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Addiction is not just only severe issue with opioid drugs. Opioid drugs have been regarded as the perfect painkillers, but with one price: your sex life. These chemicals vary from morphine and heroin to papaverine, noscapine, cocaine and ephedrine. Their name comes from the fact that opioid drugs
bind to specific opioid receptors in the central nervous system and in other tissues. The organism produces its own internal opioids, like endorphins, endomorphins.
Opioid treatment is aimed to decrease patients' pain, and to allow physical and social functioning, in case of chronic or acute pain like in cases of cancer, post-operative pain but also non-malignant pain.
Many researches suggested that long-acting opioids used daily for over a month can decrease hormonal function in both men and women. The effects of this hormonal unbalancing are sexual dysfunction, weight gain, fatigue, depression, osteoporosis, and irregular menstrual cycles. In time, these issues may exceed the positive effects of this analgesic. These issues could be treated, but men and women require different approaches.
Dr. Stephen Colameco points these measures in a commentary article for Pain Treatment Topics - "Opioid-Induced Sexual Dysfunction: Causes, Diagnosis, & Treatment" published in pain-topics.org.
First of all, patients must be informed, before starting the therapy, about the hormonal disturbances caused by higher dose, long-term opioid treatment.
During the treatment, they must routinely be evaluated for symptoms of hormonal issues, including sexual dysfunction. When hormonal deficiency is suspected, lab tests must be done to confirm the diagnosis.
In men, the main treatment is testosterone supplementation, rather topical, buccal, or transdermal, than via intramuscular injections. Testosterone treatment is not recommended to women, and the best treatment would be supplementation with DHEA/DHEAS, as it boosts hormone quantities while being devoid of significant side effects. Shifting from one opioid medication to another could have an effect.
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