Somewhere around 70,000 or so people die each and every year from an opioid related overdose.
Back in the early 2,000s, the culprit was Oxycodone, an opioid that most would probably
recognize under the name of Oxycontin but in 2013 or so, it was Fentanyl that overtook
both Oxycontin and heroin on the center stage in the opioid epidemic.
As for who's to blame, well, it's a combination of things. You have pharmaceutical greed and
malpractice. You have health care providers that are over and misprescribing their patients
and then you have a flood of illicitly produce fentanyl coming from China, Mexico and India,
all of those factors were working together to create the current fentanyl crisis.
These days, fentanyl is being disguised as legitimate medications and then being smuggled
into the United States and many other countries. Some may think they're getting Xanax or Adderall
but instead are getting a high dose of fentanyl. Considering fentanyl is around 50 times more
powerful than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine and often times only two milligrams
of fentanyl is enough to deliver a fatal dose, dependence and accidental overdoses are skyrocketing.
In today's video, we're going to discuss the legitimate uses for fentanyl and what happens
to the body when it's consumed. We'll see why withdrawals are so brutally difficult
to overcome and why overdosing is such an easy thing to do. It's going to be an important
one. Let's do this.
[Intro]
Before we start today's video, if you or someone you know is struggling with
opioid dependency or opioid use disorder and you're looking for help, we've added some
resources to the description of this video that we strongly encourage you to check out.
Let's first discuss the difference between an Opiate and an Opioid because there is an
actual difference between the two. Opiates are natural compounds that come from poppysap
and poppy plant fibers. So, this would include morphine and codeine for example.
Opioids, that's more of an umbrella term and it's encompassing any compound that is going
to bind to and have an action on opioid receptors in the body. So, that would include the natural
opiates like morphine and codeine but also semi-synthetic opioids - so that would include
like heroin, and then fully synthetic which would be fentanyl for example.
Now, you may be wondering why the body has opioid receptors in the first place. Well,
it comes down to the fact that your body makes its own opioids to bind to those receptors.
They're called Endogenous Opioids and I guarantee you've heard of one of them, endorphins.
Endorphin stands for Endogenous Morphine, but it's only one example of these opioids.
You also have what are called Enkephalines, Dynorphins, Endomorphins, Nociceeptin or also
called Orphanin. Now, they'll bind to those receptors and they have a whole wide variety
of effects that we're going to discuss in a moment.
Just understand that Exogenous opioids or coming from an external source. So, this is
going to be like heroin, morphine or fentanyl, will bind to those receptors, right? So, they're
taking advantage of something that's already there and then what they do is they an exaggerated
response.
Now, to best understand how opioids work and why your body even bothers making endogenous
opioids, we first need to understand how pain works in this process. Now, we've already
done an entire video on this, so we'll go ahead and link that up above. So, if you want
a more robust understanding, I strongly encourage you to check out that video but in a nutshell,
let's say I jam my pinky finger, right? So, I hit it and that's going to send obviously
a painful signal up a sensory neuron and that neuron is going to travel for my pinky, through
my arm, and up towards my spinal cord. But when it gets into the spinal cord, this is
where it's going to synapse or communicate with a secondary neuron.
So, this first neuron we call the Presynaptic Neuron. Then, the one that it synapses with
or communicates with in the spinal cord is the Postsynaptic neuron. And what will happen
is this postynaptic neuron will now take the signal up the spinal cord - let me go ahead
and grab this brain here - and it's going to take it to the brain.
So, you're looking at the right hemisphere of the brain as seen from the sagittal or
midline view. Now, grab my probe. So, what's going to happen is the signal is going to
travel up the brain stem and it's going to go to this area here called The Thalamus.
The thalamus is - you can think of it as like a hub, right? It's going to direct signals
to where they need to go.
So, what will happen is the thalamus will send the signal into this region here which
is called The Primary Somatosensory Cortex and this is where you are going to be made
aware of the fact that you have a problem.
Now, some data does suggest that the thalamus has some awareness but if it does, this is
still going to be where the majority of your awareness is going to be but it's also going
to send a to a structure that's deeper down in here that we can't see called the Amygdala.
