treatment Archives - The Painful Truth

Which Contributes More to the Opioid Crisis: Hopelessness or Overprescribing?

Opioids Affect the Workplace

The headline of a story on the social network site, LinkedIn, reads, “The opioid crisis is creating a fresh hell for America’s employers.” The story talks about how deeply prescription and illicit painkillers, including fentanyl, have affected the workplace.

At an Ohio-based pottery company, the owner no longer requires applicants to take a drug test. “Now,” according to the article, “he skips the tests and finds it more efficient to flat-out ask applicants: ‘What are you on?’ ” At a dishware manufacturing company in West Virginia, more than half of the applicants fail drug tests or refuse to submit to them. The opioid epidemic is “having a devastating effect on companies — large and small — and their ability to stay competitive.”

This is The Reason Heroin Gave One Woman a Second Chance at Life

Detective Justin Albauer, who works for the Martin County Sheriff’s Department in Florida, pulled over Brianna Byrnes’s car in August 2015. That is a day that Byrnes will always remember.

A Second Chance At Life

In a poignant CNN story, we can read about what happened. Detective Albauer arrested Byrnes. She served time in jail, and a second chance at life emerged.

Brianna had two bags of heroin in her car when she was stopped. She says the heroin was there to allow her to get through the night without experiencing withdrawal symptoms. Brianna was like most people who become dependent on heroin, in that her main focus was to avoid withdrawal rather than to get high.

Most Opioid Addictions Start In Teen Years: What you Need to Know

Ninety Percent of All Drug Addictions Start in the Teens

“Ninety percent of all drug addictions start in the teens — and 75 percent of prescription opioid misuse begins when (mainly young) people get pills from friends, family or dealers — not doctors. Opioids are rarely the first drug people misuse.”

This is an incredibly important idea, and I want to credit Maia Szalavitz for having the courage to state it in her recently published article, “What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction.” (As an aside: Szalavitz is the author of the recently published book, Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction, which I hope you’ll consider adding to your reading list.)

Prince and Why We Need More Compassion About Addiction

We don’t yet know why Prince died. The facts aren’t in, and I don’t want to draw conclusions until I have more information.

That said, some entertainment media outlets (TMZ, Variety, and more) are reporting that Prince was treated with naloxone, which is the antidote for opioids including heroin, in the days before his death.

If that were true, it would mean that Prince was taking too much of a substance, whether it was prescribed or not.

But, if that turns out to be the case, it won’t change the fact that he was a musical icon, and it won’t change the fact that the world has lost an irreplaceable voice.

An Ironic Perspective on the Opioid Crisis

Reporting on the Opioid Crisis

I was interviewed by a reporter yesterday for a column that will soon appear in a national online publication about whether naloxone (opioid antidote) should be available for people who may overdose on opioids. Hmm, I thought, who would not support making a life saving treatment available to people we know are at risk of dying without the antidote? However, I was stunned by what she had to say and what her follow up questions were about.

This is Why Sen. Edward Markey Is Short-Sighted on Opioid Crisis

Massachusetts Democratic Senator Edward Markey wants the FDA to rescind its approval of OxyContin for children, and then convene an advisory panel to reconsider the issue.

Senator Markey is well intentioned but misinformed. The FDA is not the problem. The agency has not “willfully blinded itself of the warning signs” of prescription painkillers, as Senator Markey believes.

The “experts” Senator Markey is referring to tell part of the story, but the situation is more complicated than most appreciate. Surely, if Senator Markey knew the whole story, he wouldn’t want to deprive children of painkillers that could ease their extreme suffering. He wouldn’t want children to die in agony while their doctors were forced to stand by and watch them suffer.

Is Marijuana the Holy Grail for Pain Medication? by @LynnRWebsterMD

Is marijuana the holy grail for pain medication?

You might think so by reading the popular press.

An ideal drug therapy is one that is highly effective for a multitude of pain disorders and has low to no toxicity regardless of duration of exposure. Marijuana flirts with this profile—but it is a Trojan horse.

Depending on where you live, it may be legal for you to get a prescription for marijuana. But before you rush to your doctor’s office with your request, remember that all drugs have risks. It is a clinician’s responsibility to evaluate the potential benefit, relative to the potential risk, of each drug option. Marijuana products have fewer risks than opioids. Still, marijuana should be used judiciously and with awareness that it could be harmful.

How Effective is Acupuncture in Treating Chronic Pain?

Studies show conflicting results about whether or not acupuncture can help people with chronic pain, but there is evidence that acupuncture works for some people and some types of pain.

Even if, as some studies have found, the benefits of acupuncture are all in the head, those benefits could still be worth pursuing. After all, pain is only perceived in the brain. In other words, pain is all in the head, too. To be effective, treatment for chronic pain has to affect the brain chemistry.