Known brand names include Dilaudid.
A strong opioid pain reliever given by injection or by mouth for pain severe enough that other treatments are not enough. Doses are much smaller than morphine doses, and mix-ups between the two have caused deadly overdoses. Like all opioids, it can slow or stop breathing and cause addiction.
Hydromorphone attaches mainly to mu opioid receptors in the brain and spinal cord, receptors that the body's own opioid-like chemicals also use. Exactly how this eases pain is not known, but it alters how the brain and nerves react to pain. It also acts directly on the breathing centers in the brainstem, making them less responsive, and it slows the muscles that move food through the gut.
Taken by mouth, it reaches its peak in the blood within half an hour to 1 hour, and the body clears half of it in about 2.3 hours after an IV dose. Higher doses keep giving more pain relief, but they also slow breathing and dull alertness more, which can be fatal. Slowed gut movement causes constipation, and widened blood vessels can make a person dizzy or faint on standing.
Hydromorphone is an opioid medicine for pain severe enough to need an opioid. It is an opiate, sometimes called a narcotic, pain reliever. The aim is to relieve severe pain by changing how the brain and nervous system respond to it.
It is given as a shot into a vein, a muscle, or under the skin, or taken by mouth as tablets or a liquid. Because addiction, misuse, overdose, and death can happen at any dose and remain risks throughout treatment, it is kept for people whose pain other options cannot manage or who cannot tolerate those options. It has not been shown to be safe or effective in children.
Lightheadedness, dizziness, sleepiness, nausea, vomiting, sweating, flushing, dry mouth, itching, and mood changes are the most common effects, and constipation is common with opioids. The label's boxed warning treats slowed or stopped breathing, addiction and misuse, and deadly overdose as the main dangers, especially with benzodiazepines, alcohol, or other sedatives, and with accidental swallowing by a child. It also warns about severe low blood pressure, adrenal problems, seizures, withdrawal after stopping suddenly, and withdrawal in newborns after long use in pregnancy.
This is the boxed warning, the warning the FDA label prints first.
Serious and life-threatening risks: addiction, abuse, and misuse that can lead to overdose and death; life-threatening respiratory depression, highest at the start and after dose increases; profound sedation, respiratory depression, coma, and death with benzodiazepines, alcohol, or other CNS depressants; neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome after prolonged use in pregnancy; fatal overdose from accidental ingestion, especially by children; and oral solution dosing errors from mg and mL confusion.