why do people with extreme pains that take Opioids don’t feel euphoria as would a normal person feel if they took Opioid ?

Question

I’m learning pharmacology for my exam and found this in my book and its written that its not known why.

In: Biology

Answer 1

Opioids work by blocking your brain’s sensation of pain. They can also affect the pleasure center of your brain, causing a sense of euphoria. The key is dose titration. Mostly blocking pain with a dose that leaves a little pain reminds you that things could be worse, dulling the impact of the euphoria. That dose, when you aren’t in pain doesn’t really impact the pain mechanism much, so the euphoric effect is much more noticeable.

Why feelings have this cross-effect and modify our behavior is not well understood, and that’s likely what the book was talking about. Biologic systems are very, very complicated, and every person is different, that’s what makes pharmacology a challenging field. There is almost never enough information to have confidence, and trial-and-error is often part of the best management strategy. Everybody would like to know exactly what to take, sometimes this is called precision medicine in the research community, that’s in the far future, not today.