Why does opiates make you itchy

Please click here to learn about our coronavirus response and prioritizing your health. Opiate narcotic pain relievers like oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, and codeine can be extremely useful when it comes to treating moderate or severe pain. However, there are many downsides to utilizing such potent medications — even though they are generally effective. The most widely recognized downside is the habit-forming nature of these medications.

Even when taken exactly as prescribed, medications like hydrocodone and oxycodone can result in physical and psychological dependence in a relatively short period.

Aside from the risk of addiction, it is estimated that close to 80 percent of all individuals who are using an opiate narcotic medication experience at least one side effect during their treatment course. Some additional physical side effects include:.

These are not the side effects associated with opiate abuse — these are side effects that any individual who is prescribed an opiate painkiller is liable to experience. The physical data combined with the computational models allowed the researchers to create a chemical probe designed to interact specifically with MRGRPX2. This new tool made it possible to gain a more precise understanding of this receptor's effects without the noise of other receptors.

An opioid might activate the orphan receptor, but it might also activate other receptors that it interacts with. Imagine trying to recreate a musical score by listening to an orchestra perform a piece of music. Understanding what triggers the itching response could help pharmacologists develop an antagonist for this receptor to reduce the itching side effect.

In other cases, clinicians may want to induce histamine release, thereby boosting the immune response, as in the case of vaccine adjuvants, where an increased immune response may improve immunity. These findings suggest there may be a way to do that selectively.

The researchers will now move onto other orphans. She also emphasized that work like this would not be possible without the cooperation of a wide variety specialists. And all of these specialists working together makes findings like these possible. The brain has four main types of receptors that respond to opioids, and every type has many structural variants, called isoforms.

Most opioids are nonspecific, which means they bind to all the isoforms. This leads to powerful pain relief, although scientists do not know exactly why. Louis showed that only one opioid receptor isoform is responsible for itching—and it is not involved in pain. Mice bred to have fewer of these particular receptors did not scratch themselves when given an opioid, but they did exhibit the telltale mouse signs of pain relief, such as less flinching when researchers flicked their tails.

Now that scientists know that pain relief and itching can be decoupled, they will try to make itch-free opioid drugs a reality.

What kind of function do those isoforms have? They may mediate other side effects. So you can actually reduce morphine-induced itch without interfering with morphine analgesia.

We are examining this possibility.