The Pros And Cons Of Chronic Pain Patients

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.

I can’t count the number of prescriptions I get from the same doctor for the same medication same quantity on a daily basis. I feel that some doctors are simply writing scripts to make the patient happy when in reality their feeding the addiction. I have seen patients jump form pharmacy to pharmacy in order to fill multiple scripts for the same medication on the same day. There is a system that collects and keeps track of the what types of controlled and narcotic medications people received, however the system takes days to update, so it almost impossible to know right away when the last time a patient received a particular opioid medication. Another issue that I believe is feeding the addiction for drugs abusers is the sale of needles. Depending on the state, people who do not have a prescription for needles or a medication that requires the use of needles, can simply walk into a pharmacy and buy a box of needles. Anyone with commons sense would see that if you don’t have a prescription that requires needles your most likely using it for illegal reasons. Pharmacy regulations make it to easy for people to get what they need in order to “get

While our major access to these drugs is doctors, we cannot simply lay blame on them, as there is not enough knowledge about these treatments to correctly appropriate drugs, and therefore extra is given (Hemphill 373). Alexander of the Department of Epidemiology of the Journal of the American Medical Association, states that “There are serious gaps in the knowledge base regarding opioid use for other chronic nonmalignant pain” (Alexander 1865-1866), which leads to the unfortunately large number of leftover drugs. In fact, the main place that people get their drugs are from leftover prescriptions (Hemphill 373).

It is important for our culture in western society to educate doctors on how to modify and limit their prescribing behavior so that less people become dependent on opioid medication. Doctors must start limiting and monitoring the number of opioid prescriptions they administer to patients. Limiting the number of prescriptions will lower the chances for potential abuse within patients, as well as lower the ease of access and circulation of opioid medication on the streets.

According to the guidelines, there are three important principles to follow for the improvement of patient safety and care. Non-Opioid therapy is suggested if patients are non cancer chronic pain patients or in hospice care. Additionally, if opioids are needed, the lowest dose possible for the shortest amount of time is recommended to reduce risk of opioid overdose. Lastly, clinicians must monitor all patients carefully when they prescribe them opioid analgesics. Prescription opioid use is not solely the responsibility of the health care providers. There are a few guidelines patients should follow regarding chronic pain to ensure their safety. Patients should become informed about prescription opioids and learn the risk factors involved. Before going to the doctor about pain, they should consider physical activity, non opioid medications, or cognitive behavioral therapy before automatically thinking they are in need of painkillers (CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids). Continuing education (CE) is another regulation. While Continued Medical Education (CME) is required in most states in the U.S. for physicians every ten years, there should be a continuing pain medicine education requirement for all physicians due to the heavy increase in prescription

Doctors and clinical prescribers have discovered their role in curtailing the increased opioid prescriptions in America. It is without a doubt that they play a role in facilitating the opioid misuse endemic in the past by being enablers of the situations. When patients ask for pain medications, they do not take time to analyze the pain complaints or suggest alternative medications other than opioids. Even in instances when one doctor declines to offer a patient an opioid prescription for their pain needs, the patient is likely to find another who will give the prescription. However, there has been wide recognition of the opioid misuse endemic such that clinical prescribers are practicing more vigilant prescribing and are advocating opioid-free

In 2012, enough opioid prescriptions were written to cover every adult in America at least once , but that trend has already begun to be reversed. Last year, 17 million fewer opioid pain relievers were prescribed than in the year before. The concern is that the new guidelines and policies are blunt instruments that are denying patients who appropriately use their prescription opioids access to medications, rather then blocking access for the recreational, illicit user of opioids. There are reports of physicians who are wary about writing prescriptions for opioid pain relievers, those who blindly follow guidelines without considering the nuances of an individuals’ needs, and those who have

Opioid abuse, misuse and overdose is a problem in The United States. You can’t turn on the TV or read a newspaper without some mention of the epidemic. This issue has caused the practice of prescribing or taking narcotic pain medication to be looked at under a microscope. Patients are fearful to use some necessary pain medication, because they may become addicted. Other patients who genuinely do have pain and need medication are having a tougher time obtaining the help they need. The problem of abuse and addiction is tough to solve since for some people the medications are the only way they can function and live a semi-normal life. A patient with pain may be hesitant to visit the doctor and

