It's used for long-term pain. Sometimes you may take both a fast-acting morphine and a slow-release morphine to manage long term pain and sudden flares of pain that break through the long-acting medicine. Fast-acting tablets are known by the brand name Sevredol.
Slow acting capsules are also known as MXL or Zomorph. Morphine does not come as a skin patch. Sometimes people call their pain relief patch a "morphine patch". However these patches do not contain morphine but medicines which are very similar to morphine called fentanyl or buprenorphine. Doses vary from person to person. Your dose will depend on how bad your pain is, how you've responded to previous painkillers and if you get any side effects.
You can choose to take your morphine at any time of day but try to take it at the same time every day and space your doses evenly. For example, if you take morphine twice a day and have your first dose at 8am, take your second dose at 8pm. It's important to swallow slow-release morphine tablets and capsules whole with a drink of water.
Do not break, crush, chew or suck morphine slow-release tablets or capsules. If you do, the slow-release system will not work and the whole dose might get into your body in one go. This could cause a potentially fatal overdose.
Usually, you start on a low dose of morphine and this is increased slowly until your pain is well controlled. Once your pain is under control, talk to your doctor about swapping to slow-release morphine.
This may cut down the number of doses you have to take each day. When you stop taking morphine your dose will go down gradually, especially if you've been taking it for a long time. Depending on why you're taking morphine, you may only need to take it for a short time. For example, if you're in pain after an injury or operation, you may only need to take morphine for a few days or weeks at most. You may need to take it for longer if you have a long-term condition such as back pain.
If you forget to take a dose, check the information on the patient information leaflet inside the packaging or ask your pharmacist or doctor for advice on what to do. If you often forget doses, it may help to set an alarm to remind you. You could also ask your pharmacist for advice on other ways to remember to take your medicine.
This is not usually a problem but you could get unpleasant withdrawal symptoms if you stop taking it suddenly. If you want to stop taking morphine, talk to your doctor first. Your dose can be reduced gradually so you do not get unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. If you have been taking morphine for more than a few weeks do not stop taking it without speaking to your doctor first.
If you've taken an accidental overdose you may feel very sleepy, sick or dizzy. You may also find it difficult to breathe. In serious cases you can become unconscious and may need emergency treatment in hospital. Get someone else to drive you or call for an ambulance. It's safe to take morphine with paracetamol , ibuprofen or aspirin. Do not take codeine-containing painkillers that you can buy alongside prescribed morphine and prescribed codeine.
You will be more likely to get side effects. Some everyday painkillers that you can buy without prescription from pharmacies contain codeine, which is a similar medicine to morphine. Codeine-containing painkillers from pharmacies include co-codamol , Nurofen Plus and Solpadeine. Like all medicines, morphine can cause side effects in some people but many people have no side effects or only minor ones.
Common side effects happen in more than 1 in people. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist if the side effects bother you or do not go away:. In rare cases, it's possible to have a serious allergic reaction anaphylaxis to morphine.
These are not all the side effects of morphine. For a full list see the leaflet inside your medicines packet. Do not take any other medicines to treat the side effects of morphine without speaking to your pharmacist or doctor. In early pregnancy, it's been linked to some problems for your unborn baby. If you take morphine at the end of pregnancy there's a risk that your newborn baby may get withdrawal symptoms or be born addicted to morphine.
However, it's important to treat pain in pregnancy. For some pregnant women with severe pain, morphine might be the best option. Your doctor is the best person to help you decide what's right for you and your baby. Morphine is not usually recommended if you're breastfeeding. Small amounts of morphine pass into breast milk and can cause breathing problems in the baby. Speak to your doctor as they may be able to recommend a different painkiller. Some medicines and morphine interfere with each other and increase the chance that you will have side effects.
It's not possible to say that complementary medicines are safe to take with morphine. They're not tested in the same way as pharmacy and prescription medicines. They're generally not tested for the effect they have on other medicines. Tell your doctor or pharmacist if you're taking any other medicines, including herbal medicines, vitamins or supplements.
It works in the central nervous system and the brain to block pain signals to the rest of the body. It also reduces the anxiety and stress caused by pain. When morphine blocks the pain, there are other unwanted effects, for example, slow or shallow breathing.
It also slows down digestion, which is why morphine can cause constipation. Fast-acting morphine taken by mouth works in 30 to 60 minutes but it wears off after 4 to 6 hours. Slow-acting morphine taken by mouth can take a day or 2 to start working but the pain relief will last for longer.
It's difficult to say how long morphine suppositories take to work, as it varies from person to person. Yes, morphine is addictive. If you need to take it for a long time your body can become tolerant to it. That means you need higher doses to control your pain. If your doctor prescribes you an extended-release formulation, the effects will last for 8 to 12 hours. Some extended-release brands include:. One way to find out how long a drug will last in the body is to measure its half-life.
