What Is Zohydro
First of all, Happy New Years! I know many visitors here have gotten drug or alcohol-free in 2011. If you haven’t, you can read excerpts from those who have at Addiction Recovery Interviews. Some of these people were told they were the worst cases ever seen by their doctors.
Zohydro is an in-development narcotic drug for pain, manufactured by Zogenix of San Diego, CA, which will provide 12-hour pain relief to patients with moderate-to-severe chronic pain. Still in the trial phase, capsule strengths have been tried at 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 milligrams to find a moderate dosage that will be most effective for patients who fit the pain profile the product is intended for.
Zohydro contains pure hydrocodone, one of the most powerful and the second most abused prescription painkiller in the United States. Hydrocodone is highly addictive, and side effects include fuzzy thinking, slowed or irregular breathing, chest tightness, dizziness, constipation, difficulty urinating, itchy rashes, nausea and vomiting. Sudden discontinuation of its use causes the user to exhibit withdrawal symptoms anywhere from cramping and nausea to diarrhea and vomiting.
Narcotic prescription drugs do effectively alleviate pain, but they give patients a euphoric and sometimes numb feeling that requires higher doses over time to reach that same state again. Narcotics are addictive by nature, but they have been the best, most powerful barriers against pain. Consequently, patients who live with severe pain continue to crave them for pain relief, doctors continue to seek drugs for their patients that can numb pain, and pharmaceutical companies continue to manufacture them.
The new drug, Zohydro, is creating quite an uproar among addiction experts and pharmaceutical companies. Addiction experts fear a substantial increase in the amount of drug overdoses, prescription drug addicts, crazed pharmacy robberies, and deaths, because Zohydro is believed to be ten times more potent than current hydrocodone pain medications like Vicodin. Also, for the first time ever, people will legally have access to pure hydrocodone. Though the pill is designed to have a timed release, like Oxycontin, abusers could simply crush the pill to instantly get the full euphoric effect.
Pharmaceutical companies believe the new drug will be another avenue of pain relief where other painkillers fail, and because Zohydro is pure hydrocodone some of the side effects caused by similar products with weakened hydrocodone mixtures will be eliminated. Currently, hydrocodone is often coupled with acetaminophen (Tylenol), which over time is very toxic to the liver. Without this added side effect, Zohydro is expected to be a welcome innovation in the prescription drug market. Other critics simply believe that the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry, with its constant creation of addictive narcotic drugs like Zohydro, is simply perpetuating its own stream of wealth at the expense of unsuspecting Americans.
The drug is currently being tested on human patients by several companies, in an effort to meet the Federal Drug Administration’s standards and get the drug out on the market quickly. Zogenix plans to push for introduction to the pharmaceutical market by 2013, while others are following close behind with a projected release by 2015.