LNP editorial “Slowing the downward spiral caused by opioid pain medication” carries important information concerning treatment of chronic pain. But it does not directly address acute pain resulting from trauma.
According to the editorial: “Lancaster General Health/Penn Medicine has been sponsoring seminars over the past nine months to inform doctors and nurses about the risks and benefits of prescribing opioids. And the organization has been re-evaluating its outlook on managing pain.
“More than 50 percent of chronic opioid users have started taking them because of lower back pain, according to Joan Vance, director of neuroscience at LG Health/Penn Medicine. So, in the spring of last year, she helped create a pilot program that brought together specialists from different backgrounds to hone in on better ways to treat pain. With that came a fast-track system that helps pain sufferers visit a specialist as soon as possible.”
As explained to Common Sense for Drug Policy (www.csdp.org) by physicians specializing in pain management a decade ago, under-prescribing pain medication at the outset of a traumatic new condition, rather than stopping the pain in its tracks followed by the discontinuance of opioid medication, enables the pain to continue and to become chronic.
Also metabolism rates vary widely for individuals, so the amount of medication needs to be personalized through observation.
Unless the result of an accident or other sudden trauma, lower back pain is a chronic condition and clearly the editorial’s message is on target.
Having said the above, upon re-reading CSDP’s ads on the subject, we can see much room for their improvement. We too seemed to have blurred distinctions. Perhaps the pendulum swung the other way over the intervening years.
