Roxicodone 30mg Overview

Roxicodone 30mg is used to help relieve moderate to severe pain. Oxycodone belongs to a class of drugs known as opioid analgesics. It works in the brain to change how your body feels and responds to pain.

Opioids (narcotic analgesics) are a class of medicines that are used to provide relief from moderate-to-severe acute or chronic pain. They may also be called opiates, opioid analgesics, or narcotics. Analgesic is another name for a medicine that relieves pain. An opioid analgesic is an opioid that can be prescribed by a doctor to relieve pain.

Opioid analgesics are one of the most widely used analgesics for pain relief; however, they have been overused, overprescribed, and misused which has resulted in more than two million people in the U.S. alone having a substance misuse disorder involving prescription opioid analgesics.

Opioids work by binding to opioid receptors, which are part of the messenger system in our body that controls pain, and pleasurable and addictive behaviors. Opioid receptors are more abundant in the brain and spinal cord but are also located elsewhere in the body such as the stomach and the lungs. The main opioid receptor that opioids bind to is the mu receptor.

Dosage

Initiate treatment with Roxicodone 30mg in a dosing range of 5 to 15 mg every 4 to 6 hours as needed for pain. Titrate the dose based upon the individual patient’s response to their initial dose of Roxicodone 30mg. Patients with chronic pain should have their dosage given on an around-the-clock basis to prevent the reoccurrence of pain rather than treating the pain after it has occurred. This dose can then be adjusted to an acceptable level of analgesia taking into account side effects experienced by the patient.

For control of severe chronic pain, Roxicodone 30mg should be administered on a regularly scheduled basis, every 4 to 6 hours, at the lowest dosage level that will achieve adequate analgesia.

What are opioid analgesics used for?

In the past, opioid analgesics have been used for all types of pain, which may explain why there are so many people addicted to them today.

The most appropriate use of opioid analgesics is for the relief of short-term, intense pain, such as that occurring immediately after surgery or due to a medical condition.

Opioid analgesics may also be used to relieve pain due to cancer, or for palliative or end-of life care. They should only be used to treat other types of chronic pain under strict conditions and with close monitoring.

What are the differences between opioid analgesics?

Opioid analgesics differ in their structure, potency, and the way they are absorbed, distributed, metabolized and excreted within the body.

Some, like morphine and codeine were originally derived from plants. Others, such as heroin, hydrocodone, hydromorphone, oxycodone and oxymorphone are made by modifying morphine and are called semi-synthetic. There are three main classes of opioids – those that are structurally like morphine (the phenanthrenes), those that resemble fentanyl (the phenylpiperidines), and those that resemble methadone (the phenylheptylamines).

Different opioid analgesics have different potencies, based on how strongly they bind to the opioid receptor (for example, fentanyl is 80 to 100 times stronger than morphine). This means that the dosages for one opioid may be significantly different from another.

Although conversion charts exist (these tell you what dose of an opioid compares to the equivalent analgesic dose of morphine); these are only at best a guide because other variables, such as an individual’s genetics, play a part in how a person responds to a opioid.

If an opioid analgesic is deemed appropriate; codeine or tramadol should be tried first if the pain is mild-to-moderate. If the pain is unresponsive to these analgesics, or for more severe pain, then hydromorphone, morphine, or oxycodone should be considered. Fentanyl and methadone should only be used for severe pain that is unresponsive to other opioid analgesics.