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Opioids are a class of drugs that act on specific biological receptors within the body to create an analgesic effect. They are often prescribed to patients with chronic pain so that the patients can continue to improve their health. However, opioids also have addictive properties that can lead to dependency on the drugs, leading many to seek out illegal drug use once the prescription is no longer provided. Some individuals begin using opioids without a prescription.
Abusing opioids is dangerous for both the individual who is addicted and the individual’s family. Abuse can cause serious physical and mental consequences, such as behavioral disorders and withdrawal. Abuse also has the ability to create strains in close relationships, tearing families apart. Many opioids can also reach a toxic level within the body, causing the individual to overdose. If not promptly treated, overdose can quickly lead to death.
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Beyond the consequences of opioid abuse on the body and family, illegal opioid use may lead to decreased performance on the job. Rather than performing at their best, employees may have lower efficiency and productivity. This harms the company, and it may even cost an individual their job. Opioid abuse simply has too many far-reaching consequences to be ignored.
Opioid abuse is addressed in many ways, including therapy, medical treatment, and drug testing. Most drug tests currently rely on urine samples to find out if a person is using opioids. The individual provides a sample of urine that is then analyzed for the opioid or its metabolites. While this process is cheap and quick, there are researchers attempting to design a breath opioid test, which would be quicker and cheaper than the currently popular urine tests.
The individual undergoing a breath opioid test would be asked to breath into a specialized device. Once in the device, droplets in the breath would condense and be analyzed for the opioids and their metabolites. Initial studies seem to show that this method is reliable and valid, but more research is still needed to further support and find limitations of the breath test.
The breath test will be helpful for physicians and others involved in opioid abuse for many reasons. The breath test seems to provide an accurate reading of how much opioid is present in a person. This will allow doctors and other professionals to discern if an individual is taking a drug they should not be or taking too much of a prescribed drug. Further, it will allow healthcare practitioners to establish a firmer therapeutic window so that patients will have relief from chronic pain without adverse side effects.
Monitoring the use of opioids is important as it reduces the risk to individuals and those around them, and it allows firm therapeutic windows to be established. Though the urine test is proven to be helpful in detecting opioids, more efficient, cheaper, and quicker tests are desired. Currently, the breath opioid test seems to be the best option as it provides accurate and reliable readings of opioid levels. Hopefully, the breath test will open the door to provide better health to patients and to addressing the opioid
