What is the connection between oxycodone and codeine?

Oxycodone and codeine are drugs used for pain relief, which belong to the family of drugs known as opioid analgesics. Both drugs share many structural and functional similarities, but also differ in the key ways that cause them to have related but non -identical medical use. Strength, pharmacology and biological availability are points of divergence between these drugs that contribute to their different uses. Oxycodone is able to reduce pain to a much greater degree than codeine and requires only about one tenth of the dose of codeine to provide the same amount of pain relief. Therefore, oxycodone is much better suited to control mild to severe pain. Weaker codein efficiency may sometimes be desirable, for example to treat mild pain or to treat pain in individuals with small to no opioid tolerance.

The human body is processed by oxycode and codein somewhat differently, which means that both drugs have different pharmacologies. After ingestion, oxycodone is metabolized and excreted within hours.However, codein is not very active alone and must be processed by the liver into active compounds such as morphine. The need to process the liver means that the codeine must be administered orally. Any other administrative trips bypass the liver and would therefore let the non -converted codein unable to influence the brain.

Biological availability is a term that describes how effectively the substance gets into the bloodstream from the route of administration. Both oxycodone and codeine have a relatively high maximum biological ability in the oral, but Codeine's differ much wildly. In some individuals, codein is barely absorbed into the blood at all. Most people absorb oxycodone at roughly the same speed, Making this more reliable medicine used in the treatment of chronic pain.

Many medicines, including oxycodone and codeine, are influenced by certain compounds in grapefruit juice, which can change the way the drugs work in the human body. HepaticEnzymes inhibited by grapefruit juice normally decompose oxycodone, so the combination of these two can lead to this drug to cause a stronger effect than it would normally and for a longer period of time. The same enzymes convert codeine into morphine and other opioids that allow codeine to apply its effects. As a result, mixing of grapefruit juice with this drug can cause reduction of its strength and duration.