Fentanyl is a potent artificial opioid analgesic. It is an effective medicine for severe pain, but it also has big abuse potential. It’s 80 up to 500 times more powerful than morphine. As a medicine, fentanyl can be seriously harmful and its wrongful use can lead someone to death. It can be fatal as it can cause respiratory failure to a person who abuses it.
Fentanyl is frequently administered to a patient who is already opioid-tolerant. A patient who is using fentanyl and is not opioid-tolerant is putting his health into danger. To make it more understandable, a person who uses fentanyl for the first time to experiment or to use this medicine recreationally is putting himself at risk of overdose.
The DEA or Drug Enforcement Administration categorizes this medicine as a Schedule II controlled drug. It means that fentanyl has a high abuse potential and using it without the supervision of a doctor might be harmful to anyone. Fentanyl addiction can take place suddenly, so this prescription medicine must be taken under the supervision of a physician.
Fentanyl can be more dangerous when it is taken together with heroin. On the street, it’s usually sold as a good replacement for the high-grade heroin known as “China White”. Addicts use fentanyl with heroin to increase the high which is too dangerous. Mixing heroin or any other drug with fentanyl makes you more prone to the drug overdose.
Negative Effects of Abusing Fentanyl
Opiate and opiate-type artificial drugs known as opioids are measured versus morphine when computing their strength. This painkiller medicine is estimated at fifty to one hundred times stronger compared to morphine. It simply means this drug needs careful formulation to prevent overdoses. In the hospitals, fentanyl might be administered to a patient via injection but when it is abused, this route of administration can easily lead to overdose.
Many people who abuse it will search for a sublingual film which is available in small sheets that they put underneath their tongue. This sublingual film is intended to be stuck between the cheek and teeth. Abusers squeeze the gel or liquid out the patches, and they smoke, swallow or put the solution under their tongue.
Other Bad Effects of Fentanyl
Fentanyl has 2 different groups of effects wherein one is for drug use while the other is for drug withdrawal. In many cases, these are vitally like the symptoms related to other opiates. But, considering that fentanyl is extremely strong, these negative effects of the medicine can be extremely strong:
Fentanyl Side Effects:
- Dizziness
- Nausea & vomiting
- Drowsiness
- Weakness, tiredness and lethargy
- Shortness of breath
- Difficulty in breathing
- Swollen feet, hands and ankles
- Headache
- Addiction or danger of overdose
Fentanyl Withdrawal’s Bad Effects:
- Yawning
- Extreme restlessness
- Sweating
- Runny nose and watery eyes
- Bone and muscle pain
- Chills
- Anxiety
- Weakness
- Irritability
- Stomach cramps
- Nausea & vomiting
- Insomnia
- Hypertension
For every person who suffers from fentanyl abuse, treatment and support can be obtained from a reputable treatment facility. It’s never too late for a patient to recover from fentanyl abuse. The treatment for fentanyl addiction is now widely available.