Many people are inappropriately given opiates by their doctors to treat long term pain.
Those people are not "doing drugs", they are following (bad) medical advice.
People with long term pain need better access to pain management clinics; better access to physio therapy and exercise therapy; better access to different meds; and if they're still in pain better prescribing of opiates carefully following protocols.
> There has been a sharp and sustained increase in the prescription of opioid painkillers in recent years. The latest figures from 2014 show that 22.75 million prescriptions were written in England with a total cost of nearly £305 million to the NHS. Similar rises in prescribing in the US and elsewhere have been accompanied by increases in harms related to these drugs including addiction, unintentional overdose and death. Opioid painkiller problems in the UK have not reached the epidemic proportions seen in the US but we know that over 5% of adults in England and Wales have used opioid medicines that were not prescribed for them in the past year.
> Of more concern is that nearly all the rise in prescribing has been for treatment for long-term pain however, opioid medicines are often ineffective for this condition. About 4% of the population in England and Wales is in receipt of a prescription for opioids and once opioids are started they can be difficult to stop.
In the UK opiates are commonly used for suicide. Self poisoning is the second most common method, and opiates are the most common medication used (and opiate + paracetamol combinations are in the top 5 too). Most of these are legally obtained.
> Many people are inappropriately given opiates by their doctors to treat long term pain.
While I am sure this is true in many cases, my personal experience was the opposite. I had significant nerve pain after an accident, which kept me from being able to sleep or focus on anything very well.
The physician I saw after my hospitalization was apparently worried I was trying to satisfy a drug-craving? So instead of giving me a pain-killer gave me a prescription for an anti-depressant (which potentially treats nerve pain at 4X the normal dose used to treat depression) - withdrawal from that was extremely bad and certainly much worse than anything I've experienced after pain-killers.
> I had significant nerve pain after an accident, which kept me from being able to sleep or focus on anything very well.
Was that in the weeks or months after the accident? Or was it some time after that?
Pain after accidents is short term (acute) pain, and I'm only talking about long term (chronic) pain.
EDIT: Either way, it sucks that you didn't get good enough treatment, and I'm sorry you went through that. Pain freaking sucks, and being looked at as a drug seeker doesn't make it any easier.
> Was that in the weeks or months after the accident? Or was it some time after that?
> Pain after accidents is short term (acute) pain, and I'm only talking about long term (chronic) pain.
It was a month after I was discharged (so two months after the accident). Probably given the sentiment here and on other media I could have shopped around for a different physician - but when you are recovering from an accident that really isn't an initial concern and one is inclined to trust medical decisions of professionals - my overall takeaway is that this anti-prescription drug-abuse wave that ran through the media/public and it's impact on healthcare had a distinctly negative effect at least on my personal treatment.
Sure, it's anecdotal but I really would be curious to know what percentage of doctors are contributing to prescription drug abuse vs. the weight of the contribution; somehow I think it's more likely that a very small percentage account for the bulk of the abused prescriptions.
> A lot of research has shown SNRI and SSRI antidepressants are actually great for nerve pain, e.g. gapapentin, pregabalin, duloxetine.
I'm well aware of this. If you read some more research the dosage prescribed for nerve pain is as I mentioned ~4xish of anti-deppresant dosage. More so I recommend you look into some research on withdrawal effects of antidepressants (of course there is less of it since drug companies have a vested interest in the actual lack of such research).
I take Amitriptyline at night (in addition to opioid patches and antiinflammatories). While I find it does have some analgesic properties; the real benefit is actually a side effect, the drowsiness means I actually get some sleep.
Those people are not "doing drugs", they are following (bad) medical advice.
People with long term pain need better access to pain management clinics; better access to physio therapy and exercise therapy; better access to different meds; and if they're still in pain better prescribing of opiates carefully following protocols.
https://www.fpm.ac.uk/faculty-of-pain-medicine/opioids-aware
https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pdf/FPM-Opioids-Aware-Press-Releas...
> There has been a sharp and sustained increase in the prescription of opioid painkillers in recent years. The latest figures from 2014 show that 22.75 million prescriptions were written in England with a total cost of nearly £305 million to the NHS. Similar rises in prescribing in the US and elsewhere have been accompanied by increases in harms related to these drugs including addiction, unintentional overdose and death. Opioid painkiller problems in the UK have not reached the epidemic proportions seen in the US but we know that over 5% of adults in England and Wales have used opioid medicines that were not prescribed for them in the past year.
> Of more concern is that nearly all the rise in prescribing has been for treatment for long-term pain however, opioid medicines are often ineffective for this condition. About 4% of the population in England and Wales is in receipt of a prescription for opioids and once opioids are started they can be difficult to stop.
In the UK opiates are commonly used for suicide. Self poisoning is the second most common method, and opiates are the most common medication used (and opiate + paracetamol combinations are in the top 5 too). Most of these are legally obtained.