Your roommate Gretchen has had chronic pain issues since she broke her back in a
ID: 64603 • Letter: Y
Question
Your roommate Gretchen has had chronic pain issues since she broke her back in a car accident about a year ago. You know that she finished her prescription pain killers at least three months ago, but you’re suspicious she’s been taking something else. Quite frequently you find Gretchen passed out in her room, and when she is awake, she doesn’t seem to care about much. She stopped going to class and says her pain is way better than it was a few months ago. You
got really worried last week when you found a syringe laying on the bathroom floor and then found out from your landlord that Gretchen never paid her share of the rent. What drug is Gretchen on?
Explanation / Answer
Morphine is one of the most famous painkillers. It’s an opioid drug which means it’s a cousin of the ancient drug opium, which has been used socially and in medicine thousands of years. These drugs bind to the opioid receptors which are on the surface of nerve cells and that sets off a chain of chemical reactions inside the cell which ultimately causes the cell membrane to be less excitable. this means that nerve cells become sluggish and don't fire so many impulses. Morphine can dull pain by silencing nerves in the spine that carry pain signals, but it also has complex effects in the pain processing areas in the brain and morphine receptors are found on nerves all over the body. So the problem is that putting a damper on all of these nerves can do more than just kill the pain.
Related Questions
Navigate
Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.