Posted by paxvox on April 6, 2003, at 17:57:11
In reply to Re: has anyone here been precribed opiates for BP?, posted by Caleb462 on April 6, 2003, at 3:11:01
OK, I'll toss in a bone here. Yes, opiates/opioids CAN help certain types of depression, but are obviously not for everyone. It MAY be a paradoxical effect (e.g. amphetamines for ADD/HD), but I think it is more a binding of parent and matabolites to opioid receptors in the brain that block reuptake of norepinephrine and to some degree serotonin. OK, I'll pause here for all the pharmacologists to stop laughing.......OK, now where were we, oh yea.
Anyway, for ME personally, hydrocodone, oxycodone and even codeine ALL cause mood elevation WITHOUT sedation. So, is this true AD activity? I don't know, but since most AD's state the "the exact mechanism of activity is unknown but is suspected to be..." Do a couple of beers lift depression? Not for me, I got a buzz, but that was just a temporay thing. Both opiates/oids and alcohol produce some of their "feel good effects" by interaction with dopamine. Thus ADs like Wellbutrin produce their AD effect by dopamine interaction. There was one poster here a year or so ago who was REALLY into the study of this theory, I don't know if she still posts. But she was specifically looking at Buprenorphine hydrochloride (Buprenex)which is actually a mixed opioid agonist and antagonist. She was not interested in my input. She may have been from the UK where Buprenex *may* have been tried as an AD. Anyway, I think that there is a whole lot of science that is unexplored in the territory of this class of drug being used as antidepressants due to the high incidence of abuse and addiction. Same goes with the benzos. Just because a few people DO abuse them, we use "shotgun managed medicine" to prevent ANYONE from getting to much of it. Seems to me a mixed agonist/antagonist like Buprenex would preclude overdosing by its own mechanism of action. Now, as to your question: I SERIOUSLY doubt any Pdoc would prescribe opiates/oids as an off-lable use AD, though some GPs might do so. All I know is that according to government statistics, a whole hell of a lot of hyrdocodone gets prescribed by U.S pharmacies (always seems to be in the top 10 list). You figure it out. Anyone else want to jump in here with personal experience?
PAX
poster:paxvox
thread:216127
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030402/msgs/216753.html