OxyContin's 12-hour problem
static.latimes.com
static.latimes.com
I get large amounts of ad-junk from drug companies that ends up unread in the bin. I refuse to meet with drug company representatives. I smile politely at them if I bump into them in the corridor and suggest that they leave their ad-junk with my secretary. My staff then file their ad-junk in the trash bin.
On Friday, I had a drug company representative attempt to tell me ( he was hanging around my coffee area ) about the joys of Targin, a fixed-dose combination of oxycodone and naloxone. I gently shook him off, and directed him to my secretary.
Drug company representatives are usually decent human beings with lives and families. However they are poorly educated, poorly informed salesmen and women with sales targets to meet and product managers to keep happy. Even worse, they and the drug company have no accountability if a patient dies because of their recommendations. If avoidable death supervenes or if there are non-lethal complications or even just therapeutic failure, I am accountable.
Instead of relying on marketing, I rely on information from good, well performed randomised controlled studies published in reputable peer reviewed journals ( I like the NEJM ) and on meta-analyses of these. I view the results of these through a filter of scepticism, cynicism, pragmatism and a modicum of hope.
Many of my colleagues do likewise. I trust that you do the same in your respective vocations. Regrettably, there is a bell curve. I am sure that the drug companies find enough gullible prescribers out in the wild for their purposes.
That sounds similar to Suboxone, just with OxyCodone instead of Buprenorphine (i think they also make bup. minus the naloxone under the brand name Subutex). The naloxone mixture never quite made sense to me. Isn't that counter-productive? Is naloxone (aka "Narcan") not an opioid-antagonist at low doses or something?
This marketing says it's in the Targin to reduce constipation:
I'm a layman, but if i'm guessing right the term for this might be 'bioavailability' of the drug, is that correct? for example drug A may be absorbed faster and more easily through the digestive system over snorting. And then of course IV is the quickest way for just about anything, yea?
Your example however makes an incorrect assumption. Bioavailability from snorting a powdered drug is higher than oral ingestion. When snorted, the drug passes through the thin lining of the nose and enters the bloodstream directly. When ingested orally, the drug has to make it through the chaos of the stomach and small intestine, get through the hepatic pathway (stomach and intestinal lining to liver to general bloodstream) before it reaches the rest of the body.
It's an excellent book and I highly recommend it.
Even if they only influence 1 doctor in a hundred, but that doctor brings enough revenue, it's worth it.
Vendor marketing exists in all fields, technology included. The difference is that when I'm spending money on a vendor as a tech manager it's coming out of my budget. I have an incentive to make sure that the spending is intelligent and the solution is effective.
Where is the incentive for doctors to do that? They're spending other people's money on other people's problems.
As a tech manager, you're not using your personal funds, either, you're using your employer's money.
Further, if a doctor's prescription doesn't work, or is too expensive, the patients can get a second opinion, and the doctor can lose the person as a patient. An employer may not even have that option with a tech manager.
Right, but I am spending the money of my company. They control my salary and advancement, and I also have a fixed pool to draw from.
Doctors are spending money for insurance companies.
The insurance company can investigate the efficacy of prescriptions and stop paying for ones that don't work. The article says some of them have done exactly that with Oxycontin.
At the other end, if the pain killer isn't working, a patient can go to a different doctor who will prescribe something else.
"Instead of relying on marketing, I rely on information from good, well performed randomised controlled studies published in reputable peer reviewed journals ( I like the NEJM ) and on meta-analyses of these. I view the results of these through a filter of scepticism, cynicism, pragmatism and a modicum of hope."
> how could they get you to read about it?
I'd assume by performing a sensible clinical trial that proves its efficacy beyond a reasonable doubt.
Advertising is how you're sold things whether or not you need them. It is not how you learn about what's best for your patient. There are other avenues of information that aren't tainted by the motivation to sell a product despite the consequences.
It's sorta similar to the function congressional lobbying is supposed to fulfill. Ie. It'd be ideal if the congressmen/doctors did all the research themselves but that's not possible so you basically have a whole research team at your disposal (who's agenda is very obvious...)
What? Are they allowed to just enter hospitals as neither doctor, patient, nor visitor, and hang around promoting their companies' drugs? If so, why??
* Make FDA approval double blind. Can't bribe who you can't see.
* Before starting a study, if you want to include it with a future application you need to register it. All registered studies need to be included with an application. Can't cherry pick studies.
* You may only use approved claims stated in the application in marketing or product descriptions. (which I thought was already the case)
That's similar to Ben Goldacre's project http://www.alltrials.net/
[0] https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/manage-recs/fdaaa#WhichTrials... [1] http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?story...
Here's another one: ban all forms of compensation from drug companies to doctors. No more bribes^Wconference trips.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-to-consumer_advertising
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine#Decisions_of...
One solution for restricting advertising would be to allow consumers to sue drug companies for false claims or for misinforming doctors.
Free Speech doesn't really factor into a huge portion of what you see from the FDA, FTC, SEC, CFPB, and hundreds of state-level organs focused on regulating deceptive business practices.
The United States has 5% of the world’s population & consumes 75% of the world’s prescription drugs.[0]
0.http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/WDR2011/Wor...
FDA approval is the first layer of prohibition. Very expensive, this keeps a lot of competitors out. Lots of market (read: pricing) power is conferred to the winners. Great incentive is provided for regulatory capture.
The second layer is patent protection. Again, competition becomes illegal, with outcomes similar to above.
