Severe pain can interfere with daily activities, making life difficult. While some pain-relieving medications can provide temporary relief, they seldom offer deep and soothing relief from severe pain. That’s why stronger prescription pain medications like oxycodone and oxymorphone exist.
What Is Oxycodone?
Oxycodone is a prescription medication used for the treatment of moderate or severe pain in adults. It comes in three forms — tablet, capsule and solution. The tablets and capsules are also available in immediate-release and extended-release forms. The immediate-release form goes into the blood as soon as it’s taken, while the extended-release form moves into the bloodstream slowly.
Oxycodone is part of a group of drugs known as opioid agonists. These drugs work by reducing the volume of pain messages that your body sends to the brain. Essentially, oxycodone reduces the intensity of pain by making your brain feel that you’re experiencing less of it.
What Is Oxymorphone?
Oxymorphone is an opioid pain-relieving medication that’s also used to treat moderate to severe pain. It comes in immediate-release and extended-release forms. The extended-release form is used to treat very severe pain around-the-clock. Oxymorphone is also available as an oral solution.
Oxymorphone vs. Oxycodone: Which Is Stronger?
Oxymorphone and oxycodone are both opioids, or narcotics. They both treat moderate or severe pain in cases where other pain-relieving drugs haven’t worked. These two drugs work on the opioid receptors in the brain and make your brain think differently about your pain.
Both oxymorphone and oxycodone work in similar ways, and they produce similar side effects. Common side effects include:
- dizziness
- drowsiness
- itching
- headache
- constipation
- vomiting
- nausea
- dry mouth
- stomach pain
- mood changes
Repeated use of oxymorphone tends to cause fever and confusion to a greater degree than oxycodone, while oxycodone tends to cause users to experience low energy and trouble sleeping.
More caution is required when taking oxycodone extended-release tablets or capsules. These are usually more concentrated, and they must not be used unless immediate-release tablets or capsules cannot provide the necessary relief. Extended-release tablets must only be taken by patients who have shown tolerance to opioid medications and have taken them for at least seven days or more.
While you’re taking an oxymorphone or oxycodone extended-release capsule or tablet, you need to ensure that you have some naltrexone readily available. Naltrexone is a drug that helps mitigate the life-threating side effects of an oxymorphone or oxycodone overdose. It blocks the effects of opioid medication and provides relief from the dangerous symptoms caused by high levels of opiates in the bloodstream.
Learn More About Opiates Like Oxymorphone and Oxycodone
To get more information about how to prevent opioid addiction and still find relief from pain, please reach out to us today. You can also get more details about BAART Programs and medication-assisted therapy (MAT) for opioid addiction at any of our centers near you.
