The following American Article talks about promising non-opioid treatments on the horizon for chronic pain, however, of particular note the Author highlights the following: “We now believe that aggressive, appropriate treatment of acute pain after surgery may prevent persistent postoperative chronic pain.” Why has this trend of “undertreatment” only been noticed & reported in relatively … Read more
Myth 1: Opioids do not work for neuropathic pain. Fact: While some opioid medications may not be effective for neuropathic pain, others have different mechanisms that may help reduce neuropathic pain. Examples include methadone, tramadol and levorphanol. Myth 2: Opioids always cause unwanted side effects. Fact: Some individuals experience side effects from opioids, such as … Read more
“Painaustralia has today issued a media release calling on the government to undertake a reset of the 2020 opioid reforms. Painaustralia’s plea to the Federal Government is supported by Professor Paul Glare, one of Australia’s leading pain management researchers and clinicians and a director of the Pain Foundation. ‘People who have been on long-term opioids … Read more
It has been a while since I’ve had the pleasure of writing up a scientific study on chronic pain. Not because I believe that there isn’t a need to do this work, but because I am living with severe, daily pain, chronic illness and all the other mechanics of life – family, work, money. I … Read more
In the United Kingdom ‘The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has not taken into account the experience of thousands of patients in the advice it gives on tapering the dose when discontinuing certain medicines, according to a group of parliamentarians. In its response to the publication of NICE guidance on how to … Read more
This is a very large study with 2,021,371 participants. It looked at patients who were prescribed an opioid for pain and examined how many people continued to take them long-term (what they defined as ‘addiction’) (3.17%) and how many experienced an opioid overdose (0.055%). It’s clear that persistent use, which they have used to define … Read more
Opioid overdose in the chronic pain community is vanishingly rare, as is addction
The study demonstrates that most overdoses are due to polypharmacy, not due to opioids alone and the numbers of ‘opioid’ induced deaths are inflated by including all deaths where opioids were found on toxicology, but may not have been the cause of death.:
Many current assumptions about opioid analgesics are ill-founded. Illicit fentanyl and heroin, not opioid prescribing, now fuel the current opioid overdose epidemic. National discussion has often neglected the potentially devastating effects of uncontrolled chronic pain. Opioid analgesic prescribing and related overdoses are in decline, at great cost to patients with pain who have benefited or may benefit from, but cannot access, opioid analgesic therapy.
This meta-analysis of FDA-required double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials of opioid analgesics for the treatment of chronic pain has shown that there is an ample evidence base supporting the efficacy of opioid analgesics for at least 3 months’ duration, a standard period for the evaluation of treatments for chronic pain and other chronic disorders