Long-Term Prescription Opioid Use and Doctor Response

The most recent issue of Pain Pathways magazine (Summer 2012) covered the recommendations for patients on long-term opioid therapy.  The original article may be found by reading below.

“Medication monitoring such as urine drug screening helps physicians stanch the growing number of prescription painkiller overdoses.  In a report late last year, the Centers for Disease Control estimated that the number of annual overdoses from narcotic pain relievers such as Vicodin, oxycontin, Opana, and methadone are at more than 20,000.  The CDC has called this a “public health epidemic”.

Ameritox, a national leader in pain medication monitoring, has provided an unrestricted grant to the Jefferson School of Population Health for the development of consensus recommendations for patients on long-term opioid therapy. 

Recommendations seek to bring uniformity to the use of pain medication monitoring, a tool that many physicians use to aid treatment decisions for patients on chronic opioid therapy.  The recommendations also spell out how a physician treating chronic pain patients can determine which patients to test, how frequently to monitor and what clinicians should do in response to abnormal test results.  For instance, the consensus calls for drug monitoring a patient with medium to high risk of misuse at least four times a year.

The consensus recommendations could help improve adherence and reduce misuse, abuse, and diversion of powerful painkillers.”

            Attorney Doug Stoehr is a personal injury lawyer in Altoona, PA that serves the central and western PA regions.  He helps many clients who have chronic pain as a result of an accident due to the fault of another.  For more information on his law practice, please visit his website at http://www.stoehrlaw.com or call his office at 814-946-4100.

Interview with Doctor About Opioid Usage and Chronic Pain

In the media website, Medpage Today, a recent transcribed interview with a doctor was published talking about the subject of opioid use and chronic pain.  According to the article, in the past twenty or so years, the number of opioid prescriptions for chronic pain has increased significantly and, consequently, instances of prescription opioid abuse have also increased dramatically. It has been said that opioid analgesics result in more overdose fatalities than cocaine and heroin combined. 


Physicians should take note of this trend and consider non-opioid prescriptions to manage pain before they begin to prescribe the stronger and more addictive opioid medications.  Vicodin, Oxycontin/oxycodone, methadone, and hydromorphone are some of the most commonly prescribed opioid medications.  Informed and responsible healthcare professionals should discuss common side effects of these drugs, assess patients for potential risk for addiction, and give them warning signs when one of their drugs is leading to a dangerous side effect.  Physicians may also choose to engage a patient in a medication contract (in which a patient and doctor agree to such terms as no early refills, mandatory drug tests, etc.), psychological evaluation, and urine screening for those patients planning to use opioids for long-term pain management. 

It is important for doctors and patients to work together to manage chronic pain and possible opioid prescriptions responsibly and ethically.  Attorney Doug Stoehr sees frequent cases in which chronic pain has resulted from an accident due to the fault of another.  If you or a loved one are now experiencing chronic pain after an accident, please contact our firm to schedule a consultation and discuss your legal options.

Seniors Prescribed Medication That Is Too Strong

An article by the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel did an extensive research piece on the rising trend of seniors and narcotics use to control chronic pain.  According to the article, opioid dispersal to people aged 60 and over has increased by over 30% since 2007; this is double the growth for prescriptions dispensed in the age bracket directly below that (ages 40-59).  Interestingly, as quoted from the article, " In 2009, the American Geriatrics Society joined others in advocating for greater opioid use to treat chronic pain in seniors, especially those 75 and older. The group's guidelines are a key reference for thousands of doctors on the front line of medicine. The new guidelines recommended that over-the-counter pain relievers, such as ibuprofen and naproxen, be used rarely and that doctors instead consider prescribing opioids for all patients with moderate to severe pain."  The members of the panel recommending these guidelines said that they relied only on personal experience and their own research, which they admitted was weak.  Additionally, at least half of these panel members had finanical ties to prescription drug companies that sell and manufacture opiates.  The panel members said they relied on research and their own experience in revising the guidelines, acknowledging "existing weak scientific evidence."


Interestingly, seniors who were prescribed these opioid drugs said that they felt the medication was too strong for their medical complaints.   For the elderly, frequent use of these drugs can lead to dangerous side effects such as falling (and subsequently fracturing bones), getting into car accidents, overdosing, and memory and cognition problems.   Side effects include overdosing, increased risk of falls and fractures in older people, serious cognitive problems and a condition in which opioids actually cause worsening pain.

If you or an elderly loved one feels that you have been wrongly prescribed a painkiller that is too strong, you may need to consult a trained physician about your complaints. Attorney Doug Stoehr is a personal injury lawyer specializing in automobile accidents and elder abuse and neglect.  For more information on his firm, please click here.

New Medication Options For Chronic Pain

Many sufferers of chronic pain cite that one of their most common and persistent complaints is the inability to find an effective pain management regimen.  Most pain management treatment is multi-faceted, and involves not only medication, but physical/occupational therapy, massage therapy, and exercise.  However, most patients rely on medication daily to help ease or eliminate the bulk of their pain problems.  Effective medication dosage and type is different for every person, but many patients cannot find true relief with any combination of prescription and over-the-counter medications.

 

 Due to the high rate of chronic pain sufferers, many scientists are looking further into how chronic pain occurs and affects the body.  By knowing how chronic pain symptoms persist in people, scientists will be able to develop more effective drugs to treat the condition.  Interestingly, a recent article came out in nature.com that explained some new research pertaining to chronic pain drug options.  Referencing research data from Science magazine, the article explained that a study was done that has shown that very high dosages of opiate medications can greatly reduce or completely relieve chronic pain symptoms in most patients.  By exposing the irregular chronic pain nerve pathways to high amounts of opiates, it can somewhat re-wire those pathways to change how the body perceives pain.   This new research, with further testing, could prove to be the most promising answer to truly eliminating chronic pain.

If you would like more information about this page or Attorney Stoehr's areas of practice, contact our Altoona, Pennsylvania, law firm by calling 814-946-4100.