Another large international Study [Canadian], which highlights how force-tapering or “Discontinuing opioid therapy for people with chronic pain raises the risk of a patient dying from an overdose.” YET in Australia, our recently released National Pain Survey showed that over 1 in 4 Australians with Chronic Pain [i.e. 26%!] have experienced enforced opioid tapering since … Read more
https://apnews.com/article/science-health-medication-opioids-robert-califf-92ce45d2c37a53cdaf7bfac051d71eb6?fbclid=IwAR10Vu_6KdSOeDnamVJBxthmmOrpkDhYYxqdh10VKn9vVriMA8nnrU3vqGo The above Article states: “Last year, U.S. overdose deaths soared to a record of 107,000, driven overwhelmingly by fentanyl and other illegal opioids.” The biggest problem in America is illicit fentanyl from China, entering via the Mexican border, which comprises up to 80% of their “opioid” overdoses. Sadly, many deaths were chronic pain patients, … 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
An oft-reported reason why doctors are force-tapering chronic non-cancer pain patients off their opioid pain-relieving medications is that they are NOT safe long term. The main concerns are addiction and overdose. This page is dealing with the evidence on overdose risk, and I’m addressing the evidence on addiction on this page. A common reason for … Read more
The prescription “opioid crisis” response in America, triggered by their Centre for Disease Control, has clearly harmed the chronic pain patient population (forced tapers, suicides etc), and we certainly don’t want this flawed approach coming to Australian shores! American authorities & policymakers have finally realised their error and are now trying to reverse some of the harm done. In fact, the authors of CDC guidelines acknowledge they’ve been misapplied and even admitted “we know little about the benefits and harms of reducing high dosages of opioids in patients who are physically dependent on them.”
Reading through the multitude of articles based on the Pennington Institute’s Annual Overdose report, much reporting is glossing over the very important fact that HEROIN is now the cause of most opioid deaths.
The Pennington Institute’s Australia’s Annual Overdose report was released today, and along with it a flurry of media stories on opioids, and how many Australian’s are dying every year due to overdoses. In every article, chronic pain patients are included in the same patient group as those with substance abuse disorders, and never is there any mention of the therapeutic value of opioids, or that thousands of chronic non-cancer pain patients take opioid pain medications safely long term to effectively manage their severe pain conditions.