Share information about harm-reduction tools like naloxone and fentanyl test strips. If they’re open to treatment, services like QuickMD can provide discreet, fast access to care. For the first time in over five years, U.S. overdose death rates have begun to decline. Data showed nearly a 24% drop in overdose deaths, an encouraging sign that interventions are working.
Risks of Nodding Off & Fentanyl Folding
- This systemic depression causes generalized muscle weakness, contributing to the slumped posture.
- Fentanyl typically relaxes you and puts you in a euphoric state.
- If symptoms of an overdose occur, a friend or family member should give the first dose of naloxone, call 911 immediately, and stay with you and watch you closely until emergency medical help arrives.
- If someone who has overdosed does not have a pulse, start CPR.
- Additionally, it can induce severe muscle rigidity, particularly in the trunk, which combines with the impaired cognitive function to keep them in this fixed, slumped position.
It can restore normal breathing within minutes for someone overdosing on fentanyl or other opioids. Today’s doctors still use it for treating cancer pain, helping surgery patients, and managing trauma injuries. The problem isn’t the medicine itself, it’s what happens when it escapes proper medical control. It’s often portrayed as a mysterious substance sneaking across borders, contaminating street drugs, and transforming routine choices into deadly ones. And while there’s truth in that portrayal, it barely scratches the surface. Behind every headline and statistic are real people, grappling with the fallout of this crisis.
Frequently Asked Questions About Fentanyl’s Effects and Recovery
The “slump” happens when fentanyl slows the brain and muscles to the point that the person loses control of posture. It’s a physical manifestation of CNS and respiratory depression. Yes, the fentanyl fold is a visible sign of an opioid overdose in progress. While this position might appear like someone is simply asleep or unconscious, it’s typically the result of the central nervous system being severely depressed. The large number of overdose deaths involving fentanyl highlights the need to ensure people most at risk can access care, as well as the need to expand prevention and response activities.
- When someone takes it (often without knowing it’s there), it causes heavy sedation.
- You may also feel dizzy, drowsy, have vision changes, or have unpleasant side effects such as dry mouth, stomach pain, or anxiety.
- They counter with stories of friends who have used more drugs for more years and that friend’s back is just fine.
Prevention Tips
Unlike morphine or heroin, which come from the opium poppy plant, chemists create fentanyl completely in laboratories. For people who are addicted to fentanyl, there are safe and effective treatments available. Scientists are also working on opioid vaccines that would cause a person to develop antibodies to particular opioids and block their effects. This would offer a new approach to treating substance abuse, but the results of this research will likely not be known for years to come. Initial reports of fentanyl abuse were linked to prescription products, but in recent years, illicit fentanyl has become the most commonly abused form. In fact, most fentanyl-related deaths are from fentanyl made in illegal laboratories.
For continuous delivery, a transdermal patch can slowly deliver fentanyl through the skin and into the bloodstream for up to 72 hours. Fentanyl affects people differently, depending on an individual’s size and overall health condition. Dr. Kathryn Taylor is a physician and addiction specialist who works with those experiencing homelessness as part of a street medicine team in San Francisco. But with each hit, it becomes harder to uncoil, with each slack night, more difficult to unfurl. Avenues Recovery is a community-based drug and alcohol rehabilitation center with locations across the United States.
Harm Reduction Strategies
The citrate salt, fentanyl citrate, is administered by injection, either intramuscularly or intravenously, sometimes in combination with a potent tranquilizer. If someone you care about is showing signs of opioid use or symptoms linked to fentanyl, early action matters. What may look like an unusual posture is actually a warning sign that the body and brain are under serious strain.
“Fentanyl can be a short-action drug and a long-acting drug. So some people they’re back upright in 45 minutes to an hour. Some people could be longer than that,” Ciccarone said. “It’s a degree of loss of consciousness and a degree of lost muscular control,” said Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, a UCSF professor of addiction medicine. More broadly, it seems as though the geopolitical and economic goals of the administration might not be entirely consistent, particularly when it comes to domestic and foreign oil markets.
Health Care Providers
When someone takes it (often without knowing it’s there), it causes heavy sedation. One of the biggest concerns is that naloxone (Narcan) doesn’t work on xylazine. It might help with the fentanyl portion of an overdose, but the tranq effects remain. Medical fentanyl provides much-needed relief for patients facing severe pain. Doctors will prescribe it during cancer treatments, after major surgeries, or when standard pain medications aren’t working. Patients might receive a skin patch that delivers medication steadily over days, a lozenge that dissolves slowly in the mouth, or an injection for immediate relief during intense pain episodes.
- Today’s doctors still use it for treating cancer pain, helping surgery patients, and managing trauma injuries.
- One user they spoke to, who had taken the drug hours earlier but remained bent over, was asked if he was able to stand up straight.
Meanwhile, the U.S. consulate in Nuuk is hiring interns who speak Danish and Greenlandic to help “communicate U.S. foreign policy priorities to Greenlandic audiences” on social media. Basically, they want Greenlanders to sell U.S. policy to their own communities. In principle, Americans should be free to travel and send their money to whomever they choose. Governments — local or federal — should not act as political nannies deciding whether citizens may visit their country of origin. Sanctions are among the most serious https://asseelgroup.com/2021/03/23/anger-and-alcoholism/ tools of foreign policy, often described by scholars as an alternative form of warfare.
Dr. Marc Siegel, senior medical analyst for Fox News, said the progress of the vaccine is a “very exciting advance with a huge upside.” Eventually, he said, the fentanyl would be eliminated from the body. To explore additional treatment options, you can view editorially selected providers on our site or visit the SAMHSA Treatment Locator. Explore our directory or reach out to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) for more information about addiction recovery.
This behavior is hazardous as it can fentanyl fold lead to falls and other injuries. The Stop Overdose website educates drug users on fentanyl, naloxone, polysubstance use, and dealing with stigma. First responders will likely administer naloxone if you haven’t already, or give it to them again.
He was taken to a hospital, where he spent 3 days in the intensive care unit. He went on to recover and was discharged to a rehabilitation program. In case of overdose, remove the fentanyl from the victim’s mouth and call local emergency services Halfway house at 911.
