How exactly does adrenaline dull pain?

^ I just wondered, seeing as it is nothing like an opiate...

 

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Also known as Epinephrine.

When secreted into the bloodstream, it rapidly prepares the body for action in emergency situations. The hormone boosts the supply of oxygen and glucose to the brain and muscles, while suppressing other non-emergency bodily processes (digestion in particular).

It increases heart rate and stroke volume, dilates the pupils, and constricts arterioles in the skin and gastrointestinal tract while dilating arterioles in skeletal muscles. It elevates the blood sugar level by increasing catabolism of glycogen to glucose in the liver, and at the same time begins the breakdown of lipids in fat cells. Like some other stress hormones, epinephrine has a suppressive effect on the immune system.

Although epinephrine does not have any psychoactive effects, stress or arousal also releases norepinephrine in the brain. Norepinephrine has similar actions in the body, but is also psychoactive.

Due to its suppressive effect on the immune system, epinephrine is the drug of choice for treating anaphylaxis. It is also useful in treating sepsis. Allergy patients undergoing immunotherapy may receive an epinephrine rinse before the allergen extract is administered, thus reducing the immune response to the administered allergen. It is also used as a bronchodilator for asthma if specific beta2-adrenergic receptor agonists are unavailable or ineffective.

Because of various expression of α1 or β2-receptors, depending on the patient, administration of epinephrine may raise or lower blood pressure, depending whether or not the net increase or decrease in peripheral resistance can balance the positive inotropic and chronotropic effects of epinephrine on the heart, effects which respectively increase the contractility and rate of the heart.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epinephrine

Hope this may help.

 

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Thanks for the link, but I can't see anything about analgesia in there...

 

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I don’t really know the answer, but I might be able to offer some clues....

Epinephrine (aka adrenaline) signals through the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). Coincidentally, the SNS also mediates many pain sensations.

Paraphrased from wiki....

So, my guess is that when an environmental stimulus triggers a “fight or flight response” there is predominant efferent signalling (ie. from the spine towards your peripheral tissues) through the SNS via norepinephrine and epinephrine whereas afferent signalling (ie. from your peripheral tissues towards your spine) is minimized, thus restricting your ability to feel heat, cold and pain through the nociceptive (ie. pain-sensing) receptors that reside in your peripheral tissues.

 

Thanks Hercules.

So would there be any way you could create a painkiller that utilized that mechanism?

Just wondering because I've noticed before that my own adrenaline works better than painkillers. There's just the little problem of not being able to induce it at will.

 

That is what I said.:shrug:

 

which?

 

where?

 

right there.

 

somewhere in that long page, i couldnt see anything about exactly how it behaves as an analgesic.

 

Probably not. The ‘fight or flight’ response mediated through adrenaline/SNS can be a pretty dramatic one that elicits a whole range of physiological actions other than the dulling of pain sensation. Some of the symptoms are not particularly desirable in everyday situations.

- Acceleration of heart and lung action
- Inhibition of stomach and intestinal action
- General effect on the sphincters of the body
- Constriction of blood vessels in many parts of the body
- Liberation of nutrients for muscular action
- Dilation of blood vessels for muscles
- Inhibition of Lacrimal gland (responsible for tear production) and salivation
- Dilation of pupil
- Relaxation of bladder
- Inhibition of erection
- Auditory Exclusion (loss of hearing)
- Tunnel Vision (loss of peripheral vision)

 

Could you create something that would behave like adrenaline in one way but not the rest of the effects?

 

Well yes, that’s what analgesic drugs do! They specifically target the pain sensing and transmission pathways in either the peripheral or central nervous system (depending on the drug).

It’s unfortunate if analgesics don’t work well for you; I’m sure you’re not alone in that circumstance. A lot of research effort goes into chronic pain relief and new analgesics that are stronger yet non-addictive. Anyway, adrenaline is the body’s temporary pain reliever. I’m not sure if it has any potential utility for sustained pain relief.

 

Never knew that it did.

 

VI i would sugest that what it does is stimulate the releace of morphine rather than directly supressing pain, the same way it stimulates the immune system

 

oh and for those who said that adrenilin stimulates the releace of nor-adrenilin as far as im awear the oposite is true. Nor-adrenilin breaks down into adrenilin but im not 100% sure on this

 

Anyone relying on Adrenaline for pain relief is going to be in a lot of pain.

 

The body does not produce morphine. Morphine is an alkaloid isolated from a plant. What you’re probably referring to are endorphins – the body’s endogenous opioid compounds.

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Who said that? Have you read the thread? I cannot see where anyone has stated that. In an early post I quoted a paragraph that said:

(BTW, please type your text into a Word processor first so that you can check your spelling before cutting & pasting into the SF textbox.)

 

HR, read cosmic's post

"Although epinephrine does not have any psychoactive effects, stress or arousal also releases norepinephrine in the brain. Norepinephrine has similar actions in the body, but is also psychoactive"

This is wrong