individuals can become addicted even after only taking opioid pain meds for a few days. One study found that one in five people given a 10-day supply of opioid painkillers became long-term users. More M.D. Education Needed Don Teater, M.D., medical adviser of the non-profit National Safety Council, says doctors need more education to understand the draw- backs of prescribing opioids. “Doctors get a lot of training in the physical aspects of health, but not the mental aspects,” says Teater, a family physician in North Carolina whose practice focuses on treatment of pain and the treatment of opioid use disorder. “We don’t get training in addiction. Often, a doctor will start a patient on opioid pain med- ication and continue it for awhile. Then if the doctor feels the patient is asking for too much medication, the doctor will cut them off, and abandon them. There needs to be a greater understanding of the emotional component to pain. We also need to have a better under- standing of the disease of addiction.” According to a white paper from the Council, there is little evidence that opioids are helpful when used for chronic pain.
four groups – and by similar levels: 4.3 points in the ibuprofen/acetaminophen group, 4.4 points in the oxycodone/acetaminophen group, 3.5 in the hydrocodone/acetaminophen group and 3.9 in the codeine/acetaminophen group. The researchers said the major limitation of the study is that it had the patients assess their pain only while they were in the emergency department. The study did not evaluate how the ibuprofen/acetaminophen combination would work in comparison to opioids once the patients went home. Also, the participants had a specific type of acute pain – from sprained or broken arms and legs. “Preventing new patients from becoming addicted to opioids may have a greater effect on the opioid epidemic than providing sus- tained treatment to patients already addicted to opioids, in whom it may take many years to achieve recovery,” Demetrio Kyriacou, M.D., a senior editor at JAMA and a professor of emer- gency medicine at Northwestern University, wrote in an accompanying editorial. Yet, as Kyriacou also acknowledges, “stemming the opioid addiction crisis will … require reex- amination of the long-standing assumptions that opioids are superior to
non-opioids in most clinical situations requiring man- agement of moderate to severe pain.” Studies have shown that nearly one-third of adult patients seeking care at U.S. hospital emergency departments are given prescriptions for opioid painkillers, even if their visit was not pain-relat- ed. That is a dangerous practice, since some
“In fact, some evidence shows they may be detri- mental and increase risk of addiction and premature death,” the paper says.
There is little evidence that opioids are helpful when used for chronic pain.
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