Pain, Opioids and Pro-Inflammatory Immune Responses

Providing pain management to the patient who abuses prescription opioids presents a clinical challenge, not only due to concerns about "drug-seeking", but because they have increased sensitivity to pain, a phenomenon identified as opioid-induced hyperalgesia (OIH). In an effort to improve pain treatment, the aims of the proposed work are to evaluate the analgesic and hyperalgesic effects of opioids to acute pain in this vulnerable population, and to examine the role of opioid-induced proinflammatory changes in these responses.