Half Life of Morphine

Morphine has truly stood the test of time. Few medicines can claim such a lengthy tenure in the world of medicine. Morphine fundamentally changed the way we approach pain management. Everyone feels pain differently, depending on many factors — from genetics to personal experience. Morphine created a benchmark from which pain management and treatment can branch out from.

Ironically, morphine was, at first, the stepping stone to the creation of other painkillers, yet now it has become a stepping stone to painkiller misuse. This issue of transitioning to other opioids from morphine can be traced back to tolerances, which develop when someone continuously uses a drug. The half-life of morphine is tied to tolerance because the shorter the half-life, the more of the drug a person may be tempted to take to treat their symptoms continuously. The more morphine is taken, the more likely that person is to develop a tolerance to the drug.

Chemically speaking, morphine only lasts a short amount of time in the body. After a few hours, the pain returns and if the individual has been taking the drug for months, withdrawal symptoms may also begin to develop. This difficulty often results in the continued use of the drug to alleviate the pain, which gradually requires larger doses than previously. The half-life of morphine is responsible for the length of time that the drug stays in a person’s system.