Posted on 01/30/2019 6:16:51 AM PST by GailA
Gross over-regulation of doctors in their prescription of opioid pain relievers is driving hundreds out of practice, deserting their patients to agony, disability and sometimes death by suicide. However, despite the protestations of many State and Federal regulators, “the opioid problem” isn’t from over-prescription. Rates of opioid related mortality from all sources are almost entirely unrelated to rates of physician prescribing. The contribution of medically managed opioids is so small that it gets lost in the noise of street drugs. Published data of the CDC prove this reality beyond any reasonable contradiction.
In the relatively few deaths where a prescription-type drug is found in postmortem toxicology screens, it is rarely found alone. Instead, it will be accompanied by multiple illegal street drugs and/or alcohol. Likewise, morphine found in such testing maybe a byproduct of heroin metabolism, rather than a prescribed drug. Although we can’t say this is “proof” of anything, it seems at least plausible that significant numbers of deaths attributed by county medical examiners to prescription drugs are in fact the consequences of suicide or misadventure from under-treated pain and depression, rather than from medical exposure to opioids.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpainreport.com ...
We must acknowledge that small numbers of patients treated with opioids for long periods at high doses will develop dependence, displaying withdrawal symptoms and/or breakthrough pain when opioids are rapidly tapered. Much smaller numbers will develop full-fledged addiction, characterized by obsessive drug seeking behaviors. From multiple studies, we know that substance abuse disorder or chronic prescribing in post-surgical patients treated with opioids is uncommon (less than 0.6% for substance abuse, with up to 6%of post-surgical patients needing prolonged prescribing — due to emergence of chronic pain from failed surgeries, not because of substance abuse). Other studies fix the rate of overdose death from prescriptions at about 0.2% per year – comparable to mortality from blood thinners prescribed to prevent atrial fibrillation after stroke.
Try getting some from the VA these days.
The irony here is rich.
Many of those who now face restrictions on their addiction are those who have been strong advocates in the War on Drugs.
And anyone doing 10mg a day, or more, of opioids...every day...for months on end...IS AN ADDICT.
The issue is that people become addicted while taking prescription opiates, and turn to street drugs because they are so much cheaper and more potent. Statistics on deaths from overdose do not necessarily include data on how the addiction occurred.
I have a prescription for opiates right now, 2 mg tablets. They make me feel loopy. There are warnings in the use instruction about how they can cause addiction.
Try getting some from the VA these days....
They have a pain clinic where they can teach you yoga and mindfulness.
Be very very careful...this is how it starts.
A close friend of mine was on them after a car accident.
A year later she was an addict, she lost her job and 15 years later still struggles with it.
And anyone doing 10mg a day, or more, of opioids...every day...for months on end...IS AN ADDICT.
40 years ago after a real bad motorcycle accident causing major roadrash requiring extensive skin grafting I started taking Percodan at 1 pill every 3-4 hours, by the end of the 3 month wait for surgery I was taking 4 every hour!! COmpletely addicted.
As soon as I woke up from surgery, all pain was gone and I spent the next 2 weeks in the hospital going through withdrawls. Unfortunately they don’t let you get clean in the Hospital after surgery anymore like they did in the 70’s
Yesterdays Oxycontin
Percodan:
Oxycodone/aspirin is a combination drug marketed by Endo Pharmaceuticals. It is a tablet containing a mixture of 325 mg of aspirin and 4.8355 mg of oxycodone HCl; it is an opioid/non-opioid combination used to treat moderate to moderately severe pain.
I am taking them according to the bottle instructions.
I have taken them for two weeks when I broke my arm, several years ago. At the end, I couldn’t stand them any more.
Thank you for your concern.
Nonsense.
I don’t know anyone who has been addicted to blood thinners but I know several who have died from heroin OD and they all started started on prescription Opioids.
There is a 60 Min piece (one of the very few good ones) who went to Amsterdam 10 years apart to talk to heroin addicts.
Every one of them from the first show were dead.
Prescription Opioids are pretty much the same formulation.
Rush Limbaugh was addicted to OxyContin and lost his hearing from his addiction, I can’t remember why he started taking them in the first place or what injury or pain he was suffering from but him losing his hearing was just horrible considering what he does for a living!!!
Personally, I have never bought into the "opioid crisis" line.
Before I left the school board a couple of years ago, they passed (over my objection) an intrusive policy to spy on American kids .... I mean to prevent the opioid crisis from looming larger, which had yet to surface in our little rural corner of SW Pa.
There was a rasher of newspaper articles about opioid OD's and seizures ... which just sort of disappeared after about 6 months.
I of course forgot about it until I read this article this morning.
I DO blame public schools for developing numbed and stupid people that buy into every fear imaginable so that politicians can pass legislation to further enslave us.
Consider the recent "shutdown" and the "We don't need the TSA anymore" stories coming out now.
Many of us argued we never DID, but it was post 911 and there wasn't much anyone could do about THAT momentum.
I lost a niece to OD related to opioid addiction, and know of at least 3 young men (late 20’s, sons of friends), who are currently battling opioid addiction with very limited success.
I expect that, in some demographics, the problem is much more widespread, and not buying that it is a “fake crisis”.
That’s what the article addresses and says that the CDC info proves it’s not the case.
He had injured his back, IIRC.
Back injuries can be quite painful.
When I have gone to the doctor (military system) for musculoskeletal injuries, they have sent me to physical therapy. So, when I feel back pain coming on, I do the exercises. By toning the muscles around the joint, they help to stabilize the joint.
I’ve only taken opioids for surgery pain.
“And if a patient NEEDS 10mg p/day for pain, is he an addict also ?”
Absolutely. Inarguable.
And I am hard pressed to understand what situation requires that much dope, and for which an alternative is not available.
Other than cancer at end of life.
There’s probably 10 million addicts that will say “nothing else works” in order to preserve their addiction.
I only see a blog article, written by someone who claims to have a Ph.D. but I cannot find his major on the website. There are no references to source data in the blog, which raises big red warning flags to me. If he is mentioning a CDC report, but does not reference or link to it, how can anyone verify his claims? Such a blog may be entirely self-serving.
One of the subjects that we investigate at the research institution where I work is, in fact, opioid addictions. We had a summit a year ago, in which experts from across the spectrum (medical, law enforcement, emergency responders, behavioral health, etc.) gave presentations on the different aspects of opioid addiction, including how many people get hooked as a result of over prescription. I remember that it is a significant fraction of the total number of addicts, possibly as high as 4/5 of addictions. It is a real problem.
"medically managed opioids" are a source of street drugs. The two are linked, not separate.
I see that you are correct about supporting data. I am going to try to contact him to see if he can provide it.
“I have a prescription for opiates right now, 2 mg tablets. They make me feel loopy.”
You have judged that feeling loopy is better than enduring your otherwise pain. I think I’d reach the same conclusion.
The author of the article almost suggests that doctors’ limiting opiate prescriptions is a bad thing because it leads patients to get illegal drugs.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.