The amygdala is responsible for processing negative emotions, so this is what makes you
not very happy about the fact that you just jammed your finger, right? So, that's what
we call the ascending pain pathway but the brain or the body I should say, also has a
descending pain pathway because think about it - after you've jammed your finger, you
don't need to have that same pain level as long as the stimulus is gone, right? The painful,
that noxious stimulus is gone.
So, will happen is your body wants to start numbing the pain with those endogenous opioids.
So again, grab the brain here. The thalamus will send a signal and it'll go down into
this area here. This is called the Midbrain of the brain stem and in the midbrain is what
is called Gray Matter.
Gray matter is just a location where cells are synapsing with each other but this gray
matter is called the Periaqueductal Gray. You're not really going to be able to see
that all that much in this section here but from there, a signal is going to be sent down
the brain stem, down the spinal cord and go to that location in the substantia gelatinosa
where those two neurons were communicating with one another.
And it's at this site that the endogenous opioids will be secreted and it does this
to modulate the pain. And I say "Modulate" on purpose. It's not like it's getting rid
of the pain, right? Just you jam your finger and then wait 2 minutes - it's not as though
the pain is just gone, there's still going to be pain there and depending on how bad
you jammed your finger, the pain could be much worse.
So, this is where the opioids will bind to receptors that we're about to discuss and
changes your perception of the pain which is absolutely fascinating. Now, without getting
too far into the weeds when it comes to how this synapsin signal modulation works, what's
being communicated between the pre and the postsynaptic neuron are neurotransmitters.
Now, there's a lot of different types of neurotransmitters out there but the ones that are going to be
interesting or important to us are going to be Glutamate and Gaba. More so gaba than glutamate.
Just think about it like this - a signal when it's being sent between neurons can either
be excitatory or inhibitory.
If it's excitatory, it's just saying let's keep this signal going. If it's inhibitory,
it's saying, let's stop this signal. So, if glutamate is released between - at the synapse,
that's an excitatory signal but if Gaba is released, that's an inhibitory signal.
So, I want you to think about this for a second. If you were to able to prevent glutamate from
being released, that would also inhibit the signal or if you were to prevent Gaba from
being released, that would also excite the signal, right? And continue the signal on
and this is where opioids are going to do their thing.
Now, the way the opioids are able to have an effect or modulate the signal at the synapse
is through those Opioid Receptors. Now, depending on where you look, you may see as many as
five different types of opioid receptors and each of those their own subtypes but for our
purposes today, we're going to focus on three of them and that's going to be the Mu Receptor,
the Delta Receptor and the Kappa Receptor. Although we're primarily going to be focusing
on the mu receptor because that is the most well studied and it also happens to be the
receptor that fentanyl prefers - although fentanyl will definitely choose all three
of them but again, it prefers that mu receptor.
Now, you're going to find the mu receptor and these other receptors throughout the entire
body, but they're going to be in different densities. So, with the mu receptor, you're
going to find a lot of them in the digestive system which actually makes a ton of sense
if you understand that opioid usage comes with some pretty intense constipation and
peristalsis type of issues. But when it comes to the nervous system, you're also going to
find mu receptors in the substantial gelatosa, right? That spinal cord where those two neurons
are communicating. Again, makes a ton of sense.
When it comes to the brain, I'll go ahead and grab this hemisphere again - you're going
to find mu receptors in the brain stem, which is one that you're going to have issues with
breathing and we're going to see that when we get to overdosing here in a moment, but
you're also going to find mu receptors in thethalamus as well as the cerebral cortex
but the mu receptors that are in the cerebral cortex are primarily going to be associated
with pain processing - which makes perfect sense because one of the reasons or actually
the main reasons you take an opioid is for Analgesia. But you're also going to find mu
receptors in another pathway and that is going to be what's called the Mesolimbic Pathway.
And the mesolimbic pathway is right here actually. So, there's a - there's an area here in the
mid brain of the brain stem called the ventral Tegmental area. And the ventral tegmental
area is actually going to be communicating with another area right about here - again,
it's going to be deep - called the Nucleus Accumbens and what will happen is it will
actually be secreting gaba to the nucleus accumbens among other areas.