Third is scheduling it as a prescription drug. The incentives of the drug company are now to influence doctors, in ways that may be more or less overt. Docs get a cut of the outsize profits, de facto.
The fourth layer is opiates being illegal in general. Competitors out.
Of course there are legitimate reasons for prohibition, even if I don’t agree with them. One can make an argument for protecting people from harming themselves.
But these arguments are naive and static. By “dynamically scoring” the cost of prohibition – following the incentives and the outcomes – we might choose differently.
Hi! I'm a non-trad physician, with a history in health policy and managed care before moving onto the provider side. Please, tell me more about this, in a way that is more nuanced than the urban myth of "free golf trips and speaker fees for everybody!"
More overtly, drug companies pay for fancy physician association dinners, and a rep will give a presentation on their drug and hand out business cards and brochures.
Additionally, I'm putting a firm "no" on "informal quid pro quo." Though you, I, and ever psych major on the planet knows better, most physicians firmly believe they're just being advertised to, but are not swayed by the pharmaceutical company ads. Very few of my colleagues believe they're susceptible to this sort of shenanigans. Very few would knowingly consent to partake in a "quid pro quo" arrangement of fringe benefits for prescriptions, and most would be earnestly outraged at any such suggestion. You can claim the outcomes are the same, but they're not - it speaks entirely different volumes of the characters of the people involved, and approach needed to reform.
So, 3 levels:
1) Direct pay-offs from drug companies to docs This is something that has never been as commonplace as people seem to believe (eg, speaker fees), and is very nearly dead since physicians that get this money are now publicly monitored for it. It's always been rare, and remains so. So when we say "docs profit," which implies this level 1, well, let's not.
2) Physician frills paid for by drug companies This used to be quite common, and has grown much less so. It used to be "let us subsidize your trip to the bahamas for a 5-day medical conference (during which you will be pitched regularly)." That's been on the down-trend for about 2 decades, and is generally pretty rare these days. You're pretty much down to getting lunch brought to your office - and you had better believe this isn't ubiquitous, but depends on your practice (good private insurance practice of patients with lifelong autoimmune disease, and your co. has a new mAb out? Why, yes, lunch will be arriving soon. Standard PCP w/ 50% medicare, 20% medicaid, 30% private blend, general population of disease? eh, not so much). And, sure, occasionally dinner - subject to the above. Again, these have grown increasingly rare since these are now public numbers subject to scrutiny. No one wants to show up on that database, and definitely no one wants to be one of the docs that shows up in the local papers as one of the top 10 pharma whores for the year. More common is:
3) Drugs in the background Branded pens. Branded clipboards. Bullshit journals of carefully curated studies. Donations to org. meetings, which result in huge banners and the like. The chance to "educate" docs on new results: these are carefully put together study analyses meant to show the drug in its best light, not overt pitches. They're generally very well done studies earnestly presented, with their biases baked in deep in the fundamental study design (e.g., subject selection), so there's nothing for casual audience members to be able to nitpick at. It takes an old hand to catch the trickery here.
3 is really the big one. It's the tickle at the back of your brain; the easy prescription of familiarity, avoidance of the discomfort of getting that sad look from your local rep. But it's reasonably subtle, and unless you think docs are making bank on those free pens, it's not really what you'd call "profiting" in any meaningful sense.
1 & 2 are profiting, and inflammatory, and mostly a relic of the 80s and early 90s. They're also a shit-ton less effective than #3.
In a transparent environment, advertising is a lot more effective than bribery. As a strong advocate for complete absence of pharma-to-MD relationships, I don't worry about the occasional bit steak lunch that most docs sit through playing on their phones; I worry about the never-ending barrage of advertisements. If you look at where pharma drops their big bucks, you'll see they share my priorities.
> Again, these have grown increasingly rare since these are now public numbers subject to scrutiny.
Where can I access this information?
ProPublica has some investigative reporting as well: https://www.propublica.org/series/dollars-for-docs
I see the experimental results in other countries that have taken steps forward on legalizing various drugs, but they also have a much better social welfare, schooling, and support system.
I just don't see the connection between making a drug more available, making more versions of it, deregulating it and having less people taking it. Without your further explanation, that is.
More importantly, it would make doctors (and regulators) more honest participants. If a doctor wants to recommend opiates, it would largely remove their economic incentives for doing so. We don’t think of doctors having much economic incentive for prescribing acetaminophen or ibuprofen, by comparison.
From the New York Times: "Actually, Prohibition Was a Success By Mark H. Moore; Mark H. Moore is professor of criminal justice at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government."
"... Second, alcohol consumption declined dramatically during Prohibition. Cirrhosis death rates for men were 29.5 per 100,000 in 1911 and 10.7 in 1929. Admissions to state mental hospitals for alcoholic psychosis declined from 10.1 per 100,000 in 1919 to 4.7 in 1928.
Arrests for public drunkennness and disorderly conduct declined 50 percent between 1916 and 1922. For the population as a whole, the best estimates are that consumption of alcohol declined by 30 percent to 50 percent.
Third, violent crime did not increase dramatically during Prohibition. Homicide rates rose dramatically from 1900 to 1910 but remained roughly constant during Prohibition's 14 year rule. Organized crime may have become more visible and lurid during Prohibition, but it existed before and after. ..."
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/16/opinion/actually-prohibiti...
