NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Reno County Substance Misuse Health Educator Seth Dewey explained that the mix of drugs that are causing overdoses across the country has changed somewhat, but that shouldn't keep people from using naloxone to keep someone alive.
"We have an illicit substance supply that is completely altered," Dewey said. "It's like, anymore, there isn't just methamphetamine, there isn't just heroin, almost all of it contains fentanyl. Now, unfortunately, there's a large portion of fentanyl that also has another substance in it called xylazine.
Xylazine is a veterinary tranquilizer and works differently than an opioid, so Naloxone will help to reverse fentanyl's effects, but not necessarily those of the xylazine it may be mixed with. This means people helping treat overdose may need to do more to help.
"We still want to respond, like an opioid overdose, in the sense that we want to administer the naloxone and start in our other first responder training," Dewey said. "In this case, it would be more of a focus, though, on rescue breathing, which is one to two breaths every five to seven seconds. What it does is, it causes those lungs to stop working. In previous overdoses, with just heroin and other opioids, an individual might be administered a dose of naloxone and they would start to wake up. You would see almost immediate signs of consciousness, even though with fentanyl, it might take several more doses, there would be more signs of immediate consciousness. With xylazine, though, we're having to change the way that we look at this, because individuals are not having that immediate noticeable sign of consciousness."
The Health Department can provide training in both naloxone administration and in CPR, so that someone has all the skills needed in this emergency.
"Administer the first dose of naloxone, go right to rescue breathing and into chest compressions, if you're comfortable, if you have the training," Dewey said. "Then, go into, after two minutes, administering your second dose of naloxone. This is all after you've already called 911, because an individual needs absolute medical attention. We want to combat the misinformation that there's all of a sudden this new substance that is completely resistant. There's no opioid that is resistant to Narcan."
May 9 is National Fentanyl Awareness Day.
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