QLexNursing

✅ Opioid overdose causes central nervous system depression, which slows many body functions, including the heart rate, so bradycardia is expected.

✅ Opioids increase vagal tone and reduce sympathetic outflow, contributing to a slower pulse rather than a fast one.

✅ Opioids slow gastrointestinal motility, leading to reduced peristalsis, so constipation is a classic chronic side effect and can be present in overdose.

✅ The combination of decreased level of consciousness, respiratory depression, and bradycardia is highly consistent with opioid toxicity.

✅ Chronic opioid use commonly results in persistent constipation, so in a client who has taken a double dose, constipation is very likely to be present or worsened.

Hypertension

✅ Opioids are more likely to cause hypotension due to vasodilation and decreased sympathetic tone, not sustained hypertension.

✅The clinical picture of respiratory depression and CNS depression aligns more with low blood pressure than elevated blood pressure.

Tachypnea

✅Opioid toxicity depresses the respiratory center, causing bradypnea or respiratory depression, not tachypnea.

✅An increased rate of breathing is more commonly seen with anxiety, hypoxia, or stimulant use, not with opioids.

Hyperkinesis

✅Hyperkinesis (excessive movement, restlessness) is associated with stimulant drugs, not depressants like opioids.

✅ Opioid toxicity typically presents with sedation, head nodding, and decreased motor activity, not increased.

Mydriasis

✅ Classic opioid toxicity produces miosis (pinpoint pupils), not mydriasis (dilated pupils).

✅ Dilated pupils are more characteristic of sympathetic stimulation or anticholinergic drugs, not pure opioid overdose.