Opioids And Sleep Essay

Opioid use in the US has increased over the years, and this has led to an increase in substance abuse. Substance abuse is not only associated with use of illicit drugs but also prescription drugs. In 2015, of the 20.5 million reported cases of substance abuse, 2 million had an abuse disorder related to prescription pain relievers and 591,000 associated with heroin.1 The increase in substance abuse disorder has led to an increase in opioid related death. In 2015 drug overdose was the leading cause of accidental death in the US with 52, 404 lethal drug overdoses.2

Opioid addiction is so prevalent in the healthcare system because of the countless number of hospital patients being treated for chronic pain. While opioid analgesics have beneficial painkilling properties, they also yield detrimental dependence and addiction. There is a legitimate need for the health care system to provide powerful medications because prolonged pain limits activities of daily living, work productivity, quality of life, etc. (Taylor, 2015). Patients need to receive appropriate pain treatment, however, opioids need to be prescribed after careful consideration of the benefits and risks.

In America, the use of opioids is at an all time high, it has became such an issue nationwide, that it has became an epidemic. Because of the opioid epidemic, America is tearing apart, children all across the country are dying everyday, these children are dying from overdoses due to poisoning. The opioid problem is not just because of a person's decision to pick up a needle or a pill bottle, but it is because in the 1990’s doctors gave up on trying to treat patients for their overwhelming pain and discomfort, causing opioids to become over prescribed. Due to the carelessness of America, opioids are being distributed more and more everyday, causing the skyrocketing number of deaths.

In the last two decades, opioid addiction started affecting more and more Americans. But who is at fault for this epidemic? The pharmaceutical companies. They make and distribute their drugs to doctors and pharmacies and are making billions off the American worker’s dollar. All while, lying to doctors about these miracle drugs effectiveness and advocating against protective measures for the drugs.

The Opioid Epidemic in Canada and the USA and its Effects on the Health of the Affected Communities

The United States of America has had a war against drugs since the 37th president, Richard Nixon, declared more crimination on drug abuse in June 1971. From mid-1990s to today, a crisis challenges the health department and government on opioid regulation, as millions of Americans die due overdoses of painkillers. Opioids are substances used as painkillers, and they range from prescription medications to the illegal drug, heroin. Abusing these substances can cause a dependency or addiction, which can lead to overdoses, physical damages, emotional trauma, and death. To ease the crisis, physicians are asked to depend on alternatives to pain management. Law enforcement cracks down on profiting drug-dealers and heroin abusers. People are warned against misusing opioids. The controversy begins for those who suffer from chronic pain, because they depend on opioids. There’s so a correlation to the 1980s cocaine epidemic, and people are upset over racial discrimination. Nonetheless, the best way to avoid this crisis is to recover the people at risk, reduce inappropriate opioid description, and have a proper response.

"If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exaltation of affection and make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant, and if this heavenly, world-transfiguring drug were of such a kind that we could wake up next morning with a clear head and an undamaged constitution - then, it seems to me, all our problems (and not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel pleasure) would be wholly solved and earth would become paradise."

Opioids are classified as opium like compounds; some (ex. codeine and morphine) exist naturally in opium, which is a gummy substance derived from the seedpod of the opium poppy, indigenous to Southern Asia. Other opioids are of the synthetic category, such as methadone or fentanyl (opioidaddictionsource.com). Though the use of prescription opioids may be well intended, due to their effect on the brain chemistry, it is fairly common for one to become addicted to them; America is amidst a raging prescription opioid epidemic, in fact.

Considerable cautions have been obtained throughout the United States to decrease the misuse of prescription opioids and helps to minimize opioid overdoses and related complications. Even though the pain medications have a significant part in the treatment of acute and chronic pain situations, it sometimes happen that the high dose prescription or the prescribed medications, without having enough monitoring, can create bad outcomes. It is always a dilemma for the providers to find who is really in need of pain medications and to identify those who are questionably misusing opioids.

The use of opioid-based prescription medications to treat non-terminal chronic pain can cause side effects from short term use, and is overly common and ineffective. Firstly, opioid usage can induce negative short-term effects. According to William A. Darity, Jr., short-term opioid usage causes negative effects such as “euphoria, drowsiness, and impaired motor and cognitive functioning” (“Drugs”). The short term effects of the opioids may cause the patient to isolate him or herself socially due to being self-conscious about his or her friends and peers seeing the individual in their current condition. Due to his or her fragile emotional state, however, if the patient isolates him or herself during a time in which he or she should have increased

The opioid crisis has affected me personally. Three years ago, my biological father overdosed and died. He had been taking a lot of pills ( far more than what was prescribed) for quite some time. He had overdosed multiple times before it finally killed him. My youngest brother (whom my father raised), is unfortunately addicted to heroin now. He is only 21 years old, and sadly I feel he is following in our father's footsteps.

Health care providers have a great responsibility treating individuals with various medical conditions to ensure positive patient outcomes related to physical and psychological functioning. The most common condition patients seek treatment for is chronic pain and the most common location for treatment is the emergency department (ED). In addition, nurse practitioners are the most likely providers of care and often responsible for millions of Americans yearly in the ED (Balestra, 2016). Approximately 51% of ED visits in 2010 were for pain related complaints and 31% of the visits resulted in opioid prescriptions (Bohnert et al., 2016). This requires the nurse practitioner to be knowledgeable of resources to assist in making clinical decisions

It’s impossible to fix a leaking faucet without fixing the pipes first. You can try to mop up the water, but the problem won’t go away until the leak is stopped at the source. Likewise, the current opioid epidemic that is taking over lives will not come to an end unless the source- unneeded opioid prescriptions for teens- is stopped. A plethora of teens receive prescriptions for trivial injuries, but doctors over prescribing these medications can put teens on the road to a full blown addiction. The current opioid epidemic is a problem that plagues the lives of thousands of people every day, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is taking steps to end the problem.

Opiate addiction can cause many negative changes in the brain. This leads to the structure and functioning of the brain to perform lower than usual. As a result of constant consumption of the opiate medications, addicts lose most of their ability to cope with pain naturally without taking use of pain medication (Torres, 2014). This low tolerance of pain leads to the addict experiencing a higher level of pain since they consistently have high levels of opiates in their system (Torres, 2014). Opiates have the ability to produce withdrawal symptoms in a few hours after the last dose (Opiate Withdrawal Timelines, Symptoms and

Opioid analgesics are the widely prescribed medications for both non-cancer and cancer-related pain. Opioid dugs provide significant benefit for patients, when they used for their approved indications. However, opioids are also carries the risk of abuse, misuse and death. In 2009, more than 15,500 people died in the United States due to overdose of narcotic pain relievers. In order to combat the opioid misuse, abuse, and addiction, FDA has taken many steps to address this problem over the last few decades. The task force’s multi- pronged approach targets, drug development, opioid labeling, prescriber education, patient education, exploring innovative packaging and storage to prevent abuse, encouraging the development of products that treat abuse and overdose and role of other agencies.