Naloxone training proves beneficial | News

To combat the issue, and potentially save lives, the Southwest Harris County Coalition, Lee College, the La Porte Police Department and Texas A&M pharmacy program hosted a Naloxone training session this week, to train local organizations on administering the life-saving drug and arming them with the knowledge to train others. 

Joy Alonzo, professor of Pharmacy Practice at Texas A&M College of Pharmacy, led the informative training session, putting into context how deadly opioids have become, how to recognize someone overdosing and how to administer Naloxone. 

The importance of this overdose-reversing drug was even highlighted on April 5, 2018, when the U.S. Surgeon General released the first public health advisory in a decade, urging more people to carry a Naloxone rescue kit. 

Alonzo said expanding the use of Naloxone is a key part of the public health response to the opioid crisis, along with effective prevention, treatment and recovery programs for opioid use disorder. Research shows a combination of medication, counseling and behavioral therapy, also known as medication-assisted treatment can help people achieve long-term recovery.

About 16 different organizations were represented at the session, including local police departments, pharmacies, school districts and addiction outreach organizations. 

“I came out to enhance my knowledge on Naloxone,” Serintha Breland said, who works with The Bridge Over Troubled Waters, which provides safety and prevents domestic and sexual violence. “We don’t see (opioid overdose) a lot but we want to be familiar with it, knowledgeable about what’s happening and prepared.” 

To better understand the crisis, Alonzo identified the power of dependence as what can lead to addiction. The brain causes users to maintain a certain level of dopamine, meaning they will do anything to get their next opioid fix.  

“All opioids cause tolerance and dependence, some within three to five days,” Alonzo said. “Your brain will re-adapt at the cellular level and will very quickly get use to that new level of dopamine (once you take an opioid), and when it doesn’t have it, it’s going to want it. And it will drive you to do anything, and I mean anything.”

The dangers of addiction toward opioids is also very concerning because just about everyone has taken an opioid in one form or another. 

“Right now, you could live your whole life without being exposed to cocaine, you could live your whole life without alcohol, which is harder to do than cocaine but it can be done,” Alonzo said. “But it is highly unlikely you will live the rest of your life without opioids. You will get opioids, and it won’t even be your choice.” 

“It’s very difficult to live without opioids, and that’s the problem,” she added.   

With opioid use so widespread, as it is often prescribed as a pain reliever by doctors or dentists, the issue has become a public health crisis with devastating consequences. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, roughly 21 to 29 percent of patients prescribed opioids for chronic pain misuse them. 

“About 134 people die every day in the United States from an opioid overdose alone,” Alonzo said. “Not overdoses for all causes just opioids alone. That is so high that your relative risk of dying from an opioid overdose is higher than your risk of dying from a traffic accident. That is astounding.” 

To combat the epidemic, Naloxone can be used to reverse the effects of opioid overdose. 

Naloxone, which is sold under the brand names of Narcan or Evzio, can be administered by injection or nasal spray. 

“It reverses the effects of opioids and opioids only in an overdose,” Alonzo said. “It has no other pharmacologic effect. It doesn’t increase your heart rate, it doesn’t make you sweat, it doesn’t make you dizzy and it doesn’t make you vomit.” 

Naloxone reverses an overdose by displacing the opioid from the receptor cells in the body and binding to those receptors without activating them. 

Alonzo said someone who has overdosed typically regains consciousness within two or three minutes of being administered naloxone, however, it is crucial to call 911 and activate the emergency action system. 

To identify an acute overdose, symptoms might include slow or absent breathing, lips and nails are blue, a person is not moving, can’t be woken up, pupils are tiny or skin feels cold and clammy. 

If a person is exhibiting some of these symptoms, follow the “overdose action plan” by: 

• Trying to rouse the person, perform a sternal rub 

• If no response, call 911 

• Administer Naloxone and start rescue breathing 

• Continue rescue breathing

• If no response after 2 to 3 minutes, give another dose of Naloxone 

• After administering Naloxone, place a person in the recovery position 

• Continue rescue breathing until a person responds or EMS arrives  

Naloxone can be purchased at many area pharmacies. Syringe vials run around $6 at some stores. Inhalers to auto-injectors for the medication can range from hundreds of dollars to $3,000.

But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently launched an effort to support over-the-counter sales of naloxone. 

While EMS and firefighters are armed with Naloxone, some police departments don’t have the overdose-reversing drug or the training, which is why Baytown and La Porte police departments attended the training session. 

Before the training session, about 25 to 30 Baytown officers were armed with Naloxone but a handful can now be added to that list. 

For the La Porte Police Department, officers weren’t armed with Naloxone but some are now.

“We’re not seeing an epidemic like many areas but it is there and its something we want to give our officers so they are able to respond immediately,” Sgt. Bennie Boles, La Porte police spokesman, said. “I will now go back to my department, and once we get the kits, I’ll do this two-hour training with my department and each officer on patrol will get a couple of kits.” 

The epidemic has become more prevalent in Baytown. Opioids such as Xanax have become more common in the city, making up for almost half of all police encounters, according to the Baytown Police Department. 

From 2015 to 2017, there was a 59 percent increase in illicit prescription drug seizures in Baytown, and law enforcement seized about 90 pounds of prescription drugs.

During that 2015 to 2017 period, Baytown police seized about 10,000 pills, which is enough for 125 Greyhound buses full of people to take one each, or enough to full up 25 percent of Minute Maid Park.