Scrolling through reddit, sometimes I come across a post showing the lethal dose of fentanyl, and it’s always so tiny.
I’m wondering just how such a tiny amount can kill. What does it do? Where does it target? If anyone could answer this, thanks
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Opiate drugs saturate your opiate receptors, which disrupts the tension/reward system that regulates many of your body’s semi-autonomous functions, such as breathing.
You know how discomfort becomes unbearable after you hold your breath for a while? Well allowing yourself to breathe again releases neuro-transmitters that bind with opiate receptors in your brain, giving you pleasure (i.e. relief from discomfort/fear/pain). Your body essentially says to your brain, “Thank you for initiating action that lets me continue to live! Here, enjoy some pleasure as your reward.”
Opiate drugs disrupt this mechanism by offering the reward without the brain having initiated reward-worthy action. This is fine in small amounts, where the pleasure experienced distracts a person from pain due to injury or surgery.
But in sufficient doses, opiate drugs cause your brain to essentially say, “Yeah, I already got mine. So that whole breathing thing? Yeah, that just seems like a lot of work. So, meh. Whatever. Not my problem. You figure it out.”
When an overdose victim “forgets” to breathe, the discomfort/panic from rising CO2 blood concentration never takes hold and fails to trigger the body to breathe. The victim dies from hypoxia.
Fentanyl is just a really concentrated opiate drug, so even tiny amounts will saturate your opiate receptors to the point that essential tasks such as breathing seem like a low priority.
Chemicals in your brain are bouncing all around, connecting and disconnecting to neurons and activating/deactivating them. These are “neurotransmitters” and the brain only works when everything is in balance. It’s a huge juggling act, and neurotransmitters are the balls.
Fentanyl is sticky. When the brain catches it, it’s stuck. There are thousands of balls in the air, and your brain has dozens of hands, but you only need 1 fentanyl for each hand.
When your brain loses a bunch of hands, it can’t maintain the juggle. Crash.
I believe the first system that crashes is the signals to swallow and to breathe. Those actions become conscious rather than subconscious, and the subject is high as a kite. When they stop thinking about breathing, they stop breathing.
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