As I’m using my asthma inhaler this morning, I realize, why don’t we use inhalation for other medications?
Obviously wouldn’t be needed for everything, but things that need to act fast I feel like it would be effective.
The alveoli in your lungs are a direct connection to your blood supply, and seem pretty effective for the nicotine while smoking.
I’ve even seen it a few times in fiction like Dread or Cyberpunk.
So why not?
In: Biology
This has been investigated, but there are a couple of limiting factors. Primarily, a lot of medications would require a lot of material going into the lungs which isn’t feasible. A low dose medication into the lungs is easy, but getting a lot of medication into the lungs doesn’t work very well.
Some medications, such as insulin, are available and inhaled forms. Or at least inhaled forms exist, not sure if they are still being commercially produced. But since the dose of insulin is very critical, it’s very dependent on inhaler technique and it was determined that there was too much user variability to make it viable.
In emergency situations lots of needs can be given through breathing tubes such as epinephrine or anti seizure medications if IV access isn’t available.
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