From http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa...:
> In 1926, in New York City, 1,200 were sickened by poisonous alcohol; 400 died. The following year, deaths climbed to 700
The poisonous alcohol was a direct result of prohibition. So I think focusing on just cirrhosis deaths paints an unfair picture of the actual health effects.
Isn't a low cost of addiction a bad thing?
I'm also not just talking about legalization, but mainly the thing about deregulation/competition. I see your logic though, I hope it's not too wishful to assume that less doctors pushing drugs on patients will solve the issue. I suppose it definitely will cut it back some.
Less doctors "pushing" really means more doctors being very critical of patients. Which means more people in pain, scared to make too big a fuss, lest they be labeled an "addict" or "seeker".
We don't accept (in theory) a legal system that condemns innocent people to suffer, why should we accept a health system that does the same?
People who need opiates should be able to get them, but that's a small number of people. Giving opiates to the rest does very little to treat their pain, and leaves them with an opiate addiction.
Most people with long term pain don't need better access to opiates. They need better access to pain clinics with the range of meds and physical therapies they have. (And yes, opiates if those are needed.)
This seems twisted to me. Okay, so they don't do crime, but they get their stuff easier and stay addicted/get worse/die. Isn't it best to eliminate the motivation for doctors to overprescribe, but still force people to see their doctors for a fix? This way maybe the doctors can intervene and help them out.
With proper availability, opiates are very well tolerated. Being addicted, by itself, is not a big deal. Apart from the negative pieces you see like this one, opiates are still a huge success for many people. Not just physical pain, but emotional pain, depression, and stress. Keep an eye out for pinned pupils and notice how many professionals have them.
There's this stigma that addiction is inherently bad. Yet it only applies to "fun" drugs like opiates. No one, in general, goes on about the terribleness it is to be addicted to antipsychotics or insulin or antidepressants. At best, you hear how annoying it is, having to always make sure you've got your gear - but I've not seen people go on about the intrinsic badness of addictions lifesaving medications cause.
What should be available is more public health awareness, and a cultural shift. People should be free to get addicted, but easily obtain services to help with it, without being labelled or criminalized. You don't need to rob people of liberty and cause suffering by requiring a paid gatekeeper to watch over everyone.
This just is not true. With proper availability people develop tolerance, and require higher doses. That does becomes high enough to become dangerous, and so they need to change to a different, stronger opiate. They develop a tolerance to that too.
Eventually they're cycling through 2 or three different opiates (sometimes at the same time) at very high dose. And their pain is not being managed.
> addicted to antipsychotics or insulin or antidepressants
No tolerance, no seeking, no preoccupation, no continuing to take them when you know they're doing you harm -- those things are not addictive.
If they were effective and if addiction could be safely managed you wouldn't see increasing rates of people addicted, taking dangerous amounts, and dying of overdose. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/17/cdc-guideline...
People take opiates because doctors inappropriately prescribe them (in some countries); because the word "opiate" is well known; because people reject other treatments; and because people stick to the med they know. That's why co-proxamol (and very dangerous, ineffective medication, is still being prescribed today even though there are many other better meds).
They continue taking them, at massive doses, because they're addicted. And that's the problem - if they were addicted but getting pain relief we could understand the continued use of opioids as first line treatment, but most people don't get good pain control with opiates for long term pain. They end up having to mix different meds, these combinations are often dangerous. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/dec/09/us-patients-...
The only time opiates for control of pain that wasn't going to lessen over time seems like a good idea is in the case of palliative care for the dying; my father got several months of mostly-pain-free end of life out of it, and whether it was increased pain from the cancer or decreased effectiveness due to addiction that eventually meant the maximum dose allowable didn't help, he was dead within a week after that so even given all the obvious caveats I think he picked the right set of trade-offs.
The conclusion, patients did not build up a tolerance.
(I know Dr. Dean Edell cited these studies many times, when he was on the air. He wasen't the typical media Doctor.)
The worst part is, if you use opiates for a long period of time consistently - you WILL become reliant upon them. Your body will be chained to them, physically dependent, and I don't care who you are, where you come from, or how much money you have. 100% of the time, no exceptions willpower be damned.
And as far as using opiates as a means to heal emotional pain and depression? That's is possibly the worst idea ever. You're flat out asking for a long, long slow death in which you probably kill yourself in the end anyway but in the meantime you disappoint anyone who has ever cared about you even slightly.
It's a cycle and story told time and time again. If your friends want to stay successful and keep the good stuff in their lives they should get off the shit is all i'm saying. That's nowhere near easy to do, but it's gotta be done or they will crash & burn. Opiates don't really cure the pain anyway, just mask it.
Goring had the advantage of being in a prominent position close to the leader before he got hooked and fell off. I'm sure any other lower nazi officer would've been cast off if they weren't buddies with the fuhrer. He also was in the advantageous (but bad) position of being able to tell his doctor "you're going to give me this dope when i ask for it or i'm going to toss you in the fucking oven"
Those people who are successful are headed for disaster, even if they have the money to mitigate supply issues/price. If you care about these people, tell them rich people go to Passages in Malibu. It costs $80,000 and i can prove that. but maybe they can afford it?
But since they are cheaply and abundantly available, I can live a full happy life anyway.
I mean, heroin is cheap and abundantly available.
I've seen it first hand. Stop this nonsense.
But the post I responded had no such arguments.
Look at the prices of morphine on goodrx: I don't think unlicensed manufacturers and retailers approach the low cost legit ones do.
