MEDICAL ANIMATION TRANSCRIPT: Opioids are drugs that are prescribed to treat moderately severe or severe pain. Fentanyl is a strong synthetic opioid. It may be prescribed to treat severe pain from cancer or after surgery. Its potency, or strength, is up to fifty times that of heroin, an illegal opioid, and one hundred times that of morphine, another opioid used to treat severe pain. In order to understand how opioids like fentanyl work, it’s important to know how your body feels pain. The process begins when something harmful happens to your body. Information about this harm is converted to a nerve signal. The signal passes along nerves to your spinal cord and brain. In your brain, the signal is perceived as pain. Fentanyl affects how you feel pain. It attaches to structures, called opioid receptors. These receptors are found in cells in your brain, spinal cord, and other areas of your body. Fentanyl acts on these receptors to make you feel less pain. Fentanyl can also have other effec...