And if you recall me saying gaba is inhibitory. So, when gaba is being secreted, it's telling
the other neuron to not secrete what it's going to secrete. Well, in this case, the
nucleus acumben secretes dopamine. So, right now, right, unless you're doing something
very pleasurful and joyful, you're probably not secreting dopamine, but let's say you
enjoy some chocolate, right? We all know chocolate is amazing. So, if you're to consume some
chocolate, what's going to happen is the ventral tegmental area will say, "let's - we can enjoy
this moment" and it's going to stop secreting gaba which will then allow this neuron, the
neurons here to start secreting dopamine.
Well, opioids are going to do the same thing. What's going to happen is they are going to
bind to new receptors in the ventral tegmental area which will then stop gaba secretion which
will then cause dopamine release and flooding into the nervous system. And this is the basis
of addiction, right? Because it feels amazing and this is what you'll see pretty much anyone
who consumes opioids and therefore when they're beginning to consume opioids is that it feels
fantastic.
The problem is that you're going to have to start taking more and more of the substance,
whatever it is, and again it's not just opioids that do this, right? There's a vast array
of substances that will affect this. Means Olympic or this reward pathway but when you
start to you know, getting tons and tons of dopamine surges, you're going to have to start
taking more and more to get the same dopamine surges and that is the basis of addiction,
at least in terms of pleasure, joy and eventually just outright need.
Now, you may be wondering why fentanyl is even available given how extremely powerful
it is. If you recall me saying earlier, it's around 100 times more powerful than morphine
although I have seen some texts suggest that it could be as high as 400 times as powerful,
although they weren't perfectly clear if that was fentanyl or derivatives of fentanyl because
as depressing as this is, there are even more powerful synthetic opioids than fentanyl out
there and they are on the street just as fentanyl is.
You have to understand that fentanyl is supposed to be administered under very specific circumstances
and so, like think like extreme pain - maybe someone has been taking morphine, a lot of
morphine for their pain, eventually, they become tolerant to it, they need something
stronger. Maybe they have cancer pain, right? Cuz cancer can be extraordinarily painful.
Fentanyl has some great usage for that.
You'll also see fentanyl be administered by anesthesiologist. Maybe someone's going under
the knife or maybe they're having an epidural for some reason. So, there are plenty of use
cases for fentanyl and they have been used in very good ways, right? In very controlled
and proper ways but it's just not meant to be where it is day and you can see why that
is such a problem because of that, right?
It's so easy to overdose on fentanyl, like extremely easy to overdose. If you recall
me saying, opioids can actually have an effect on the respiration centers of the body. So,
in the brain stem but also into an area called the hypothalamus. So, you have to understand
that right now, as you're breathing, your body is, you know, like monitoring everything,
right? You have respiratory rhythms going from to your diaphragm, coming from the brain
stem - saying breathe in breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, right?
Your brain is monitoring how much carbon dioxide is actually in your bloodstream and so, then
that - when carbon dioxide starts to increase, it'll actually reflexively cause you to inhale
oxygen or exhale the carbon dioxide and inhale oxygen but if you have, if you're going - if
you're overdosing on an opioid, that can get so saturated by the opioids themselves that
you can't overcome that. And so, what will happen is you will actually die from respiratory
depression, right? You literally cannot breathe because the opioids have completely saturated
the those areas, right? The opioid receptors on those areas and the only way out of that
is with another opioid called naloxone. Also, sometimes people will call it narcan, that's
a brand of it.
So, what they'll do is by administering narcan or naloxone, what will happen is those will
actually bind to those same receptors and prevent fentanyl, morphine, or any of the
other opioids from getting there and it will actually - so then what will happen is the
person will come out of it - they'll be able to breathe again and typically they'll go
immediately into withdrawals and that will make them very uncomfortable.
You have to understand withdrawals are - from what I hear - unbearable, right? I mean, from
any opioid, right? This isn't just fentanyl exclusive because when you're withdrawing
from it, you have to understand that the nerves, right? That that loss of pain you get so used
to. It it's not just the dopamine, alright? It's not just the dopamine, the euphoria that
you have to overcome the addiction on that end, it becomes excruciatingly painful your
neurons are used to not sending painful signals and now all of a sudden, when there's no opioids
to tell them not to send signals, any sensitization of those neurons, even if it's not painful.
