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Thursday, November 06, 2003Opioids when taken under clinical supervision are not that dangerous,' says the American Pain Institute's Myers. 'The data tells us that only 3 percent of people who take opioids become addicts. The latest research conclusively shows that the best medicines for the treatment of chronic pain are narcotics. They have less side effects and more benefits than any other type of drug.' More dangerous, contends Myers, are the everyday drugs that pain sufferers turn to when they can't get narcotics. He talks about something called 'suicide by Tylenol': 'When chronic pain patients can't get opioids, they go out and use tremendous amounts of drugs like Tylenol and Motrin, which can cause serious liver and kidney damage. Pain patients are dying from kidney and liver disease because of this.' Nothing in that statement is true. Chronic pain sufferers aren't dying in record numbers from Tylenol overdoses. (Most Tyelonol deaths are intentional overdoses in suicides.) Narcotics don't have less side effects than other pain medication. They're highly addictive and they foster a physical dependence that's difficult to overcome. Just ask Rush Limbaugh. And, they can cause respiratory depression and death. Since the rise of the narcotic advocacy groups several years ago, and the acceptance of the idea that all pain is created equally and that narcotics are "safe", I've had three patients overdose on narcotics in the hospital, two of them under the auspices of "pain management specialists". They kept complaining about pain and kept getting more and more narcotics in response to their complaints until they were comatose from the drugs. (Luckily, they responded to drugs that reverse the side effects of narcotics.) You never see that sort of thing with non-narcotic analgesics. They're prescribed with explicit instructions not to exceed a certain dose. What all those patients had in common was a significant psychosocial component to their pain which went ignored. And that's what's happening in the case of the pain management clinics and doctors under fire. They're ignoring the nuances of pain, and the reality of the medications they promote. posted by Sydney on 11/06/2003 09:48:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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