Prevention is Key to beating the opioid epidemicRecovering addict: Opioid epidemic will be endless if we don't do this The link above is from a CNN article.The opioid epidemic is a shared responsibility between patients and physicians alike. Physicians have never been comfortable with managing chronic pain, so it has always been easier to write a prescription for pain pills rather than spending hours arranging interventions like physical therapy, exercise prescriptions, and arranging wellness plans. Patients may have received medications and misused them because they made them feel better, more energetic, less depressed, or a multitude of other reasons. I have another blog on http://addictiondomain.com that has several discussions of the dangers of opioid prescriptions. Minor injuries or surgeries have resulted in opioid addictions for susceptible and unsuspecting people and ruins their lives. That said, we must now consider functional success with pain management rather than a pain scale : "Yes, you have pain, but can you function well in life?" is the key. Physicians need to assess the outcomes of pain treatment and discuss with patients the risk of opioid addiction. Prescription monitoring programs will certainly help with this monitoring as well.
Recovering addict: Opioid epidemic will be endless if we don't do this The link above is from a CNN article.The opioid epidemic is a shared responsibility between patients and physicians alike. Physicians have never been comfortable with managing chronic pain, so it has always been easier to write a prescription for pain pills rather than spending hours arranging interventions like physical therapy, exercise prescriptions, and arranging wellness plans. Patients may have received medications and misused them because they made them feel better, more energetic, less depressed, or a multitude of other reasons. I have another blog on http://addictiondomain.com that has several discussions of the dangers of opioid prescriptions. Minor injuries or surgeries have resulted in opioid addictions for susceptible and unsuspecting people and ruins their lives. That said, we must now consider functional success with pain management rather than a pain scale : "Yes, you have pain, but can you function well in life?" is the key. Physicians need to assess the outcomes of pain treatment and discuss with patients the risk of opioid addiction. Prescription monitoring programs will certainly help with this monitoring as well.
