Fentanyl

Fentanyl is also used as a recreational drug, often mixed with heroin or cocaine.

When compared to the opioids hydromorphone, fentanyl, oxycodone, and pethidine (meperidine), former addicts showed a strong preference for heroin and morphine, suggesting that heroin and morphine are particularly susceptible to abuse and addiction.

Fentanyl, also spelled fentanil, is an opioid used as a pain medication and together with other medications for anesthesia.

Other opioids are semi-synthetic and synthetic drugs such as hydrocodone, oxycodone and fentanyl; antagonist drugs such as naloxone; and endogenous peptides such as the endorphins.

It is around 100 times stronger than morphine, and some analogues such as carfentanil are around 10,000 times stronger.

Carfentanil or carfentanyl is a structural analog of the synthetic opioid analgesic fentanyl.

Fentanyl is also used as a recreational drug, often mixed with heroin or cocaine.

Fentanyl patches for cancer pain are on the WHO List of Essential Medicines, which lists the most effective and safe medicines needed in a health system.

Medically, fentanyl is used by injection, as a patch on the skin, as a nasal spray, or in the mouth.

It is around 100 times stronger than morphine, and some analogues such as carfentanil are around 10,000 times stronger.

When compared to the opioids hydromorphone, fentanyl, oxycodone, and pethidine/meperidine, former addicts showed a strong preference for heroin and morphine, suggesting that heroin and morphine are particularly susceptible to abuse and addiction.

Fentanyl, also spelled fentanil, is an opioid used as a pain medication and together with other medications for anesthesia.

For instance, propofol (injection) might be used to start the anesthetic, fentanyl (injection) used to blunt the stress response, midazolam (injection) given to ensure amnesia and sevoflurane (inhaled) during the procedure to maintain the effects.

Under normal circumstances, the patch will reach its full effect within 12 to 24 hours; thus, fentanyl patches are often prescribed with a fast-acting opioid (such as morphine or oxycodone) to handle breakthrough pain.

The approved uses is for relief of cancer pain, trauma pain, or pain due to major surgery, in children already treated with opioids, who can tolerate at least 20 mg per day of oxycodone; this provides an alternative to Duragesic (fentanyl), the only other extended-release opioid analgesic approved for children.

Serious side effects may include decreased breathing (respiratory depression), serotonin syndrome, low blood pressure, addiction, or coma.

To induce anesthesia, it is given with a sedative-hypnotic, like propofol or thiopental, and a muscle relaxant.

Propofol is commonly paired with fentanyl (for pain relief) in intubated and sedated people.

Medically, fentanyl is used by injection, as a patch on the skin, as a nasal spray, or in the mouth.

As of May 2014, the psychiatric drug asenapine; the opioid drugs buprenorphine, naloxone, and fentanyl; the cardiovascular drug nitroglycerin; the nausea medication Prochlorperazine; the hormone replacement therapy testosterone; and nicotine as a smoking cessation aid were commercially available in buccal forms, as was midazolam, an anticonvulsant, used to treat acute epileptic seizures.

Fentanyl was first made by Paul Janssen in 1960 and approved for medical use in the United States in 1968. Fentanyl was first synthesized in Belgium by Paul Janssen under the label of his relatively newly formed Janssen Pharmaceutica in 1959.

Paul Janssen and his team developed the fentanyl family of drugs, and many other anesthesia-related drugs, such as droperidol and etomidate which made a significant contribution to anesthesiology.

Common side effects include vomiting, constipation, sedation, confusion, hallucinations, and injuries related to poor coordination.

Hallucinations, pseudohallucinations, or intensification of pareidolia, particularly auditory, are known side effects of opioids to different degrees—it may be associated with the absolute degree of agonism or antagonism of especially the kappa opioid receptor, sigma receptors, delta opioid receptor and the NMDA receptors or the overall receptor activation profile as synthetic opioids like those of the pentazocine, levorphanol, fentanyl, pethidine, methadone and some other families are more associated with this side effect than natural opioids like morphine and codeine and semi-synthetics like hydromorphone, amongst which there also appears to be a stronger correlation with the relative analgesic strength.

Fentanyl use has also been associated with aphasia.

Aphasia is also listed as a rare side-effect of the fentanyl patch, an opioid used to control chronic pain.

Sublingual fentanyl solves quickly and is absorbed through the sublingual mucosa to provide rapid analgesia.

It is also used in the management of chronic pain including cancer pain.

Current evidence for the effectiveness of fentanyl transdermal patches in controlling chronic cancer pain is weak but they may reduce complaints of constipation compared with oral morphine.

Estonia has the highest rate of 3-methylfentanyl overdose deaths in the EU, due to its high rate of recreational use.

3-Methylfentanyl (3-MF, mefentanyl) is an opioid analgesic that is an analog of fentanyl.

Fentanyl is sometimes given intrathecally as part of spinal anesthesia or epidurally for epidural anaesthesia and analgesia.

Commonly opioids are added to improve the block and provide post-operative pain relief, examples include morphine, fentanyl, diamorphine, and buprenorphine.

In the Netherlands, fentanyl is a List I substance of the Opium Law.

Yet, it is unclear if fentanyl gives long-term pain relief to people with neuropathic pain.

It is unclear if fentanyl gives pain relief to people with neuropathic pain.

Fentanyl, also spelled fentanil, is an opioid used as a pain medication and together with other medications for anesthesia. Sublingual fentanyl solves quickly and is absorbed through the sublingual mucosa to provide rapid analgesia.

Subsys is a sublingual spray of fentanyl manufactured by Insys Therapeutics.

Its main product is Subsys, a sublingual liquid form of fentanyl.

The "China White" form of fentanyl refers to any of a number of clandestinely produced analogues, especially α-methylfentanyl (AMF).

α-Methylfentanyl (or alpha-Methylfentanyl) is an opioid analgesic that is an analog of fentanyl.

Fentanyl was first synthesized in Belgium by Paul Janssen under the label of his relatively newly formed Janssen Pharmaceutica in 1959.