Morphine: A Pain Medicine and Addiction

Morphine is an opioid analgesic and is used to treat moderate to severe pain. Morphine pain medicine works by affecting how the body senses pain. While effective in treating pain, morphine can be quite addictive and can be potentially abused should a dependency develop.

Morphine is most often taken orally through a pill, capsule or liquid. It is also taken rectally by means on a suppository or intravenously. The latter is the preferred method of morphine addicts. When prescribed, morphine is called by many different names and brands including Astramorph, Avinza, Duramorph, Kadian, MS Contin, MSIR and Roxanol.

Effects of Morphine

Morphine can cause many different side effects in those who use the drug. While taking morphine as a prescription from your doctor, you may experience lightheadedness, upset stomach, constipation, rash and vomiting. While morphine side effects are not all that common, they do occur. As always, contact your doctor should the effects of morphine be severe.

A morphine overdose can manifest itself in several ways including lowered blood pressure, slowed breathing and pulse, severe drowsiness, clammy skin, extremely small or extremely dilated pupils and coma. Should any of these warnings signs of a morphine overdose appear in an individual, contact a medical facility immediately.

The long term effects of morphine, like other opiates, causes changes in the chemical balance of the brain. Once your body becomes dependent upon morphine, your brain feels the need for it constantly. This is the same with the morphine derivative, heroin. Morphine addiction is a lifelong battle, with a great potential of relapse.

Morphine Addiction

Morphine is a highly addictive drug with which tolerance and dependence form quite quickly. Morphine addicts will focus their lives around their next dose of the drug. As their brains become more and more dependent on the opiate, the more addicted they become. A morphine addiction also impairs a persons awareness of their surroundings and thought processes.

How To Test For Morphine Abuse

Morphine drug tests can help point out those individuals with high levels of morphine in their systems. There are many different types of drug testing kits that detect morphine, including urine drug tests, saliva drug tests, hair drug tests and spray or sweat drug tests.

Business owners can find great comfort in utilizing morphine drug tests in their workplace. By preventing morphine drug abuse, employers save money in lost production, insurance claims, accident claims and more. Creating a drug testing program can greatly increase a businesss productivity and appearance in the corporate world, whether small or large.

Worried parents can also benefit from drug testing their kids for drug abuse of morphine. Drug tests are easy to administer and provide fast and accurate results. No more wondering about whether or not your teen is using and illicit substance like morphine. A simple drug test can provide the answers you need to help your teen through their drug problem.

A longer version of this article can be found at Effects of Morphine . The article is prepared by Serhat Pala who runs the website TestCountry.com

Some of the information used in this article is taken from : Drug Abuse and Drug Testing FAQs

Prescription Drug Addiction: An Overview
It seems that prescription drugs are being prescribed more than ever. Doctors prescribe drugs for pain, for mental health, and for insomnia. The majority of the people who are prescribed these drugs use them responsibly, taking the correct dose jus...

Addiction in Any Form is Abnormal
Psychological and physiological dependence on a substance or practice is the medical definition of the term addiction. An addiction is an uncontrollably strong longing for something - an abnormal kinky obsession for things. A person with an addict...

Hydrocodone Addiction A Rising Crisis
Commonly prescribed for its effectiveness as an analgesic or pain reliever, addiction to hydrocodone is today being viewed as a mounting crisis. While addiction to illicit drugs, like cocaine, marijuana and heroin that claim national headlines ever s...

Recognizing a Pain Pill Addiction
It seems as though almost everyone is taking medication for something. Be it heart disease, high blood pressure or arthritis, there is a pill for everything. Unfortunately some pills are very addictive and can have detrimental results for the patient...

Pain Pill Addiction Withdrawal
When a person who has developed an addiction to pain medication decides to take charge of their lives and give up the pills, they often face a long road filled with the symptoms of withdrawal. The process of being taken off the pills differs from one...

Oxycodone Addiction From Pain Control, Do Not Be Afraid, Be Smart
Oxycodone addiction, while being very real, has the capacity to be addressed sooner and followed up more consistently then other substance abuse, since most users are using Oxycodone for legitimate reasons (pain control).According to the Center for D...

Arthritis Pain
Arthritis is derived from the Greek words for joint and inflammation. It is not a single ailment, but a group of conditions. All types of arthritis generally involve pain that is generally worse in the morning and while initiating movement. It is fou...

Alternative Health Approaches to Breaking Addiction
To say that addiction is an issue in modern society is to make a rather major understatement. More and more people are looking to alternative health treatments for a solution.The treatment for addiction is an ongoing concern of society. It has becom...

Natural Remedy for Arthritis
People suffering from arthritis will usually resort to medication to relieve their pain. Unfortunately, there is actually no known cure for arthritis contrary to what many pharmaceutical companies say. Dealing with arthritis is not as simple as takin...

Joint Pain Relief
There are several types of treatment available for joint pain. To begin with, one can use home remedies, but if the pain is acute and persists for a couple of days, it is advisable to contact a doctor and get the problem diagnosed.Apart from medicine...

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 25th, 2008 at 10:10 am and is filed under RSS Feed Icon Alcohol Addictions . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.