How Narcan Reverses Opioid Overdoses

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Sept. 23, 2024 – Narcan, also known as Naloxone, is a critical tool to fight overdoses. It rapidly reverses the potentially fatal effects of opioids in the body, but how does it do that? In over 30 years as an emergency physician, I’ve probably given thousands of doses of Narcan — and if you’ve ever seen how effectively it reverses the effect of an opioid overdose it might seem almost like magic. That’s how effective it can be.

We have receptors throughout our bodies that opiates — like morphine or heroin — lock onto and activate. When those receptors are turned on by an opiate, signals get sent through our nerves and our brain, where different effects are triggered. In our thinking brain, the effect is calm and sleepiness, but in our brainstem, the effect can be to slow or even stop someone’s breathing.

That’s where the danger happens and that’s where Narcan comes in. Narcan has a stronger attraction for opiate receptors than the opiate so it knocks the opiate off and attaches to the receptor without activating it. It then blocks opiates from having any effect and when that happens in the brainstem, the person will begin breathing again.