Price - It depends on location and other factors, but i can tell you from personal experience that as a user, as far as pure numbers go, heroin ends up being much cheaper than prescription pills (which are the most popular form of opiates). it was pretty close in price on either coast and the midwest, in big cities and smaller towns. (except Florida, surprise! pills are dirt cheap there and it's deadly. there are pharmacies on top of pharmacies on top of shady doctors offices in Florida, it's like goddamn Mexico. not an exaggeration). I've been out of the game for a while, but I hear through the grapevine there are recent shifts in the market as Govt. officials crack down on Docs who they perceive as writing too many scripts. This immediately takes a major source of Rx meds out of the game, which is the ideal opportunity for heroin dealers to move in - and as soon as that happens, on day 0, it's too late to fix in the current system we have in place in the US.
Availability for 'street drugs' right now isn't really an issue in my experience. Opiate addicts are a subset within a subset of drug addicts and they tend to flock together. An addict of many years on the streets can spot another addict (or a corner boy) easily, and they all know where to go to get it.
There is also quality control on the streets, it's messed up but it's true and works: If a dealer sells a new batch to a group of 5 users and 3 of them overdose word will get around that it's killer shit and then that's what all the other users WANT because they figure it's potent. I've seen dealers with Narcan nose injections on them at all times, specifically with the intention of saving a dope fiend's life when they OD just so he goes out and tells the other users it's good shit. Then he can either cut it to stretch it out and make more money, or continue giving out the goods to build loyal clientele.
The converse of that works as well, if you sell a faulty product then you become the LAST option on the addict's go-to list. The fact that someone who sells a faulty product intentionally is even still on the list at all is a testament to how fucked up opiate addiction is.
And I'm all for legalizing, controlling, and even taxing weed (for recreation and ESPECIALLY medicinally) -- but if heroin ever becomes as easy to get as alcohol.... man, unless someone discovers how to drastically change how opiate receptors in your brain work, that would be the modern day equivalent to the zombie apocalypse. We'd be doomed, everyone.
You can say the same about alcohol. Does alcohol ruin lives? Yes. But we limit many of the social impacts by treating it as a regulated substance vs a controlled substance.
What hurts people isn't getting it, it's what they do as addicts. Throw their lives away, resorting to crime to live day to day, get housing and food… They partly ruin the lives of those close to them too.
Legalization would do nothing to help this, it would just hurt a little. They'd get it a bit easier, but since they didn't resort to violent crime to get it in the first place it would be meaningless. The crime and disaster they cause after getting it and becoming addicted would remain.
But like you said in the other branch, we have seen different people and have had different experiences.
I've also seen a burned out house where a dealer set fire to it with the occupant inside to incentivise future debtors to pay up faster.
I've seen the grey market involved in buying such things suck far harder on somebody's lifeblood than buying alcohol would an alcoholic.
So ... my gut feeling is that, overall, legalisation would probably be an improvement. But I think that, if so, it would be an improvement overall, and that doing the math carefully beforehand is a really good idea.
Or: I think you and MichaelGG both have valid points, and that any opinion on this subject that doesn't include both is probably going to fall short of the mark.
(to be clear, I'm replying to this specific comment largely because of your last line, since I'm seeking synthesis, not antithesis, by this line of thought)
Where are you getting the goal of fewer people taking it, and why is the number of people taking it a concern at all? Pain management is the issue at hand.
It's a significant cause of death in suicide so that's another reason to use less of it. It accounts for a lot of accidental death, so that's yet another reason to use less of it.
There are actual people with actual suffering involved here, remember that. Don't let your misconceptions of junkies determine public heath policy.
We know in the UK that self poisoning is the second most common method of suicide after hanging, strangling and suffocation. (and that's likely to change with the next release of numbers - self poisoning is likely to overtake hanging strangling and suffocation).
the list of meds used in self poisoning is something like
1) Opiates
2) Anti-psychotics
3) Tri-cyclics
4) Paracetamol
5) Paracetamol and opiate combination
But that's the point, it doesn't.
> are actual people with actual suffering involved here, remember that
That's entirely the point! Opiates are not effective for most of those people. Opiates work in the short term, but the patient develops tolerance and needs to take more. Opiates are not suitable for long term use. A patient can very quickly build up to dangerous harmful levels of opiate use, and they're not getting pain relief.
Calling a medication dangerous and ineffective, and pointing out safer more effective alternatives, is not moralising, unlike your "remember there are people suffering" comment.
Go to any treatment facility and actually talk to the patients there. Your attitude will change. I used to volunteer at one so I knew a lot of people who went from pain patients to addicts who were still in pain. Amputees, people with disfiguring injuries, chronic diseases. These aren't people who are seeking drugs on the streets - these are doctor prescribed drugs. The effects of the medication are terrible for quality of life and they just plain stop working!
The first is the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness http://www.bbmh.manchester.ac.uk/cmhs/research/centreforsuic...
The second are the Office for National Statistics mortality data. Here's deaths: http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdea...
And here's suicide: http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdea...
(Watch out. They count slightly different things. But they should both be clear enough about what they're counting).
Here's a map showing medications that are prescribed across England. You can noodle around with the data to see what's prescribed or not, and how much, and by what doctors offices: https://openprescribing.net/
Long term pain control is a complicated and multi facaded beast. We need to invest in it. "Just take a pill" is clearly not the solution that works.
