A orphan drug originally used for HIV patients during their treatments has been found, by the researches at Indiana University School or Medicine, to short-circuit the process that results in additional sensitivity and pain from opioid use. Morphine, the gold standard for controlling moderate to severe pain, has given side effects such as reduced respiration, constipation, itching and addiction. Patients also develop a tolerance to morphine which can lead to a complicated spiral disorder. At first opiods were used to relieve pain following surgery, from cancer and at the end of life, but today opiods are used nationally for painful conditions like osteoarthritis and back pain. Morphine may hurt people instead of helping them, this new drug claims to produce a "new pain" to contradict the other pain.
I think these researchers are doing a great thing. Using a substance for morphine could help many people. Sometimes it seems morphine only hurts patients because of the side effects and risks of addiction or increasing the dose. If the researchers succeed they will help many patients feel no pain with out worrying of the side effects or later problems. If this "new yet improved morphine" does not cause more pain by inducing inflammatory responses in the body like morphine does then the medical world will have a great, safer medicine in there hands.
-Holley Hurst
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