Report highlights the dangers of opioid painkillers

Whenever I read or write about the overuse of so-called opioid painkillers it is with mixed feelings. As a lifelong back-pain patient who once depended on them for pain relief, I appreciate the challenge posed by opioids to people in pain and their doctors. People in agonizing pain want it to stop, but opioids are often a poor long-term solution. Doctors want to help their patients, so they may prescribe opioids for extended periods despite well-founded reservations. At the same time, the epidemic of abuse of these painkillers has led to numerous deaths. Like many Americans, I know people whose lives were destroyed—who ended up in rehab, the legal system, or the grave—because of prescription painkiller abuse. An article this week in the New England Journal of Medicine pegs the toll at nearly 17,000 fatalities in 2010. Hydrocodone (Vicodin) and oxycodone (Oxycontin, Percocet, Percodan) are the most widely used and abused of the opioids. Others in this family of drugs are codeine, fentanyl (Duragesic patch), hydromorphone (Dilaudid), meperidine (Demerol), morphine (MS Contin), and tramadol (Ultram). These drugs block pain perception in the brain. Doctors are learning to say no to opioids, but at the same time have limited scientific guidance on when and how to best use opioids for chronic pain, according to a report published online in the Annals of Internal Medicine this week by a National Institute of Health expert panel. It follows on the heels of a position statement pu...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Addiction Drugs and Supplements Pain Management hydrocodone opioids oxycodone Source Type: news