How Long Does Morphine Stay In Your System
What is Morphine?
Morphine is a narcotic drug. Morphine is derived from Opium plant source. Therapeutically morphine is prescribed as an analgesic to treat severe pain. The sustained release morphine formulations are available to get extended relief from pain.
Morphine is available in different trade names with multiple formulations like suppositories, oral solutions, tablets and injections. Conventionally, Morphine is administered through intravenous route.
Clinically, maximum utilization of morphine along with other therapeutic substances for anesthetic purposes. But Morphine also uses as abusing drug due to its addictive action and fairly low cost. [1]
Factors Affecting the Duration of Morphine Stay in Body System
The different factors are considered for determining the duration of Morphine stay in the body system. The considerable factors are as follows:
Variety of Morphine
Different variety of morphine is available in the market, including Morphine, Dover’s Powder, Roxanol, Roxanol SR, Paregoric, Laudanum, Avinza, Robitussin A-C, Oramorph More and MSContin.
Selected Screening Test
There are different screening tests are available to detect the morphine in the body system. The screening test selection is important because the every screening test result does not provide the same result.
Some test can be detected for a shorter time, whereas drug sample can noticeable up to three months in other test reports.
Physiological Considerations
How long morphine can stay in the system also depends upon physiological considerations, because every individual is different. The considerable physical factors are metabolism rate, body mass, water content, age, physical activity, health status, etc. [1,2,3]
Morphine Detection Times
Usually after administering morphine, it stays in the body system for a prolonged period. But maximum amount of drug eliminated from the body within 24 hours.
The small quantity of morphine present in urine and other waste material for 72 hours. Various drug testing methods are available for detecting morphine.
The different drug tests available for detecting morphine are:
- Saliva test: In saliva test, morphine is detected for 48 hours.
- Urine Test: In urine, morphine is detected for 48 hours to 72 hours
- Hair Follicle Test: In hair follicle test, morphine is detected for 90 days or 3 months
Among these drug tests, saliva drug test is used for detecting the drug for recent use and hair follicle test is conducted for a long history of morphine use. [2]
Preparation of Drug Test
Before going for a drug test, it is always advisable to withhold all the chemical for few days before to clean the physiological system.
The drug test of urine or saliva may not detect the morphine in the following condition, but hair follicle test can easy to detect this.
Even, if the person requires morphine for analgesic use to pain management, then the drug administration requires a prescription to avert misconception.
In the following conditions, the urine test can give faulty result:
- Ingesting detox pills or detox drink to detoxify the body and clean system; therefore no more morphine secrets through urine.
- Some shampoo and mouthwash available to eliminate morphine from hair follicle and oral cavity. Therefore, hair follicle test and saliva test provide a faulty result.
The morphine detection test is also required for preventing an overdose of morphine.
Morphine overdose symptoms
Following are some symptoms of morphine overdose include:
- Shallow breathing
- Irregular breathing
- Drowsiness
- Fainting
- Lack of muscle strength
- Temperature of skin become cool
- Pupil sized become constricted
- Heartbeat becomes slow and irregular
- Blurred vision
- Nausea [3]
References
- How Long Does Morphine Stay in Your System?; http://www.passadrugtestingforall.com/long-does-morphine-stay-your-system-a-77.html
- Anthony Cunningham (2014); How Long Does Morphine Stay in Your System?; http://www.zoomtesting.co.uk/long-morphine-stay-system/
- Buddy T.(2015); How Long Does Morphine Stay in Your System? https://www.verywell.com/how-long-does-morphine-stay-in-your-system-80288