Think about this, right? If you're so used to not feeling pain, when that fully comes
online, your shirt itself can become painful because the neurons are just not used to processing
that pain. It makes withdrawal symptoms excruciating and so, someone who actually will take on
narcan can actually kick right into one of those withdrawals. It is absolutely awful.
In fact, everything about it is absolutely awful. You know, opioids are one of those
things that you know, I am just deathly afraid of and I tell everyone that I come to contact
with who's going into the hospital, it's like, if you're going to be taking any kind of opioid,
you need to be very careful with that, right?
I remember when I was in the hospital for some of my gut issues and they were telling
me, "Hey, we're going to be giving you this and that". I I was very resistant to taking
any opioid in any capacity and it's because I'm afraid of them. It's not to say that they
can't be beneficial. I know they can. It's just I literally live in fear because I know
what it can do to even the best and most well-intentioned people and that's what's so unfortunate and
heartbreaking for me. You know, seeing so many people out there.
You know, I'm a veteran and I have friends who have actually fallen victim, right? To
opioid abuse, right? They have opioid use disorder. They have opioid dependence, right?
I mean, living in North America, I don't know how you can drive on the freeway without seeing
billboards just saying get help for your opioid addiction, right? It's such a horrifying problem
that is happening.
My hope is that we can find a way out of this and I'm not going to pretend as though I have
a way out of it. I don't want you to think that the anatomy guy who's teaching you on
YouTube as the solution to the opioid epidemic. I just I'm hoping that people can educate
themselves on it to make better decisions about - if they have an opioid coming up,
maybe they have some procedure or something or maybe they can just at least better understand
someone who has already fallen into this opioid trap because it is absolutely horrifying and
depressing.
Now, I want to take a moment and thank the sponsor of today's video Brilliant. Brilliant
is a sponsor that we've been fortunate enough to work with almost since the beginning of
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with me for a little bit and I will see you in the next video.
Somewhere around 70,000 or so people die each and every year from an opioid related overdose.
Back in the early 2,000s, the culprit was Oxycodone, an opioid that most would probably
recognize under the name of Oxycontin but in 2013 or so, it was Fentanyl that overtook
both Oxycontin and heroin on the center stage in the opioid epidemic.
As for who's to blame, well, it's a combination of things. You have pharmaceutical greed and
malpractice. You have health care providers that are over and misprescribing their patients
and then you have a flood of illicitly produce fentanyl coming from China, Mexico and India,
all of those factors were working together to create the current fentanyl crisis.
These days, fentanyl is being disguised as legitimate medications and then being smuggled
into the United States and many other countries. Some may think they're getting Xanax or Adderall
but instead are getting a high dose of fentanyl. Considering fentanyl is around 50 times more
powerful than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine and often times only two milligrams
of fentanyl is enough to deliver a fatal dose, dependence and accidental overdoses are skyrocketing.
In today's video, we're going to discuss the legitimate uses for fentanyl and what happens
to the body when it's consumed. We'll see why withdrawals are so brutally difficult
to overcome and why overdosing is such an easy thing to do. It's going to be an important
one. Let's do this.
[Intro] Before we start today's video, if you or someone you know is struggling with
opioid dependency or opioid use disorder and you're looking for help, we've added some
resources to the description of this video that we strongly encourage you to check out.
Let's first discuss the difference between an Opiate and an Opioid because there is an
actual difference between the two. Opiates are natural compounds that come from poppysap
and poppy plant fibers. So, this would include morphine and codeine for example.
Opioids, that's more of an umbrella term and it's encompassing any compound that is going
to bind to and have an action on opioid receptors in the body. So, that would include the natural
opiates like morphine and codeine but also semi-synthetic opioids - so that would include
like heroin, and then fully synthetic which would be fentanyl for example.
Now, you may be wondering why the body has opioid receptors in the first place. Well,
it comes down to the fact that your body makes its own opioids to bind to those receptors.
They're called Endogenous Opioids and I guarantee you've heard of one of them, endorphins.