I am not sure what "addiction can be managed" is supposed to mean.
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20130415/New-research-shows...
The prevailing medical notion was that there was this bright line involving the opioids — that they were great for patients but the problems happened when they went out on the streets and were abused by kids and others. But today it’s clear that the long-term use of these drugs can not only be ineffective for chronic pain, but they also create bad side effects for patients. Not just addiction but powerful psychological dependency, depression of hormone production, lethargy and listlessness and sleep apnea, among others. These drugs do work well for some patients, but for many other patients, they’re not working well at all.
One leading expert said: “We thought the big problem with these drugs is addiction. Now we realize the problem is with patients who take them and basically opt out of life.” There is a general realization that while they do work for some patients, using them on a massive scale to treat chronic pain has had really disastrous consequences.
For instance, back pain is probably the leading workplace injury. What insurers and workers’ comp agencies are discovering is that when workers are treated with high doses of opioid drugs fairly soon after these injuries, it’s the leading predictor for them not coming back to work for long periods of time, or ever.
When you take a narcotic painkiller it sets off a natural reaction called tolerance, which means your body adjusts to it. You have to take more of the drug to get the same painkilling effect. Patients would come back to doctors and say, “This drug was working really well for me, but now I’m feeling pain again.” The doctor would increase the dose. The prevailing ideology during the war on pain was that these drugs had no ceiling dose. You could keep increasing them. The doctors kept boosting them every six months. People started taking higher and higher doses of these drugs. At a certain point it appears they create a change in the neurological system where people develop hyperalgesia and they become far more sensitive to pain than when they started out on these drug
Forever.
I disagree that opiates are not a good choice for short-term pain relief, and I also disagree that they are not a good choice for long-term pain relief.
If anything, pain is currently being under treated on a massive scale thanks to the new-wave crusaders against opiates, flying a flag of the same type of study they decry as flashy science only meant to gun for the headlines as proof undeniable.
There will always be opiate abuse. A moral backlash against abuse should not deny people in pain the quality-of-life increase they can get in return from opiates. Dependency be damned.
>Long term pain control is a complicated and multi facaded beast. We need to invest in it.
I do agree with this.
>"Just take a pill" is clearly not the solution that works.
It's the solution we have right now, though.
My grandparents, bless them, couldn't function without narcotic painkillers. without narcotics, there is no quality-of-life to speak of for them, and for a lot of people like them. Dependency be damned.
Until something as affordable and available as opiates come around, that can give them equipotent pain relief, traditional poppy derivatives can and should be used to treat pain in those who live each day in pain. Tolerance be damned.
Please go to a treatment facility (volunteer please) and talk to the patients there. It is beyond eye opening, I volunteered at one myself. I've seen pain medicine literary ruin lives, and it's so sad. These are people who have been through hell with their injuries, some of the worst I've ever seen, and then they go through hell again with the opiodes.
They can work on a long term basis for SOME (but not the majority) of patients.
Psychological treatments are also an important part of pain management.
If anything, the pushback against opiate prescribing has resulted in a lot of dependent patients (and addicted abusers) looking at heroin as a more potent, widely available, cheaper alternative.
opiates have been around a long time for a good reason. they can give an unrivaled increase in the quality of life of those suffering.
there will ALWAYS be opiate abuse. taking prescription painkillers out of the picture doesn't even put a dent into it.
do you think it makes more sense to spend time and money demonizing prescription opiates and prosecuting those who prescribe them, or use that time and money to implement programs and services that can help those who have become dependent or addicted?
My energy levels and ability to be active during an entire day was borderline geriatric before I started taking tapentadol. Opiates are addictive but are also the gold standard for pain relief. Pain reduces energy levels, its fatiguing. I would sometimes want to just cry out of how weak I felt. No one should have to 'just deal with it' when it comes to nerve splitting pain.
None of this will be known, though, until certain deregulation and controlled legalization occurs.
Are low-income people more likely to become addicted? I'd like to see some statistics.
A few thoughts:
* There are many more low-income people than wealthy people, so low-income addicts may be greater in sheer numbers but not in rate.
* I expect that addition tends to reduce income, so people who started wealthier may become low-income
* Prescription opiods are by reputation the wealthy person's heroin. Given the high cost of presecription drugs, and that low-income people sometimes can't even afford drugs necessary for their health, I wonder if Oxycontin is widely abused in low-income groups.
I'm sure many people think this, but do we know if it's actually true? Is there any research or data?
For example, as a completely speculative alternative hypothesis, people with more money could be more impulsive because they can afford it.
I suppose the motivation for that parenthetical was just subconscious--as I've seen some people who happened to be lower income have their lives ruined by their pain meds, whereas in the higher income circles I've seen, they're more addicted to strictly recreational drugs.
In general, though, addicts don't necessarily go straight to the hard stuff or inevitably to the hard stuff, if other options are available. Prohibition actually encourages people to go to the hardest purest forms, though.
When you're moving around contraband, you want the most expensive high you can get in the smallest volume. It's easier to move around heroin or crack than something like codeine or coca wine, so that's what's going to be available on the street.
While this is reminiscent of something Matt Dillon's "shameless dopefiend" character from Drugstore Cowboy said, I'm not sure if this is true.
There is another thread of addiction research that establishes the notion of "addiction as self-medication," in which users seek the drugs that work to alleviate their symptoms, be they physical or psychological. Anecdotally, I've experimented with a lot of substances, and opioids are the only class of compounds that I have sampled that work for me.
