The Synapse Season 4 Episode 22 - The End of the Simple Opioid Overdose

Send us Fan MailMaybe you are already familiar with a scenario like this:24-year old male with suspected opioid overdose. You give Naloxone, his breathing improves, but he remains heavily sedated and bradycardic. Several hours later in the ED his HR spikes from 45 to 180, he becomes profoundly hypertensive, with tremors, severe agitation, nausea, and vomiting. Despite normal treatments of benzodiazepines, Zofran, and phenobarbital, he does not get any better.What is driving this? What did we miss here, and if these traditional medication "cocktails" are not helping control this patient, how and why might Precedex be the answer?