Endorphin stands for Endogenous Morphine, but it's only one example of these opioids.
You also have what are called Enkephalines, Dynorphins, Endomorphins, Nociceeptin or also
called Orphanin. Now, they'll bind to those receptors and they have a whole wide variety
of effects that we're going to discuss in a moment.
Just understand that Exogenous opioids or coming from an external source. So, this is
going to be like heroin, morphine or fentanyl, will bind to those receptors, right? So, they're
taking advantage of something that's already there and then what they do is they an exaggerated
response.
Now, to best understand how opioids work and why your body even bothers making endogenous
opioids, we first need to understand how pain works in this process. Now, we've already
done an entire video on this, so we'll go ahead and link that up above. So, if you want
a more robust understanding, I strongly encourage you to check out that video but in a nutshell,
let's say I jam my pinky finger, right? So, I hit it and that's going to send obviously
a painful signal up a sensory neuron and that neuron is going to travel for my pinky, through
my arm, and up towards my spinal cord. But when it gets into the spinal cord, this is
where it's going to synapse or communicate with a secondary neuron.
So, this first neuron we call the Presynaptic Neuron. Then, the one that it synapses with
or communicates with in the spinal cord is the Postsynaptic neuron. And what will happen
is this postynaptic neuron will now take the signal up the spinal cord - let me go ahead
and grab this brain here - and it's going to take it to the brain.
So, you're looking at the right hemisphere of the brain as seen from the sagittal or
midline view. Now, grab my probe. So, what's going to happen is the signal is going to
travel up the brain stem and it's going to go to this area here called The Thalamus.
The thalamus is - you can think of it as like a hub, right? It's going to direct signals
to where they need to go.
So, what will happen is the thalamus will send the signal into this region here which
is called The Primary Somatosensory Cortex and this is where you are going to be made
aware of the fact that you have a problem.
Now, some data does suggest that the thalamus has some awareness but if it does, this is
still going to be where the majority of your awareness is going to be but it's also going
to send a to a structure that's deeper down in here that we can't see called the Amygdala.
The amygdala is responsible for processing negative emotions, so this is what makes you
not very happy about the fact that you just jammed your finger, right? So, that's what
we call the ascending pain pathway but the brain or the body I should say, also has a
descending pain pathway because think about it - after you've jammed your finger, you
don't need to have that same pain level as long as the stimulus is gone, right? The painful,
that noxious stimulus is gone.
So, will happen is your body wants to start numbing the pain with those endogenous opioids.
So again, grab the brain here. The thalamus will send a signal and it'll go down into
this area here. This is called the Midbrain of the brain stem and in the midbrain is what
is called Gray Matter.
Gray matter is just a location where cells are synapsing with each other but this gray
matter is called the Periaqueductal Gray. You're not really going to be able to see
that all that much in this section here but from there, a signal is going to be sent down
the brain stem, down the spinal cord and go to that location in the substantia gelatinosa
where those two neurons were communicating with one another.
And it's at this site that the endogenous opioids will be secreted and it does this
to modulate the pain. And I say "Modulate" on purpose. It's not like it's getting rid
of the pain, right? Just you jam your finger and then wait 2 minutes - it's not as though
the pain is just gone, there's still going to be pain there and depending on how bad
you jammed your finger, the pain could be much worse.
So, this is where the opioids will bind to receptors that we're about to discuss and
changes your perception of the pain which is absolutely fascinating. Now, without getting
too far into the weeds when it comes to how this synapsin signal modulation works, what's
being communicated between the pre and the postsynaptic neuron are neurotransmitters.
Now, there's a lot of different types of neurotransmitters out there but the ones that are going to be
interesting or important to us are going to be Glutamate and Gaba. More so gaba than glutamate.
Just think about it like this - a signal when it's being sent between neurons can either
be excitatory or inhibitory.
If it's excitatory, it's just saying let's keep this signal going. If it's inhibitory,
it's saying, let's stop this signal. So, if glutamate is released between - at the synapse,
that's an excitatory signal but if Gaba is released, that's an inhibitory signal.
So, I want you to think about this for a second. If you were to able to prevent glutamate from
being released, that would also inhibit the signal or if you were to prevent Gaba from
being released, that would also excite the signal, right? And continue the signal on
and this is where opioids are going to do their thing.
