Opioid Analgesics Research Paper

Analgesics are a group of drugs used to alleviate pain with their various structural and physiological characteristics. Due to the high diversity of the human body, there are different groups of analgesics that are programmed to assist with pain in different parts of the body. One of the first group of analgesics produced are Narcotic Alkaloids. This group was obtained to reduce and block the activation of the pain in the neurons of the gray matter of the spinal cord and at certain receptor sites in the brain stem (Pharmacology of Health Professionals, Bryant). By doing this, the descending connections of cells are also inhibited by the narcotics. This being said, this group of analgesics are used primarily to stimulate the central nervous system in the human body. Narcotics are termed as Opioid Analgesics in the United States. An example of an addictive narcotic is morphine. Another type of analgesics are synthetics. This is a group with related compounds and additive properties, but with the hope of securing analgesia without proceeding addiction (Pharmacology of Health Professionals, Bryant). Methadone is a drug that has been given to individuals addicted to narcotics to substitute for morphine in order to prevent further addiction. Although this effort has not been the most …show more content…
This type of analgesics are used for musculoskeletal pain due to inflammation from conditions such as arthritis. They are considered an analgesic due to their related properties to narcotics and synthetics. They act on the central and peripheral nervous systems by taking neuronal action onto the hypothalamus in the brain and by blocking sensitization of pain receptors in inflamed tissues of the peripheral system (Pharmacology of Health Professionals, Bryant). Salicylates are the most commonly used of all analgesics and they are also combined with other excipients such as