In addition, while it's certainly true that, if you attach two acetyl groups to morphine you end up with something 2-3 times more potent by weight, I wonder if people's conception of the "hardness" of drugs is somewhat artificial.
These things provide not only prohibition and costs, but also many essential services, a matter of life and death in some cases. The free market is a useful tool, but not the solution to every situation; not every issue is a nail for the free market hammer. I don't want to see how many of my neighbors die from a drug before I decide whether or not to take it.
I don't have an opinion on legalization, but I don't think that's quite the argument against (even if some people express it in this way). Not all people are free to make choices in the same way, and drugs -- similarly to fast food -- hurt some communities more than others. Drugs have a social dynamics, they're not like choosing which toothpaste to use. Of course, prohibition may make matters worse instead of better, but as you say, that requires empirical study (I don't know the findings, which is why I don't have an opinion, except that the enforcement situation now is far from good).
For example codamol is now not prescribed in a hospital setting for under 5s, after one child died because they had large amounts of the enzyme required to processes it all at once. This caused respiratory arrest.
the BNF has prices: https://www.evidence.nhs.uk/formulary/bnf/current/4-central-...
and some basic advice: https://www.evidence.nhs.uk/formulary/bnf/current/4-central-...
also a big fat warning saying its a fucking opiate. If a doctor is surprised that a synthetic slow release diamorphene derivative has variable outcomes, is deeply upsetting. Its their fucking job to monitor the outcome of drugs. Its pretty much half of being a doctor.
One of the many advantages of the NHS is the chances of getting hooked on painkillers if miniscule, mainly because drugs are prescribed for the purpose of helping you, not because you've seen an advert, or you want to make a bit more money.
Unless these reporters are simply lying, there's evidence of great variability in the effectiveness of that timed-release agent. But the company's market position depends on the 12-hour dose. If the drug's needed every six hours, the only difference between it and the cheap stuff is price. In that case, most doctors won't prescribe and most payers won't reimburse the expensive stuff.
So, a doctor can ask a patient, "are you willing to take a pill every six hours?" If the patient agrees, the prescription can be very inexpensive and effective. And, wide swings in blood concentration are controllable, which helps avoid both grogginess and withdrawal struggles.
A friend who develops instruments for anesthesiologists has told me that a well-controlled minimal effective dose of pain med works, and manages risk very well. Peoples' rates of clearing these compounds vary a lot, and the timed-release compound doesn't appear to reduce that variability, contrary to the what the marketer is implicitly claiming.
If the treatment is for acute short-term pain (post-op, etc) a six-hour regime isn't a big burden, and the reduced risk of addiction justifies some inconvenience.
If the treatment is for chronic pain, a wise patient and doctor might start by trying the more frequent doses, and move to "time-release" doses if the first treatment doesn't work. Patients and doctors tune their meds all the time. Why not start trying for minimal effective dose, and move to a more addiction-prone regime if the first one desn't work?
But that would foul up the business of Oxycontin's marketer.
A weekly Narcotics Anonymous meeting just moved out of the hall of a church I serve to a bigger hall, because they're gaining members fast. That's not good.
But I wasn't being (intentionally) being an asshole when I say "In case you haven't heard." It's being reported in the news, but it is largely a local story, and even in a lot of cases, its kind of like "There's a Heroin Epidemic, it's now affecting white rich kids, nobody knows what to do." I don't know if it is a function people being tired of the drug war or what, but it just seems like there's a quiet epidemic that's tragically killing (and/or negatively affecting) millions of Americans out there.
I'm very active in the recovery community in Madison Wisconsin, and holy smokes, it's all junkies these days! Not complaining, the experience is similar enough to mine as an old fashioned booze hound with occasional forays into meth addiction that I can help them, but man - it's never been like this before!
It sounds like they did, at first, and the manufacturer (ostensibly the experts on this particular drug) pushed back hard.
What people underappreciate is that salespeople provide a vital role. Their job is to aid buyers in choosing what to do with their money. If doctors were susceptible to fraud of other underhanded sales tactics, that'd be alarming — they're the smart ones, are they not? But it's not that. They're not being duped. They succumb to corruption, or actively seek it.
You have got to be kidding. The UK might be behind the US, but the trendlines are pointing up, not down. The UK working hard to close the gap. "Miniscule" please.
So long as opiates are used for acute pain, not long term chronic pain, the chances of addiction are pretty low.
It does happen, with about 30K people addicted in the UK total.
The reason why its much harder is that unless you have lots of money you'll have to persuade your GP that there is a medical reason for continuing. This is much harder in the UK where patients are patients, not customers that must be pleased.
"Dr. Curtis Wright, who led the agency’s medical review of the drug, declined to comment for this article. Shortly after OxyContin’s approval, he left the FDA and, within two years, was working for Purdue in new product development, according to his sworn testimony in a lawsuit a decade ago."
Says it all doesn't it?
This is a valuable skill. Purdue probably wanted someone like that on their product development team who could influence drug design early on which would make it less costly and more efficient to get drugs approved in the future.
It's all business. Every actor wants more money and power, and are willing to play to their strengths to get there. No malice, obvious corruption, or bribery would even need to take place. Just smart motivated people trying to make a ton of money .... (without caring about the consequences).