Now, the way the opioids are able to have an effect or modulate the signal at the synapse
is through those Opioid Receptors. Now, depending on where you look, you may see as many as
five different types of opioid receptors and each of those their own subtypes but for our
purposes today, we're going to focus on three of them and that's going to be the Mu Receptor,
the Delta Receptor and the Kappa Receptor. Although we're primarily going to be focusing
on the mu receptor because that is the most well studied and it also happens to be the
receptor that fentanyl prefers - although fentanyl will definitely choose all three
of them but again, it prefers that mu receptor.
Now, you're going to find the mu receptor and these other receptors throughout the entire
body, but they're going to be in different densities. So, with the mu receptor, you're
going to find a lot of them in the digestive system which actually makes a ton of sense
if you understand that opioid usage comes with some pretty intense constipation and
peristalsis type of issues. But when it comes to the nervous system, you're also going to
find mu receptors in the substantial gelatosa, right? That spinal cord where those two neurons
are communicating. Again, makes a ton of sense.
When it comes to the brain, I'll go ahead and grab this hemisphere again - you're going
to find mu receptors in the brain stem, which is one that you're going to have issues with
breathing and we're going to see that when we get to overdosing here in a moment, but
you're also going to find mu receptors in the thalamus as well as the cerebral cortex
but the mu receptors that are in the cerebral cortex are primarily going to be associated
with pain processing - which makes perfect sense because one of the reasons or actually
the main reasons you take an opioid is for Analgesia. But you're also going to find mu
receptors in another pathway and that is going to be what's called the Mesolimbic Pathway.
And the mesolimbic pathway is right here actually. So, there's a - there's an area here in the
mid brain of the brain stem called the ventral Tegmental area. And the ventral tegmental
area is actually going to be communicating with another area right about here - again,
it's going to be deep - called the Nucleus Accumbens and what will happen is it will
actually be secreting gaba to the nucleus accumbens among other areas.
And if you recall me saying gaba is inhibitory. So, when gaba is being secreted, it's telling
the other neuron to not secrete what it's going to secrete. Well, in this case, the
nucleus acumben secretes dopamine. So, right now, right, unless you're doing something
very pleasurful and joyful, you're probably not secreting dopamine, but let's say you
enjoy some chocolate, right? We all know chocolate is amazing. So, if you're to consume some
chocolate, what's going to happen is the ventral tegmental area will say, "let's - we can enjoy
this moment" and it's going to stop secreting gaba which will then allow this neuron, the
neurons here to start secreting dopamine.
Well, opioids are going to do the same thing. What's going to happen is they are going to
bind to new receptors in the ventral tegmental area which will then stop gaba secretion which
will then cause dopamine release and flooding into the nervous system. And this is the basis
of addiction, right? Because it feels amazing and this is what you'll see pretty much anyone
who consumes opioids and therefore when they're beginning to consume opioids is that it feels
fantastic.
The problem is that you're going to have to start taking more and more of the substance,
whatever it is, and again it's not just opioids that do this, right? There's a vast array
of substances that will affect this. Means Olympic or this reward pathway but when you
start to you know, getting tons and tons of dopamine surges, you're going to have to start
taking more and more to get the same dopamine surges and that is the basis of addiction,
at least in terms of pleasure, joy and eventually just outright need.
Now, you may be wondering why fentanyl is even available given how extremely powerful
it is. If you recall me saying earlier, it's around 100 times more powerful than morphine
although I have seen some texts suggest that it could be as high as 400 times as powerful,
although they weren't perfectly clear if that was fentanyl or derivatives of fentanyl because
as depressing as this is, there are even more powerful synthetic opioids than fentanyl out
there and they are on the street just as fentanyl is.
You have to understand that fentanyl is supposed to be administered under very specific circumstances
and so, like think like extreme pain - maybe someone has been taking morphine, a lot of
morphine for their pain, eventually, they become tolerant to it, they need something
stronger. Maybe they have cancer pain, right? Cuz cancer can be extraordinarily painful.
Fentanyl has some great usage for that.
