Posted on 03/25/2023 8:37:22 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
Receiving medication for opioid use disorders, such as buprenorphine after an overdose, leads to lower mortality risk, according to a study.
Drug overdose deaths are a significant public health concern. Researchers found that opioid-involved overdose deaths following nonfatal overdose events are largely preventable with buprenorphine medication for opioid use disorder.
The medication, approved by the FDA, is a highly effective treatment for opioid use disorder that can be prescribed or dispensed in physician offices. However, fewer than one in 20 individuals studied received buprenorphine after experiencing a nonfatal opioid overdose, according to the study.
"Within the health care system, we need to expand availability and use of buprenorphine in general medical settings, including emergency departments and telehealth visits, and to continue working to reduce the stigma associated with substance use disorder and medication treatment more broadly," said Hillary Samples.
The study used national Medicare beneficiary data to identify adults with disabilities ages 18 to 64 years who received inpatient or emergency treatment for nonfatal opioid overdose from 2008 to 2016.
Analyses examined patterns of opioid use disorder treatment after surviving a nonfatal overdose to estimate the relationship of buprenorphine medication and psychosocial services with risk of overdose death in the following year.
Researchers found that receiving buprenorphine after a nonfatal opioid overdose was associated with a 62 percent reduction in the risk of subsequent opioid overdose death. The findings highlight a need to initiate potentially lifesaving treatment following nonfatal opioid overdoses because these events are strong risk factors for repeat overdose and death.
Current evidence on opioid use disorder treatment after opioid overdose consistently shows low uptake of medication for opioid use disorder such as buprenorphine, including less than 5 percent of patients in this study.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
“Buprenorphine after nonfatal opioid overdose found to result in reduced risk of overdose death”
First thought: If they already didn’t die from the overdose, how does it reduce the risk of overdose death? It’s like giving cpr to someone who didn’t drown and claiming you saved their life.
The whole article reads weird, but maybe because I’m tired and it’s late.
This is an ongoing treatment, I presume. Does it make users not want to do opioids any more, or does it convey some resistance to dying from using?
My experience has been that if an addict is dead set on killing themselves with drugs not much can stop them.
CC
It sounds like if you survive an OD, just take this medicine to increase your chance of death by 38%. Ah, the wonders of science!
I imagine, an user overdoses. Later, he receives medical attention. Once he receives the drug, his chance of dying is a fraction of what it was the second before receiving it.
Overdosing means that you took enough to have a blood level that is considered dangerous.
So, it's nonfatal in the sense that you just haven't died yet. Okay, I can see that. Still seems poorly written but I'm not the target audience.
It is a drug therapy that stops continued use.
Yes, imagine your friend takes a lot of a drug and loses consciousness. You bring a doctor. He gives your friend the drug. Now his risk of dying is lower than before the doctor came.
The problem is that they are just a replacement for other opioids, and it's not easy to be off of them either.
This should be banned along with narcan when it comes to drug addicts. Let the idiots die.
They make sense in accidental overdoses with kids etc.
“Let the idiots (addicts) die.”
That’s kinda my point of view. Cull the herd.
Yep - I think it’s like using Methadone for heroin addicts - it supposedly eases the cravings, but can be fatal itself - I knew two folks, personally, who died of Methadone ODs...it’s just that using it supposedly keeps one more aware....
Just another way to make money off another drug that ain’t a solution.
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