Isn't subverting the system like that almost as improper as doing it from the other side? Not as obviously, possibly not as strongly, but from having been in research myself, knowing the little details like that is often good enough to get things through all by itself, completely without regard for whether your research works.
the regulatory environment only "requires" this if your drug doesn't work as advertised. The other way to get your drug approved is to, you know, not make phony claims about its efficacy.
I don't disagree that it creates the appearance of impropriety, but I'm not quite sure how'd you'd avoid it. Force people at the beginning of their career to chose one or another?
If the FDA is approving drugs based on their advertising budget or methodology, then they're worthless.
Just like presidents should be decided by issues instead of how good looking they are. http://paulgraham.com/charisma.html
The other agents in all of our interactions are humans. Fallible, emotional creatures, guided by an unimaginably complicated, overlapping, self-contradicting set of heuristics optimized over millions of years to make us as effective as possible at creating more humans.
View any behavior approaching rationality as something to be treasured and appreciated, rather than the norm-- _Even within ourselves_. Even very smart people need prolonged introspection/mindfulness practice to become aware of how rarely we actually act as a rational being.
Wishing things were one way has no bearing on whether they are that way. We do ourselves a disfavor if we act as if the world worked the way we want it to rather than the way it does.
So yes, humans are fallible, but the extent of this reliance on "knowing the right people" is the extent of the fallibility.
Well, he was working for the FDA at that point. So that would have been a fail.
And yet, I don't think that display of competence would have landed him a job at Purdue.
Regulatory capture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
Cultural capture: https://baselinescenario.com/2016/04/22/cultural-capture-in-...
The revolving door between government and the private sector: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/slowing-the-revolving...
I have to wonder if Purdue is involved in some kickbacks to Dr's who (over)prescribe.
I think we need to re-evaluate how often we're prescribing this stuff. Experiencing pain has a limited risk potential in most people, especially when the pain is linked to a temporary condition. The potential for addiction has nearly unlimited risk. Much better in my opinion for someone to suffer through temporary pain using over-the-counter pain meds than risk throwing your life away to drug addiction.
In the end it was just my body protecting itself from the stupidities of the brain running it.
In some it causes nausea. You don't like it, fine. But I don't understand how people can be so pro marijuana on one hand, and so anti-opiates on the other. It's pain. It's not noble to suffer needlessly.
It's complete BS that it's harder for a dentist to prescribe a dozen Vicodin after a root canal these days. Or that many doctors will try to pass off 800mg of ibuprofen as a substitute for Vicodin for throwing you back out. That turns a couple of days of "be careful and taken it easy" into a couple of days of laying around on the couch in pain instead.
These drugs are inexpensive, very effective for short term pain management, and the vast majority of people have mild to no side effects, and almost no one has an addiction issue from using them.
It feels like the modern equivalent of Reefer Madness.
It's probably the hundreds of thousands of dead people from opiate overdoses vs the 0 dead people from marijuana overdose.
> I would guess a majority of adults in the US have had Vicodin or similar and I don't know anyone personally who ever got addicted.
You almost certainly know someone who has been addicted, you just didn't know. It is shockingly common.
Like I said, feels very hyperbolic.
It's like you're suggesting marijuana has no negative downsides at all when millions of people risk their freedom on a routine basis to consume it. Physical/physiological, doesn't make much difference when you're sitting in a cell and your family's financial future is in jeopardy. And I do know some people like that. It is shockingly common.
I don't think drug users in general should be in jail. Even if I think in general people would be better off without them outside of a medical reason.
When you start restricting people's freedom because you think you know what's best for them, and inflict needless suffering in the process, I have a hard time telling you apart from any other prohibitionist.
And if you have any pain at all after a medical procedure, I see no good reason responsible adults need to suffer at all if there's an inexpensive, effective, safe treatment for the vast majority of them.
Weed is not addictive, or even if it is in some people, to nowhere near the same level as opiates. It's also not responsible for thousands of overdose cases per year. It seems to me that THC pills would be better for pain management in these situations than opiate pills.
I also don't think you have much personal experience people who have been addicted to opiates. I have. It's not pretty. It's certainly worse than people who are merely potheads. The potheads I knew, when their source dried up or they ran out of money, were irritated, but were otherwise whole, and just waited until they could get their hands on more weed again. People addicted to opiates suffer severe withdrawal, and will do anything to get more pills. They can't simply stop using for a week.
I said as much. Which is a good enough reason to be suspicious of prohibition for me.
And to be clear, I'd find it very difficult to believe anyone gets a two week supply of opiates after surgery and goes all Reefer Madness after following the directions on the prescription. You're talking about people who abuse the drug. Most people who drink don't become alcoholics.
Now maybe you also want to abolish alcohol, in that case I just don't see any common ground.
I've tried pot for a migraine before and it only made me more nauseous. I'd be willing to try it for other types of pain but it certainly wouldn't be my first choice. I find the side effects mostly unpleasant.
I find opiates far more effective at relieving pain (tooth, back, eye pain after PRK surgery, mouth surgery after a car accident), with the fewest side effects. (I've only had light nausea once.) Running out of medication at the end of a course is a non-issue (I actually almost never finish it), and I notice lower levels of impairment than even a single beer.
But I don't abuse it. I take the larger dosage (500 vs 325? I forget exactly), in a maximum of 4 hour intervals (IIRC), and usually whatever the reason for taking them has subsided to the point ibuprofen alone works fine after about 48-hours.
And you would suggest that should end, without a viable alternative, because some other people abuse it? That seems like a very puritanical position to me.
