Short-term nonopioid agent lessens severity of opioid withdrawal symptoms

Opioid and Nonopioid Analgesics

Alleviating Symptoms of Withdrawal from an Opioid

INTRODUCTION Patients who are discharged following surgery on an oral opioid, and who have taken the drug for 2 or more weeks often experience withdrawal symptoms when they try to discontinue the drug. CASE REPORT Three weeks after discharge, a 44-year-old female patient decided to reduce her oxycodone (OxyContin(®)) dosage from 20 mg three times a day to 20 mg two times a day. She experience...

Predictors of long term opioid withdrawal outcome after short-term stabilization with buprenorphine.

OBJECTIVE We aim to examine predictors of opiate abstinence status 3 months after the end of buprenorphine/naloxone treatment for opioid-dependent participants. PATIENTS AND METHODS Participants (n= 516, age > 15 years) received buprenorphine/ naloxone treatment for 4 weeks and then randomly assigned to undergo dose tapering over either 7 days or 28 days. Bivariate analysis was performed to i...

Induction of synaptic long-term potentiation after opioid withdrawal.

mu-Opioid receptor (MOR) agonists represent the gold standard for the treatment of severe pain but may paradoxically also enhance pain sensitivity, that is, lead to opioid-induced hyperalgesia (OIH). We show that abrupt withdrawal from MOR agonists induces long-term potentiation (LTP) at the first synapse in pain pathways. Induction of opioid withdrawal LTP requires postsynaptic activation of h...

Opioid tolerance or opioid withdrawal?

To the Editor: We thank Kim et al. for their recent work examining the effect of intraoperative remifentanil on postoperative analgesia in children.1 Certainly, the pharmacokinetic profile of this potent opioid is attractive in modern anesthetic practice, and a thorough understanding of the principles behind tolerance, hyperalgesia, and withdrawal of remifentanil are critical for its safe admin...