Naloxone helps prevent opioid deaths. Here’s how to find and use it

Over the previous 20 years, opioid-related deaths rose 850% in the US, reflecting the surge in addictions to narcotic painkillers and the inflow of fentanyl and different potent artificial opioids.

To decrease the demise toll over the long term, we’ll have to reverse the expansion in opioid addictions throughout the nation — no straightforward job, given the medication’ highly effective grip. Within the meantime, officers and group teams in Los Angeles County have tried to stop deaths with confirmed harm-reduction methods, most notably placing the drug naloxone within the arms of drug customers and the individuals near them.

Naloxone is an “opioid antagonist,” in keeping with the Nationwide Institute on Drug Abuse, which suggests it blocks chemical substances within the opioid household (comparable to heroin, oxycodone, morphine and fentanyl) from attaching to receptors within the nervous system. If administered quickly after somebody goes into an opioid-related medical emergency, it’s remarkably efficient at reversing the drug’s results. And it’s secure too. Because the institute put it, “naloxone has no impact on somebody who doesn’t have opioids of their system.”

The important thing, although, is ensuring that individuals have it after they or somebody round them wants it. That’s what state and county officers have been attempting to do by way of broad, grass-roots distribution efforts, though the price of the drug has restricted their attain. The branded inhalable model, Narcan, sells for $67.50 per dose. The generic model is about $50.

In case you are in shut contact with somebody who makes use of opioids or who could encounter it unwittingly — black market tablets tainted with deadly quantities of fentanyl have prompted a rising variety of deaths — chances are you’ll wish to receive some naloxone and learn to administer it. Right here’s the place to search out kits in L.A. County, in addition to data on the way to use them.

The place naloxone kits can be found

Healthcare amenities and first responders throughout the county have naloxone readily available to deal with individuals in an opioid-related well being disaster. Hospitals have additionally begun giving naloxone kits to those sufferers after they’re discharged, as a substitute of sending them off with only a prescription, stated Shannon Knox, director of coaching and schooling for Neighborhood Well being Challenge L.A.

However that’s a reactive method. To acquire naloxone proactively, you could have a number of choices in L.A. County.

Beneath a standing order from the state public well being officer, group organizations and different entities with permission from the state Division of Public Well being can present the drug “to these prone to overdose and people able to intervene throughout an opioid-related overdose.” This consists of homeless service suppliers, syringe trade and different hurt discount packages, drug remedy packages, public well being departments and pharmacies.

L.A. County and different jurisdictions which have been actively selling hurt discount efforts have extra sources of free naloxone than those who have shied away from needle trade packages, comparable to Orange County. However even in counties with sturdy naloxone packages, some communities have higher entry to the kits than others.

The county’s Overdose Training + Naloxone Distribution web site lists 27 websites the place Neighborhood Well being Challenge L.A. and different harm-reduction teams are making naloxone kits out there at no cost. The websites are open solely at sure days and instances, nevertheless, and most function just one or two days every week. The one web site open all day, each day is the Refresh Spot operated by Homeless Well being Care Los Angeles at 557 Crocker St. in downtown L.A., the place showers, restrooms, wound kits and different provides and providers are additionally out there.

To discover a web site close to you that gives free naloxone, go to laodprevention.org/naloxone.

CVS and Walgreens provide naloxone and not using a prescription too; it is best to name forward to see if the shop close to you has the medication in inventory. It’s not free, however the associated fee is offset by at the very least a number of the well being insurers serving Southern California.

Knox stated that the demand for naloxone vastly exceeds the provision. However the state could quickly be capable of faucet a brand new supply of low-cost injectable naloxone, doubtlessly multiplying the quantity that shall be out there for group distribution.

Easy methods to use a naloxone equipment

Naloxone is available in two primary varieties: a sprig that’s inhaled by way of the nostril, and a liquid that’s injected into muscle groups within the arm or leg. The injectable model is considerably inexpensive — about $3 per dose, in contrast with $49 for the generic model of inhalable naloxone — so it’s simpler for state and county packages to acquire in massive portions.

Earlier than you open the equipment, although, it is advisable to know when to make use of it. Opioids are painkillers that, at greater doses, can sluggish an individual’s respiratory and coronary heart price, in keeping with the Mayo Clinic. At too nice a dose, the individual will cease respiratory.

The telltale indicators that an individual is in bother, well being officers say, embody passing out and never rousing, respiratory slowly or by no means, making gurgling noises, having pupils diminished to pinpoints, and turning grey or blue within the lips or pores and skin. The Nationwide Hurt Discount Coalition says that in case you can’t wake the individual up, attempt verbal and bodily stimulation — calling the individual’s title, rubbing your knuckles into the center of the chest or on the higher lip, and pinching the again of his or her arm.

When you’ve decided that the individual is in disaster, consultants say, name 911 and report that you’ve got somebody who seems to have overdosed (and, if relevant, that the individual isn’t respiratory). Then it’s time to provide the individual naloxone.

Once you choose up a equipment, you’ll even be given directions in the way to use it. Knox stated it takes only a few minutes to stand up to hurry on the way to administer the drug in both its inhalable or injectable varieties. There are a number of codecs out there, together with auto-injectors with pre-loaded syringes and sprays which will must be pumped into every nostril. Make sure that to familiarize your self with the particular model you receive; the American Medical Assn. gives this useful rundown of every of the most important codecs.

You probably have naloxone in a vial, you’ll have to put 1 cc of the medication into the syringe included within the equipment. It’s essential to ensure when loading the syringe that you simply’re drawing in liquid from the vial, not air. Then you definately insert the needle into the individual’s higher arm or the entrance of the thigh and press the plunger all the way in which down.

If the individual you’re attempting to assist stays unresponsive for 2 to a few minutes, administer a second dose of naloxone. Within the meantime, the hurt discount coalition says, it is best to examine to ensure the individual is respiratory. If not, carry out rescue respiratory.