You'll also see fentanyl be administered by anesthesiologist. Maybe someone's going under
the knife or maybe they're having an epidural for some reason. So, there are plenty of use
cases for fentanyl and they have been used in very good ways, right? In very controlled
and proper ways but it's just not meant to be where it is day and you can see why that
is such a problem because of that, right?
It's so easy to overdose on fentanyl, like extremely easy to overdose. If you recall
me saying, opioids can actually have an effect on the respiration centers of the body. So,
in the brain stem but also into an area called the hypothalamus. So, you have to understand
that right now, as you're breathing, your body is, you know, like monitoring everything,
right? You have respiratory rhythms going from to your diaphragm, coming from the brain
stem - saying breathe in breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, right?
Your brain is monitoring how much carbon dioxide is actually in your bloodstream and so, then
that - when carbon dioxide starts to increase, it'll actually reflexively cause you to inhale
oxygen or exhale the carbon dioxide and inhale oxygen but if you have, if you're going - if
you're overdosing on an opioid, that can get so saturated by the opioids themselves that
you can't overcome that. And so, what will happen is you will actually die from respiratory
depression, right? You literally cannot breathe because the opioids have completely saturated
the those areas, right? The opioid receptors on those areas and the only way out of that
is with another opioid called naloxone. Also, sometimes people will call it narcan, that's
a brand of it.
So, what they'll do is by administering narcan or naloxone, what will happen is those will
actually bind to those same receptors and prevent fentanyl, morphine, or any of the
other opioids from getting there and it will actually - so then what will happen is the
person will come out of it - they'll be able to breathe again and typically they'll go
immediately into withdrawals and that will make them very uncomfortable.
You have to understand withdrawals are - from what I hear - unbearable, right? I mean, from
any opioid, right? This isn't just fentanyl exclusive because when you're withdrawing
from it, you have to understand that the nerves, right? That that loss of pain you get so used
to. It it's not just the dopamine, alright? It's not just the dopamine, the euphoria that
you have to overcome the addiction on that end, it becomes excruciatingly painful your
neurons are used to not sending painful signals and now all of a sudden, when there's no opioids
to tell them not to send signals, any sensitization of those neurons, even if it's not painful.
Think about this, right? If you're so used to not feeling pain, when that fully comes
online, your shirt itself can become painful because the neurons are just not used to processing
that pain. It makes withdrawal symptoms excruciating and so, someone who actually will take naloxone
a narcan can actually kick right into one of those withdrawals. It is absolutely awful.
In fact, everything about it is absolutely awful. You know, opioids are one of those
things that you know, I am just deathly afraid of and I tell everyone that I come to contact
with who's going into the hospital, it's like, if you're going to be taking any kind of opioid,
you need to be very careful with that, right?
I remember when I was in the hospital for some of my gut issues and they were telling
me, "Hey, we're going to be giving you this and that". I I was very resistant to taking
any opioid in any capacity and it's because I'm afraid of them. It's not to say that they
can't be beneficial. I know they can. It's just I literally live in fear because I know
what it can do to even the best and most well-intentioned people and that's what's so unfortunate and
heartbreaking for me. You know, seeing so many people out there.
You know, I'm a veteran and I have friends who have actually fallen victim, right? To
opioid abuse, right? They have opioid use disorder. They have opioid dependence, right?
I mean, living in North America, I don't know how you can drive on the freeway without seeing
billboards just saying get help for your opioid addiction, right? It's such a horrifying problem
that is happening.
My hope is that we can find a way out of this and I'm not going to pretend as though I have
a way out of it. I don't want you to think that the anatomy guy who's teaching you on
YouTube as the solution to the opioid epidemic. I just I'm hoping that people can educate
themselves on it to make better decisions about - if they have an opioid coming up,
maybe they have some procedure or something or maybe they can just at least better understand
someone who has already fallen into this opioid trap because it is absolutely horrifying and
depressing.
Now, I want to take a moment and thank the sponsor of today's video Brilliant. Brilliant
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sure to like, comment, subscribe, share this video with someone that maybe you think they
could benefit from it as well. But as always, I appreciate you watching and hanging out
with me for a little bit and I will see you in the next video.