Opioids relieve pain and slow breathing through the same mu receptor — so the two rise together, and there is no dose that gives you one without risking the other. Slide the dose on an opioid-naive adult, watch the pain score fall and the respiratory rate follow it down, then reverse an overdose with naloxone.
Opioid-naive adult, post-op
The chest and the waveform move at the patient’s real-time respiratory rate. Watch the pupil.
Set the dosedrag the slider to give morphine
Morphine, IV0 mg
nonetherapeuticoverdose
Pain8of 10
Resp18/min
SpO₂98%
Sedation1POSS
Pupil4.0mm
Naloxone — locked until the patient needs it
Sedation comes first. Rising sedation always precedes respiratory depression — a POSS of 3 is your warning, and it arrives before the respiratory rate falls and long before the pulse oximeter alarms. Assess the patient, not the monitor.
Overdose triad: pinpoint pupils + respiratory depression + depressed consciousness. Naloxone reverses opioids only — it does nothing for benzodiazepines, alcohol, or a non-opioid cause.