• N&PD Moderators: Skorpio | thegreenhand

Vaporizing naloxone

Fornax55

Bluelighter
Joined
Jun 17, 2010
Messages
466
Is it effective? I dont really plan on trying this im just curious from a theoretical standpoint. If anyone's wondering why the hell I would ask this, I'm just compiling potentially useful information for the upregulation of the opioid system
 
Bump (is that allowed?)
maybe mods move this to ADD (is that what became the pharmacology forum?)

I've never seen any info on this anywhere and there could be some useful applications to this if anyone could shed some light on the question.
 
Yes ADD is now the neuroscience and pharmacology forum.

As to your question, I have no clue and no way in hell would I be willing to try it.
 
I like a good bit of theoretical knowledge every now and then just for fun, but with that said, I have a hard time finding how this is useful to anyone at this moment. Even if Naloxone (Narcan) were effective by the vaporization route, which it most certainly is and even if it were say, faster in effect than the intranasal route, it would still be impractical because Naloxone is already distributed in simple, easy to use packages. Fumbling around with tin-foil and freebase Naloxone while somebody is actively dying seems like a bad idea, when a dose of life-saving antidote could've already been successfully administered.

But, I also get that what you're after is for research purpose regarding the up/down regulation of Opioid receptors. The next issue I see is that if you're really looking to get the most out of your research per mile, as it were, is that you will be severely limiting the scope of said research by moving to an obscure route of administration that is never used, as opposed to studying the action of Naloxone as it has been used for decades. I just see a lot of potential pitfalls here in what you're trying to accomplish.

I do, however, find information regarding Naloxone and/or Naltrexone's ability to up/down regulate Opioid receptors to be interesting. I would suggest focusing your research on already well-covered routes of administration for the drug. You already have great examples ranging from oral administration to intravenous administration, specifically, the effects when first-pass metabolism are and are not at play. I don't see how information regarding vaporization could be meaningfully different for your purposes.

I'm going to move this to Neuroscience and see what happens though!
 
The reason I'd be interested in vaporizing as a RoA is because the only naloxone I can get around here is distributed in ampules that are pre-made for injection. I'm not about to start using needles just so I can be a guinea pig in hopes to upregulate my opioid system :p

So, yeah, I could take it orally, but the first-pass effect is always something I like to avoid. Sublingual is another option, but again, it's hard to find an answer in regards to BA in this ROA (most of the info is just on suboxone with bupe/nalox) and I feel it'd be better to get a direct answer from someone.

Lastly, smoking is interesting because I'd imagine the same process would apply to upregulation as it does to downregulation. Smoking heroin, for example, seems to induces downregulation (tolerance) much more rapidly than, other ROAs because of the frequency of administration. Instead of heavily saturating the opiate system with an IV or rectal dose, then having it gradually be depleted, smoking saturates the system, is quickly depleted, you smoke/saturate again, deplete, saturate, deplete, etc. etc. etc. inducing downregulation way faster.

I figure, then, that repeated saturation w/ an antagonist like Naloxine via vaporization would upregulate the system much more rapidly than oral administration would, no?
 
why not plug it?
 
I doubt that it'll make much difference using a ROA with faster onset for this kind of purpose.

Regardless, I think this premise of not wanting to get mixed up with needles is interesting. I mean I get the concern, I just wonder if it makes much sense. Me and a lot of IV heroin addicts have a bit of a needle fixation from having pleasure associated with an IV shot hundreds of times, but this should be associating it with something negative. So if anything you'd think it would make you avoid it even more in future. I dunno just a thought.
 
Plugging's rectal admin. isn't it? I mentioned why plugging didn't appeal for this idea in my last post

Regardless, I think this premise of not wanting to get mixed up with needles is interesting. I mean I get the concern, I just wonder if it makes much sense. Me and a lot of IV heroin addicts have a bit of a needle fixation from having pleasure associated with an IV shot hundreds of times, but this should be associating it with something negative. So if anything you'd think it would make you avoid it even more in future. I dunno just a thought.
That is a very interesting concept. I could extend that a bit further, because I've always smoked my smack, and since I'm curious about vaporizing naloxone I could probably instill the same negative feedback loop by vaporizing naloxone off of foil instead of heroin.
 
There's no obvious reason naloxone wouldn't work when you vaporized it. I think it's a lot harder to accurately dose though, unless you intend to titrate it to the point you are dry-heaving and wanting to die.

Just keep in mind that naloxone doesn't magically restore opioid receptor functioning. Certainly not in chronic users. In fact as far as I know administration of naloxone still causes the whole receptor internalization via beta-arrestins. So all it'd do is make you miserable and not really effect your tolerance much.

Sublingually/rectally may work too, the intense bitterness I'd expect from sublingual is a bit of a turnoff though.
 
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