The half-life is the time it takes your body to eliminate half of the drug. Morphine has an average half-life of 2 to 4 hours. In other words, it takes between 2 and 4 hours for your body to eliminate half of the dose of morphine. The half-life fluctuates from person to person. This is because everyone metabolizes medications differently.
It takes several half-lives for a drug to be fully eliminated from the body. For most people, morphine will fully clear the blood in 12 hours. However, morphine can still be detected in the saliva, urine, or hair for a longer period of time. According to American Addiction Centers , morphine can be detected in:. A number of factors can influence the time it takes for morphine to clear the body.
These include:. The effects of morphine are increased if you consume alcohol. Combining alcohol with morphine can also lead to dangerous side effects, including the possibility of a fatal overdose. Taking cut, broken, chewed, crushed, or dissolved forms of morphine may lead to increased drug release into the body , which can increase your risk for overdose or even death.
These medications have been shown to interact with morphine and potentially increase its effects:. Withdrawal symptoms occur when the body has become dependent on a drug. In drug dependence, the body has become used to the presence of a drug, so if you stop taking that drug suddenly, or if you miss a dose, you may experience predictable symptoms known as withdrawal.
Your doctor may want you to reduce the dosage over time to prevent withdrawal. This is called tapering. The pain relief of a single dose of immediate-release morphine will likely wear off within 4 to 6 hours.
The body becomes tolerant when morphine is used over time and dosage may need to be adjusted to provide the desired effects. Morphine also leads to dependence and the body can have withdrawal symptoms if it is stopped. For this reason, it is important to follow the schedule provided by your doctor when it is decided to stop morphine. Morphine has a short half-life , with half of it metabolized in 1. Most of a single dose of morphine is eliminated in the urine within 72 hours.
Morphine is broken down in the body by glucuronidation and sulfation. According to a study, Morphineglucuronide M3G and morphineglucuronide M6G are the main metabolites of morphine that may also show up on a drug test. Brand name products such as MS Contin can also contain lactose, polysorbate, black iron oxide, and colored dyes. If the drug test yields a positive test result, a physician at a medical review office will review the results and you will be contacted to determine if there is a good reason.
If the results are negative, employers are told by the medical reviewer within 24 hours. Types of tests that can be used to detect morphine include blood, urine, hair, and saliva. There are not really good breath tests for detecting morphine. Hair and blood tests are used less often.
Morphine can show up on a urine test for up to four days after use. Urinalysis is the most commonly used method for testing for morphine and typically involves the enzyme-multiplied immune test. If morphine or any of the tested metabolites are present in the urine specimen in sufficient amounts, a visible colored line will show up in the test line region of the drug strip. The urine sample you provide will go through a secure chain of custody to end up at a testing laboratory to be screened, often with the SAMHSA 5 panel.
The specimen will be tested for adulterants and the presence of the drug. The presence of the drug will be confirmed by a second test using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry or liquid chromatography. Morphine can show also up on a blood test up to 3 days after use, but as these tests are more invasive and expensive, they are not commonly used in employment drug screenings. Morphine can show up on a saliva test about 3 days after use.
The morphine detected in saliva is usually in the process of circulating through the blood, which is why these detection times are similar.
Morphine can show up on a hair follicle test for up to 90 days after use. Most urine drug tests look for morphine. As a result, morphine use can easily be detected. That said, while urine drug tests are simple and affordable, they can return false-positive results for opiates like morphine. Poppy seeds can cause a false-positive test result for opiates.
While only present in trace amounts, poppy seeds do contain enough codeine and morphine to show up on enzyme immunoassay EIA tests that are often used in workplace and medical drug screenings. Additionally, certain medications, including allergy drugs containing diphenhydramine and doxylamine and quinolone antibiotics such as levofloxacin and ofloxacin can cause a false-positive opiate screening.
As a result, testing to identify specific drugs, rather than classes of drugs, is needed to confirm a positive urine drug screen for morphine. Morphine is metabolized at different rates and can vary in how long it takes to show up in urine based on various factors. The more morphine present in the body, the longer it will take to be eliminated. If the pathways involved in opioid metabolism are busy breaking down other substances in the body, it will also take longer for the drug to leave the body.
Older patients metabolize morphine more slowly. People with hepatic or renal impairments may also eliminate morphine more slowly. According to a review, there is no difference in metabolism amongst sexes. Morphine is broken down by the body and excreted in the urine, with most of a single dose eliminated after 72 hours.
However, with longer use or heavier doses, the time it takes to clear out of the body can be longer. Exercising, drinking a lot of water, and other myths people might have about how to flush your system before a drug test are likely not going to work. The only way to get morphine out of your system is to stop taking the drug and allow your body time to metabolize and eliminate it.
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