Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
EMS responders are now frequently reporting 3 trips to the same heroin user in one day, because giving naloxone (Narcan) revives the user so they are coherent enough to refuse transport to the hospital, then they use and OD again, prompting another EMS call, rinse and repeat. Some communities have debating denying the user the right to refuse transport, because once in the hospital, they can be steered to a rehab program (of debatable efficacy, IMHO), while other communities are considering whether to respond for the third call to one user...three strikes and out.
It is a fact that the prohibition on opioid prescriptions has caused deaths from heroin (usually because it's laced with fentanyl or worse, carfentanyl) to skyrocket. Additionally, those who don't die are racking up gargantuan costs--billions of dollars--in the ER as doctors and nurses fight to bring these drug addicts back from the brink. These costs could assist greatly in bankrupting the healthcare system in this country yet still the FDA/DEA will not relent in easing pressure on doctors and pharmacists who want to prescribe painkillers. It's sad, really--the stubbornness and backward thinking in government bodies that regulate this stuff will strangle this country on idealism.
Suffer? Because I can't take NSAIDs due to other medical conditions?
No seriously, what the **** am I supposed to do?
I'm just curious if you have talked to your doc about alternatives? I've heard that gabapentin is better for nerve pain than opioids. Some people get relief from clonapin and I have a friend who took opioids for rheumatoid arthritis for years and just recently got off them because she found that Cannatonic Cannabis Strain oil gives her far more pain relief than vicodin did.
Just hearing my Saturday MD who does PRP/Stem Cells and he had a lot of call in's today with various joint issues. He is always telling people NOT to take opioids and then mentions "they can increase pain".
Just hearing my Saturday MD who does PRP/Stem Cells and he had a lot of call in's today with various joint issues. He is always telling people NOT to take opioids and then mentions "they can increase pain".
That comment is based on a study published last year about morphine causing increased pain in male rats with nerve damage. Even the authors stated that a study in humans needs to be done to test the effects of opioids on pain thresholds in humans.
That comment is based on a study published last year about morphine causing increased pain in male rats with nerve damage. Even the authors stated that a study in humans needs to be done to test the effects of opioids on pain thresholds in humans.
While looking for that I found an interesting article from New England Journal of Medicine, they state that the use of opioids for longer than 8 weeks for chronic pain has questionable benefits, I wouldn't be surprised if that ends up being the guideline that most physicians will adopt. Table 5 of the article lists alternative treatments for chronic pain. MMS: Error
I still haven't seen an explanation for 5% of the people using 80% of the opioids.
How accurate is the pain chart if the level is self determined? I know a woman that screams when she has her blood pressure checked. She would say it is a 9 or 10.
Heroin is the drug of choice in many high schools. Do you think all, most, and in some cases any are using heroin because they can not get opioids for a previous injury or illness?
I really doubt that 100 million people in the US have chronic pain. That is about 30% of the people.
I still haven't seen an explanation for 5% of the people using 80% of the opioids.
How accurate is the pain chart if the level is self determined? I know a woman that screams when she has her blood pressure checked. She would say it is a 9 or 10.
Heroin is the drug of choice in many high schools. Do you think all, most, and in some cases any are using heroin because they can not get opioids for a previous injury or illness?
I really doubt that 100 million people in the US have chronic pain. That is about 30% of the people.
Don't doubt it.
Quote:
Chronic Pain 100 million Americans Institute of Medicine of The National Academies (2)
I could cite a dozen more from reputable sources showing the same statistic.
The 80% figure you use is old, probably from 2000 or so when opioid use was at its peak. I doubt it is even half that with every doctor, even pain clinics, quaking in their boots at the threats the DEA has been leveling against them if they prescribe painkillers. Even pharmacists are terrified because of threats to them and to manufactures to cut back on the amount of opioid painkillers they make:
1. No industry as big as Big Pharma just sits back like they did, without some form of compensation.
2. The reason prohibition was repealed is because it's very easy to make alcohol. Every Italian in my grandfather's Italian neighborhood was making wine in their tub during prohibition. A person cannot make opioids so likely Prohibition on opioid painkillers will stay. We'd better get used to it.
3. Deaths from heroin could quadruple and the FDA still woudn't repeal the prohibition on prescription opioids. This is a seismic policy shift that the FDA has the power to keep in place because the ordinary person cannot circumvent it unless they go to the streets and most pain sufferers won't go.
Well, if govt paid off the pharma industry to keep quiet on the new drug laws, the details of that need to be made public, if that ever got out, it would cause MAJOR legal problems, Plus, the pay off amount would have had to been astronomical for pharma, they could barely keep production up to meet how many scripts doctors were writing..That is ALOT of revenue they will never see, probably close to a trillion over the span of a decade or so.(this is something Im going to look into, to see if I can find anything about a payoff to the pharma industry)
2. anyone can grow the poppies that produce the narcotic alkaloid, they even grow wild in some parts of the southwest. Ive even read of some pain sufferers doing this for relief.
3. Many people in serious pain ARE resorting to the streets to get relief, these are people who would have never done this in the past, but are now forced to if they do not want to live in pain, so the new laws have done nothing but drive 100s of 1000s of new customers to the drug cartels.
Repealing the laws is pointless, the damage is already done, even if they were repealed and doctors could start writing scripts for them, the pain pills would not be strong enough for what these people are now used to, someone using heroin daily, a percocet or vicoden will do absolutely nothing for them, they wont even feel it.
The 80% figure you use is old, probably from 2000 or so when opioid use was at its peak. I doubt it is even half that with every doctor, even pain clinics, quaking in their boots at the threats the DEA has been leveling against them if they prescribe painkillers. Even pharmacists are terrified because of threats to them and to manufactures to cut back on the amount of opioid painkillers they make:
Half of US counties had a decrease in the amount of opioids (MME's*) prescribed per person from 2010 to 2015
The MME* prescribed per person in 2015 was about 3 times as high as in 1999.
*MME, morphine milligram equivalents, is a way to calculate the total amount of opioids, accounting for differences in opioid drug type and strength
While looking for that I found an interesting article from New England Journal of Medicine, they state that the use of opioids for longer than 8 weeks for chronic pain has questionable benefits, I wouldn't be surprised if that ends up being the guideline that most physicians will adopt. Table 5 of the article lists alternative treatments for chronic pain. MMS: Error
You do realize that a large number of patients on long-term opioids only ended up on them after they'd tried everything on that chart, and more, for months or years?
Quote:
Originally Posted by thinkalot
How accurate is the pain chart if the level is self determined? I know a woman that screams when she has her blood pressure checked. She would say it is a 9 or 10.
That 1-10 pain scale is complete BS. A nurse asks a patient to rate their pain, and the patient pulls a number out of a hat.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
