to gain much true medical help from taking any straight opiates. The reason for this is simple, it is just a temporary fix for most. It is like putting a band-aid on a stab wound. It may stop the blood flow for a few hours, but eventually that band-aid is not going to hold and when it breaks, the backup will be so powerful, that the patient will be flooded with negative feelings at such a high rate that it will end up making them worse off than there were before. Basically taking a patient with a psych issue and compounding or amplifying said issue with the addition of a dependency problem.
opiates suppress the production of endorphins and bind to dopamine receptors in the brain