Opioids Evzio - Naloxone autoinjector

[aced126]

So there's a product on the market called Ezvio which is automatically administers a 0.4mg dose of naloxone HCl intramuscularly. You place the thing on the patients thigh and it goes to work.


In my understanding, I thought naloxone only works with any efficacy intravenously, which is why if you eat a sub the naloxone has too low a bioavailability to have any effect, but if you shoot the sub then the naloxone prevents the bupe from doing anything.


On wikipedia it says nax has a 2% bioavail orally, but no other information. Does anyone have an idea of how effective nax is when IMed? This product could save loads of lives if it was given away for free/sold without a prescription or any details being taken. It's only available for healthcare staff.

 

[darky185]

So there's a product on the market called Ezvio which is automatically administers a 0.4mg dose of naloxone HCl intramuscularly. You place the thing on the patients thigh and it goes to work.


In my understanding, I thought naloxone only works with any efficacy intravenously, which is why if you eat a sub the naloxone has too low a bioavailability to have any effect, but if you shoot the sub then the naloxone prevents the bupe from doing anything.


On wikipedia it says nax has a 2% bioavail orally, but no other information. Does anyone have an idea of how effective nax is when IMed? This product could save loads of lives if it was given away for free/sold without a prescription or any details being taken. It's only available for healthcare staff.

It works just fine IM/SQ, they even make a nasal spray:
http://dng.northjersey.com/media_server/tr/2014/06/heroingraphic/061814-heroin-graphic.jpg

While it likely works best IV, you need A. Someone trained to administer an IV injection B. A vein, which may not be easy to come by on an IV user. With IM you don't have to worry much about either of those as it's plug & play more or less, it will also last a bit longer than IV, lessening the chance you need to dose the person more than once as the H will last long than an injection of naloxone. From what I understand the nasal spray is becoming the ROA of choice(outside of the hospital) as it's easy to use and doesn't require much training to administer.

In regards to Suboxone & naloxone, from what I understand, Bupe has a higher affinity for the opioid receptors than nalxone so even if you IV it, the nalxone won't be able to bind as Bupe will fill the receptors, it's only in Suboxone as a scare tactic. Note that this not the case with most opioids but only Bupe.

Here's a nice write up about different ROAs:
http://emed.wustl.edu/education/EmergencyMedicineJournalClub/Archive/July2013.aspx

 

[tacodude]

I think an ambulance person was talking about how they now have nalaxone auto-injectors that sounded like what you described.

 

[MainLiner420]

No naloxone is still pretty effective when IMing. I have been trained how to use it and usually have some on me at all times if possible. Actually in every instance that i have experienced personally that was the ROA for the Naloxone. Not sure if this is true or not but it might be the best way to go in that kind of a hectic situation because finding a vein on someone who is ODed is probably not the easiest task when your in kind of a panic mode, especially in a situation where every second counts, I would think it would be best to just slam it into one of the meaty areas on the body that they suggest (Thigh, Butt, etc.) But what doesnt sound right in the original post is the mg dosage, 0.4mg seems like a very low dose. In all my experiences everyone i know was given 1.0mgs for the initial dose and were even re-dosed up to 3-4 times, My father overdosed not too long ago and it took 2 doses of 1.0mg each just for him to even respond and come back and he didnt even injest too much H that night, it was the combo with alcohol that did it, granted he doesnt have a huge tolerance like I do, he has had plenty of experience with H and he did much less than what he usually did and the OD happend fast, Id say within maybe 20-30 minutes after he sniffed the couple lines he had. Also to add the Naloxone I have on the ready comes in little glass viles with 1.0mgs in each vile and the training I was giving said to administer the whole vile(1.0mgs), and if they person ODing doesnt respond, then was taught to re-dose another 1.0mg vile within 2-3 minutes and repeat upto 3-4 times if they still dont respond. Im not sure if there are different varieties of naloxone where some are more potenent than others I have never heard that but I could be wrong, but 0.4mgs sounds really low from what I know about it.