As people have become addicted to painkillers the leading source of availability is your local doctor*. Placing a cap on doctor’s prescription power would allow patients to manage their pain without the risk of using the prescription for longer than needed. Different states

According to the Department of Health and Human services, over 650,000 opioid prescriptions are dispensed in one day. This translates to around 230 million prescriptions each year. This amount just barely falls short of being high enough to give every adult in the United States their own bottle of opioid pills. The loose prescribing habits of medical professionals are to blame for these absurdly high numbers. Current doctors will prescribe an opiate-based painkiller for anything from a backache, toothache, to even headaches. To give patients “highly addictive” drugs for low scale chronic pain over the three-days recommended max incurs high risk for tolerance, dependence, and potential addiction to opioids. Some would argue that doctors are simply doing their job by solving their patient’s pain problem and that people should not intrude upon a medical professional’s expertise. However, while doctors should be unbiased pillars of medical advice and treatment, they should also take into account the risks involved with their treatment for their patient’s sake. Particularly for opioid prescriptions, doctors should have to abide by dosing criteria, receive guidance on when to seek consultation, and know how to use their state’s prescription drug monitoring program (Alexander et al., 2015). According to Alexander et al., (2015) Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) are underutilized by 81% of all prescribers.

First, for providers to use opioids as the first option in prescribing pain killers needs to be addressed. Knowing that opioids are very addictive should sway providers to look for other options for their patients before looking towards opioid type drugs. Second, once a patient is prescribed opioids for pain management, there needs to be limitations placed on how many pills the patient can have at one time. There also needs to be a limitation placed on the amount of time a patient can use any form of opioids. Third, once a patient’s prescription runs out, they often times start looking to find that same high by buying these drugs illegally off the streets. Therefore, after a patient stops using an opioid medication, they need to have some type of specialty care available to them (mandatory if used for a prolonged period of time) to address any potential withdrawal symptoms; care that can provide counseling and or medications that enable the patient to be weaned off of the drug. Fourth, the need to identify why patients are not seeking recovery is crucial. Not many opioid addicts seek treatment; the first step in recovery is to seek help. Fifth, determining how to get opioid addicts into a recovery program will help exponentially to get people away from opioid use and on the road to recovery. Sixth, opioid addicts do not have high success rates for continued recovery after leaving a treatment program. Identifying the needs of the addicts after treatment is one of the most important elements to staying clean and

Over-prescribing opioids is frequent in doctors across Australia as patients are unaware of their addiction to pain medication. Doctors needs to be responsible for the patience health as legal precautions can be broken if not. Patients and doctors need to stay within their states regulations to properly take and prescribe opioids in order to prevent medicolegal risks and ensure safety.

Prior to 2000, nurses would routinely monitor a patient’s blood pressure, pulse, respirations and temperature: the four vital signs. After 2000, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations added pain as the fifth vital sign and nurses were required to evaluate a patient’s pain level using a numeric scale of 0 to 10 (Florida Office of the Attorney General, 2012). This led to a flood of opioid based pain relievers hitting the market and an increase in physicians writing prescriptions for these medications. Previously opioids had been used for treatment of cancer related pain, but broadened to include management of chronic non cancer pain (Edlund, et al., 2014). Research by Edlund

It is important for physicians to take into account the various outcomes that happen when prescribing pain medications. Aside from having the burdensome responsibility of relieving a patient’s pain, a physician could also be responsible for the possibility of negative outcomes like sickness and even death as a result of pain medications often prescribed. Because of the risks

The more availability, the more abusers there will be; there are many ways to how abusers can get drugs, and they are: by stealing, hospital personnel taking and selling it, and doctor shopping. Although it may come as a shock," Hospitals, like many other employers are subject to the risk that some employees will steal merchandise" (Cobaugh). Many employees of pharmacies and hospitals take the prescription drugs to sell to other or feed their addiction, "The diversion of opioids and other controlled substances from hospital pharmacies may result from improper actions by employees" (Cobaugh). One may do this because it is easily available to you and simpler to get it from someone else rather than a doctor. Most believe that because they have a medication for it it will be okay for them to have it and abuse it.