Oxycodone - Effects on the Body

Effects on the Body

Pain relievers such as aspirin and ibuprofen work at the site of the pain to reduce irritation. Oxycodone works differently. It moves into the brain and central nervous system and binds to receptors (nerve endings) that seek pleasure-enhancing and painkilling neurotransmittersA substance that helps spread nerve impulses from one nerve cell to another.. Once the brain receives the medicine's message in its receptors, the patient no longer feels the pain. The condition causing the pain does not change, but the patient relaxes and the sensation of the pain is gone.

Taken as directed, oxycodone-containing medicines generally cause few side effects. Patients may feel slightly nauseous, drowsy or dizzy, or have a little less energy. They may also experience constipation, the inability to have a bowel movement, which is a common side effect of all opiate medicines. When the patient's pain improves, the doctor may slowly taper the dose of painkiller so that the patient does not experience any symptoms of withdrawal from the medicine. Gradually the dose is lowered until it is no longer needed. The recovery is complete.

For patients with ongoing or chronic pain, such as those suffering from cancer, the doctor may increase the dose of oxycodone over time as the pain worsens. The patient may also develop a tolerance to the drug and need more medicine to achieve the same results. This can be done safely if the patient has been taking opiate medications for some time.

A Dangerous Addiction

When oxycodone painkillers are abused, their effects are similar to the heroin high. This is because each extended-release dose of oxycodone contains a large amount of the drug. It is designed to be taken slowly, not to flood the body all at once. When crushed and eaten, snorted, or injected, a high dose of oxycodone floods the body and causes a rush of euphoria. The drug literally overwhelms all of the brain's receptors that search for endorphinsA group of naturally occurring substances in the body that relieve pain and promote a sense of well-being. (natural pleasure-enhancing molecules) and enkephalinsPronounced en-KEFF-uh-linz; naturally occurring brain chemicals that produce drowsiness and dull pain. (molecules that act to relieve pain and to produce drowsiness). The user feels free of pain, anxiety, and unhappiness.

After a few minutes of this intense euphoria, the user settles into a longer period of general pleasurable drowsiness and a dreamlike state. A mild allergic reaction may cause the skin to itch or to break out in a rash. Gradually, as the drug exits the brain, the heightened pleasure is replaced by a sensation of unease—a return to "normal" that may send the user in search of another dose of the drug.

OxyContin is particularly dangerous in abuse situations because crushing it releases a very high dose of the drug. All opiates work on the part of the brain that controls breathing. An overdose of any of them can cause a user to stop breathing. If the user is alone at the time, he or she could die of suffocation. The inability to breathe is one of the leading causes of death in oxycodone overdose cases. (Warning labels on each bottle alert the user to this possibility.) In the case of an oxycodone overdose, which leads to coma and irregular breathing, the patient should be rushed to an emergency room,

Since its introduction in 1996, OxyContin has become a widely abused drug in the United States. As of 2004, some 2.3 million teens had tried the drug illegally. Scott Houston/Corbis.
Since its introduction in 1996, OxyContin has become a widely abused drug in the United States. As of 2004, some 2.3 million teens had tried the drug illegally. © Scott Houston/Corbis.

where doctors will administer the drug naloxone (Narcan), a chemical that quickly rids the body of opiates.

More Dangers

Some drugs need to "build up" in the body before the user suffers a fatal overdose. That is not the case with opiates. They can be fatal with the first use, or at any time. Even people with a high tolerance for oxycodone can experience breathing problems if they take the medicine improperly. Abusers run a high risk of fatal breathing problems each time they mishandle a pill.

Repeated use of oxycodone, especially to get high, causes tolerance and addiction. Users will need higher and higher doses of the medicine to achieve the high. As the drug wears off, the body will react with uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms. These include yawning, restlessness and anxiety, insomnia, "goose bumps," cold sweats, sharp pains in the stomach, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle aches and tremors, and runny nose. As the abuser faces these uncomfortable symptoms, he or she is aware that more of the drug will ease these effects. The knowledge that the drug can make one feel better, even if only for a short period, becomes the greatest difficulty facing the recovering addict. Users sometimes forget that the short-lived high will again be followed by uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms.

Even after the immediate withdrawal symptoms ease, the addict will feel irritable, depressed, and dissatisfied with life—a syndrome called dysphoria. This general awareness of just feeling bad makes addicts want to return to drug use. And some are unable to fight off their addiction to the drug. A former OxyContin abuser told the Washington Times that the drug "put me on a path straight for hell with no exit ramps. … That pill was made by the devil himself. It ruins your family and your relationships, your children's lives, your closest family to you, your job. One day you try to quit and two or three days later, you're puking your brains out."

Three Types of Doctor Shoppers

"Doctor shoppers" are people who visit more than one doctor so they can get multiple prescriptions for the same medication. Fred Gebhart, in Drug Topics, identified three different kinds of doctor shoppers, with three different reasons for engaging in this illegal activity:

  • Intentional Diverters are people who visit several doctors to obtain pills that they can sell illegally for profit.
  • Accidental Shoppers are people who see a number of different specialists for various ailments. They do not let the doctors know when they are prescribed a drug by a different physician. Accidental shoppers run the risk of having bad drug interactions or even an overdose if more than one doctor issues a prescription for pain.
  • Productive Shoppers are people who cannot get enough pain relief from one doctor. They keep going to other doctors until they receive enough medication to manage their pain. These shoppers engage in this activity because some doctors under-prescribe painkillers for people in real need of relief.