Vicodin & Opium based medications

[Cycler]

I have mentioned opiate induced hyperalgesia before, it is well established finding in the animal labs can't test it in humans. The Pain literature does address this as one of the reasons to pull back from the prescribing of opiods for non-malignant pain which has been the fashion for the past 10-15 years.

Let me clarify some points though. The terms opiate and opioid are often misused or confused.
An Opioid is any pain medication that binds to the opioid receptor.
Opiate is a term referring to the natural occurring alkaloids from the poppy plant, opium, morphine and codeine ( thebaine is not used clinically) , as well as the semi-syntetic narcotics derived form them such as hydrocodone, oxycodone, oxymorphone and many others. Vicodin is hydrocodone, a semi-synthetic opiate, and available in 5, 7.5 and 10 mg strengths while the acetominophnen componenent is the 500 mg.
Purely synthetic opioids are tramadol, fentanyl methadone and many others.

Any opioid may induce a hyperalgesia response in lab animals. All opiates may induce hypertalgesia in humans then, it is not confined to any one class. TV story lines follow the news and medical research. Most Drs. are not aware of this phenomenon.

Red1030: You are confusing the term addiction with tolerance and dependence and for pain patients and their families this is a very important distinction.

It's easiest to think of addiction as a social issue, engaging in harmful behaviors such as drug seeking, versus a physiologic issue, the body developing medication tolerance to a particular dose requiring an increase to effect the same analgesic response.

In general, legitimate pain patients do not engage in addicton behaviors while all long term chronic pain patients treated with opioids will develop tolerance and dependence.

Here is a very well written concensus statement on the topic:

http://www.cpmission.com/main/addiction.html