Hydromorphone - How Is It Taken?

How Is It Taken?

Dilaudid and Palladone are the prescription names for hydromorphone hydrochloride. Both are made as pills. Dilaudid is a powder-based pill that immediately dissolves in the stomach. Palladone is a time-release capsule. The capsule's shell dissolves in the stomach and the medicine moves on into the intestines in the form of small pellets coated with substances that dissolve over time. Some pellets have more coating than others, allowing for a continuous release of the medicine into the bloodstream.

In the past, doctors used injections of hydromorphone during and after surgery for pain relief. In more recent decades fentanyl has replaced hydromorphone for use in surgeries and also as a time-release painkiller. (An entry for fentanyl is available in this encyclopedia.)

Abusers of dilaudid have been known to crush the pills and snort or inject the powder. Injection can be dangerous because the powder-form pills contain fillers that do not always dissolve completely. The injection of these particles into the blood can damage veins.

Doctors who issue legal prescriptions for hydromorphone are ordered to stress the medication's potential for abuse. Patients needing the medicine are told to take it only as prescribed. They are not to double-up on doses. Also, they are told to flush any leftover medicine down the toilet so that it cannot be stolen. Patients who take the medication for more than a few weeks will need "taper down" doses to avoid withdrawalThe process of gradually cutting back on the amount of a drug being taken until it is discontinued entirely; also the accompanying physiological effects of terminating use of an addictive drug. symptoms.