After a recent operation, I started taking opioid painkillers – and realised a horrible truth
6 years, 8 months ago

After a recent operation, I started taking opioid painkillers – and realised a horrible truth

The Independent  

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Since my knee replacement operation 17 days ago, I’ve worked diligently at my mobility, icing the new joint four times a day and attempting to work through a chart of exercises in spite of the pain. Earlier this year, I wrote about the over-use of painkillers in the UK – and I worry that sooner or later our doctors will follow their counterparts in the US and start prescribing strong laxatives to opioid addicts, ie anyone who is on Tramadol or a very high dose of codeine for more than three months. Take a look at the advertising video for one constipation drug on YouTube, entitled “Erica’s Movantik Moment” – which could be a comedy sketch were it not for real. This pill costs about $10 a day, and the side effects are listed as “opioid withdrawal”, sweating, stomach cramps, diarrhoea… and so on.

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History of this topic

I Took Oxy And Fentanyl For Years. Here's What No One Is Telling You About The Opioid Crisis.
1 year, 8 months ago

I Took Oxy And Fentanyl For Years. Here's What No One Is Telling You About The Opioid Crisis.

Huff Post  

The author in the hospital in 2013 just before her high-dose chemotherapy began. I was one of the millions of Americans who needed high doses of opioids while unscrupulous pharmaceutical companies lied and encouraged doctors to over-prescribe OxyContin, while “pill mills” distributed these addictive medications far and wide, and while illegally produced Fentanyl found its way into street drugs like …

I Took Oxy And Fentanyl For Years. Here's What No One Is Telling You About The Opioid Crisis.
2 years, 2 months ago

I Took Oxy And Fentanyl For Years. Here's What No One Is Telling You About The Opioid Crisis.

Huff Post  

The author in the hospital in 2013 just before her high-dose chemotherapy began. I was one of the millions of Americans who needed high doses of opioids while unscrupulous pharmaceutical companies lied and encouraged doctors to over-prescribe OxyContin, while “pill mills” distributed these addictive medications far and wide, and while illegally produced Fentanyl found its way into street drugs like …

Experts concerned about last year's sudden increase in opioid use
2 years, 9 months ago

Experts concerned about last year's sudden increase in opioid use

NL Times  

Last year, use of the heavy painkiller oxycodone increased sharply after years of decline. Loneliness from the coronavirus pandemic could also play a role in the sustained use of the painkillers, since they can also make people experiencing trauma feel better temporarily, said Kees Kramers, internist-clinical pharmacologist at Radboudumc and professor of Medicine Safety. The Appropriate Use of Opioids task …

Most people don't realise long-term opioid use can make pain worse, research finds
4 years, 9 months ago

Most people don't realise long-term opioid use can make pain worse, research finds

ABC  

Key points: New research has found many Australians are unaware that taking opioids can actually make pain worse NPS MedicineWise says as many as 150 people are hospitalised due to harm from pharmaceutical opioids every day Since June 1, opioid package sizes have been halved, and doctors have been forced to review prescriptions more regularly When doctors prescribed pain medication …

Opioids offer little chronic pain benefit and wane over time, study says
6 years, 3 months ago

Opioids offer little chronic pain benefit and wane over time, study says

CNN  

CNN — For adults with chronic pain, opioids offer narrow improvements over a placebo for pain and physical functioning, on average, according to a new analysis published Tuesday. “The benefits of opioids for managing chronic pain tend to be quite modest,” said study author Jason Busse, associate professor in the department of anesthesia at McMaster University’s school of medicine in …

Is There A Way To Keep Using Opioid Painkillers And Reduce Risk?
7 years, 4 months ago

Is There A Way To Keep Using Opioid Painkillers And Reduce Risk?

NPR  

Is There A Way To Keep Using Opioid Painkillers And Reduce Risk? "Life wasn't going to be worth living if I couldn't get the pain under control," McHann says. In a viewpoint published last month in JAMA, the journal of the American Medical Association, CDC officials wrote that while illicit opioids such as fentanyl seem to be driving the recent …

Op-Ed: The opioid crackdown is making life untenable for chronic pain patients like me
7 years, 5 months ago

Op-Ed: The opioid crackdown is making life untenable for chronic pain patients like me

LA Times  

President Trump recently said that he intends to declare the opioid crisis a national emergency. The rate of misuse is much lower among patients who are prescribed opioid medication for chronic pain — 21% to 29%, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. An even smaller percentage of chronic pain patients develop a disorder — between 8% and 12%. …

A guide to prescribing painkillers ethically
7 years, 6 months ago

A guide to prescribing painkillers ethically

Daily Mail  

America's opioid crisis is getting worse. As a bioethicist working on the ethical and policy issues regarding prescription opioids, I am grateful to the National Academy of Medicine for inviting me to serve on this publication's authorship team, and for taking seriously the ethical component of the prescription opioid crisis. A National Academy of Medicine researcher has written a guide …

Don’t blame the surgeons: Long-term opioid use rarely starts with surgery, study finds
7 years, 7 months ago

Don’t blame the surgeons: Long-term opioid use rarely starts with surgery, study finds

LA Times  

Don’t blame the nation’s surgeons for an opiate-abuse crisis that now claims 142 lives daily in the United States. New research suggests that patients leaving the hospital after surgeries or inpatient procedures are rarely the ones whose long-term opioid use started with a doctor’s prescription. Instead, the patients who most frequently go on to use opioid medications for six months …

Powerful painkillers for back pain like morphine and tramadol are 'NOT effective and can be dangerous'
8 years, 10 months ago

Powerful painkillers for back pain like morphine and tramadol are 'NOT effective and can be dangerous'

Daily Mail  

Doctors estimate opioid painkillers are prescribed in roughly 40 per cent of cases of back pain Powerful painkillers doled out in their millions are ineffective against back pain, experts have warned. A major review of clinical evidence suggests that opioid painkillers - which include tramadol, oxycodone and morphine - provide ‘minimal benefit’ for low back pain. ‘When you look closely …

Opioids are bad medicine for chronic pain, say new federal guidelines
9 years ago

Opioids are bad medicine for chronic pain, say new federal guidelines

LA Times  

Federal health officials speaking in unusually blunt terms Tuesday called on the American medical community to turn away from treating common ailments with highly addictive painkillers, saying the nation’s prescription drug epidemic was a “doctor-driven” crisis. About 250 million painkiller prescriptions were written in 2013, enough, the agency noted, “for every American adult to have a bottle of pills.” In …

Take as Prescribed: Drug Addiction in the US
9 years, 5 months ago

Take as Prescribed: Drug Addiction in the US

Al Jazeera  

Fault Lines explores what is behind the growing number of elderly Americans becoming addicted to painkillers. by Dr Andrew Kolodny, Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing Americans “I was taking exactly what the doctor prescribed, when the doctor prescribed, how the doctor prescribed,” says Larry Moore, who calls himself an “accidental addict.” He said he wasted years of his life in …

When A Prescription For Pain Pills Becomes A Gateway To Addiction
11 years, 1 month ago

When A Prescription For Pain Pills Becomes A Gateway To Addiction

NPR  

When A Prescription For Pain Pills Becomes A Gateway To Addiction Enlarge this image Katherine Streeter for NPR Katherine Streeter for NPR On the surface, the 39-year-old construction worker looks like any other patient with back pain. And while there may be some doctors who knowingly prescribe too many painkillers, most are like me and struggle with how to responsibly …

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