Be sure your doctor knows if you also take stimulant medicine, herbal products , or medicine for depression , mental illness, Parkinson's disease , migraine headaches, serious infections, or prevention of nausea and vomiting. Ask your doctor before making any changes in how or when you take your medications.
If you use this medicine while you are pregnant, your baby could become dependent on the drug. This can cause life-threatening withdrawal symptoms in the baby after it is born. Babies born dependent on habit-forming medicine may need medical treatment for several weeks. Tell your doctor if you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. Do not breast-feed while taking codeine. This medicine can pass into breast milk and cause drowsiness, breathing problems, or death in a nursing baby.
How should I take codeine? Take codeine exactly as prescribed by your doctor. Follow all directions on your prescription label. Codeine can slow or stop your breathing. Never use this medicine in larger amounts, or for longer than prescribed. While having no narcotic effects of its own, the important opioid precursor thebaine differs from codeine only slightly in structure. Pseudocodeine and some other similar alkaloids not currently used in medicine are found in trace amounts in opium as well.
History[ edit ] Codeine, or 3-methylmorphine, is an alkaloid found in the opium poppy , Papaver somniferum var. Opium poppy has been cultivated and utilized throughout human history for a variety of medicinal analgesic, anti-tussive and anti-diarrheal and hypnotic properties linked to the diversity of its active components, which include morphine, codeine and papaverine. Until the beginning of the 19th century, raw opium was used in diverse preparations known as laudanum see Thomas de Quincey 's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater , and paregoric elixirs , a number of which were popular in England since the beginning of the 18th century; the original preparation seems to have been elaborated in Leiden , the Netherlands around by a chemist named Lemort; in the London Pharmacopoeia mentions an Elixir Asthmaticum, replaced by the term Elixir Paregoricum "pain soother" in The progressive isolation of opium's several active components opened the path to improved selectivity and safety of the opiates-based pharmacopeia.
Codeine is the most widely used opiate in the world, [43] [44] and is one of the most commonly used drugs overall according to numerous reports by organizations including the World Health Organization and its League of Nations predecessor agency. It is one of the most effective orally administered opioid analgesics and has a wide safety margin. While codeine can be directly extracted from opium, its original source, most codeine is synthesized from the much more abundant morphine through the process of O- methylation , [44] [45] through a process first completed in the late 20th century by Robert C.
Corcoran and Junning Ma. They quickly succeeded using petroleum or coal tar and a process developed at the United States' National Institutes of Health. Numerous codeine salts have been prepared since the drug was discovered. The most commonly used are the hydrochloride freebase conversion ratio 0. The latter was introduced as Codeonal in , indicated for pain with nervousness. Codeine hydrochloride is more common worldwide and the citrate, hydroiodide, hydrobromide, tartrate, and other salts are also seen.
Brand named as Phenergan with Codeine or in generic form as promethazine with codeine. Therefore, generics are identical to brand pills in dose, strength, route of administration, safety, efficacy, and intended use. And why does the name printed on the pill differ from the branded one? The contents of generic pills and brand name medicines are exactly the same.
The only difference is the name. The name printed on the pill is the active ingredient used there. This is because the manufacturers of generic drugs cannot use brand names on their pharmaceuticals due to copyright restrictions. More than , patients under the age of 11 were prescribed codeine between and , according to one study cited in the report.
The report is published online Sept. Food and Drug Administration slapped a black box warning on codeine medications in , warning doctors to avoid giving the drug to children having surgery to remove their tonsils or adenoids. Given the slow response to this health threat, the AAP decided to make a "stronger push" against the use of codeine in children, Tobias explained.
Robert Glatter, an emergency physician with Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said codeine causes relatively few deaths, but should not be used because it is too unpredictable.
Tags: zoloft better to take in morning or night 40 watt sun codeine cover advair gsk canada famotidine by prescription ibuprofen prostaglandin production
© Copyright 2017 Codeine is Not Safe for Kids - Scientific American.