The article is specifically about the effects of withdrawal when a 12 hour dose doesn't last 12 hours - when people are taking it by the prescribed schedule.
I'm not saying we should ban opioids. I have found them useful on occasion too. But to suggest there's no problem with people abusing them is not a helpful stance either.
I suppose in the same way I think having to pick up Sudafed from the pharmacy these days is silly.
I'm not a libertarian by any stretch but for me this is a sort of sacrificing freedom for security issue. Assumption of guilt and pre-crime is bad and I don't see any reason why people should be forced to suffer needlessly after a medical procedure, even if it's only temporary, and even if someone else found the pain tolerable.
But I think I've beat this horse to death. ;-)
People living with long term pain are at increased risk for death by suicide.
That doesn't mean we should just hand out opiates (which should not be used for chronic pain), but that we should take pain relief a bit more seriously.
Living in pain sucks.
I think that's the important point in the original comment.
The medical community focuses too much on symptom/treatment, and not enough on quality of life. I'm not saying that marijuana is an answer here, and I completely accept anyone who says I'm just using my pain as an excuse to get high, but it lets me feel emotion again, something you wrap up so tight in order to deal with the pain, you forget how to laugh and cry.
Personally I do not believe that GP's should prescribe pain killers. They either under prescribe (fearing everyone will become an addict) or over prescribing (often the wrong drugs).
Pain is a very complex subject (people of different thresholds and biological responses), it should be left to specialists.
They are not substitutes. Just options that may work for patients depending on just what manifests the pain and how they need to manage or cope with it.
One significant consideration is how well a person can function in a cognitive sense on both options. This varies extremely widely among people, and it's not simple to understand what will work for who.
They (opiates) are effective, but do require education and management. I am short on time, but one thing near completely ignored in this discussion is the pain trigger for medication and how that differs from other triggers and addiction.
Secondly, there are natural and effective addiction treatments out there that can work extremely well to get people off opiates. We don't talk about these because money and morals...
I have got myself off them, right along with a dozen others. The tolerance, once understood, and combined with things that work to marginalize withdrawl, is a solvable problem for most people.
Frankly, I've been asked to publish by medical practitioners and so far have not for fear of a legal option being scheduled away for profit.
Just know this dialog is not inclusive. There are powerful interests aligned against making this all workable.
The oxy manufacturers want to sell. The moral authority don't want people to get high, and cannot differentiate that from legit pain management.
Both do not want to face remedies and education needed to keep people out of trouble, and society contributes with an irrational dialog about these things.
In the 90's, I ended up there, did research, solved it for myself and to date, many others.
The dialog is broken. We can manage this to a net benefit for the vast majority of problem cases today. That we don't have THAT discussion is the problem, not the drug.
BTW, it has a 4 hour effective life, not 12. This is widely known. The whole 12 hour relief line of discussion is avoidance. True. 4 hour relief being bad is also avoidance, given there are meaningful, workable options out there today.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11649447
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11649653
I'm not saying "Don't ever prescribe opiates". I'm saying "Don't prescribe opiates as a first option".
> Personally I do not believe that GP's should prescribe pain killers. [...] it should be left to specialists
I agree. I didn't point it out, but that's what the guidance that I posted earlier says.
If you're in your twenties, and you fracture a bone, the really bad pain will last for a day or two max. It's better to take over-the-counter pain meds and suffer through what pain remains than to jump immediately to the dangerous opiates and potentially risk your life going a lot more off-course than just dealing with some pain.
And to reiterate, I am a wuss as far as pain goes. I'm not the kind of person who pushes himself to suffer through pain. But in these kinds of situations, I look at the various paths, and potential opiate addiction is way more frightening than temporary pain.
I've tried gabapentin, pregabalin, duloxetine etc, but had terrible side effects with them all. I was at my wits end before I was put on opioids.
While I may have agreed with this years ago, I'm pretty sure the research shows otherwise.
Also, I'm not sure why pain is considered less important than other medical outcomes. For example, would you rather live in constant pain or lose a pinkie finger? I'd lose the finger and get on with my life.
So to answer your hypothetical, yes, I absolutely would rather deal with some temporary pain and get on with my life in another week than lose a body part for the rest of my life. Who would make the other choice?!
Contrast with getting hooked on opioids and entering a downward cycle of addiction -- the potential outcome there is the very loss of your life, with a higher chance than losing your life from a simple bone fracture. A lot of people die from opiate overdose every year in the United States; it's actually a few thousand more than from being murdered with a gun. http://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/overdose.html
The problem with opiate addiction is that a lot of people are introduced to it through benign means, like starting off with a prescription from their doctor, or their friend giving them some for a legitimate pain-related reason. The gateway drug argument for weed is bunkum, but the gateway drug argument for some opioid use sometimes leading to more opioid use is very real, and is borne out with the statistics. The CDC has lots of information you can read. It's the biggest and deadliest drug epidemic in the US right now.
That being said, I always used to wonder if it was because I can't take any NSAIDs- it's acetaminophen or nothing for me. This usually means where they could get away with a big dose of Ibuprofin for pain and anti-inflammatory I wind up with oxycodone and prednisone. Which means I usually just gut it out after the first day or two.
My solution: ban all of that. Let doctors learn about new drugs via means funded by the doctors themselves. Before the Internet, that would have been difficult. But now you can imagine specialist medical journals, or special AMA committees. Manufacturers would still try to manipulate that, but doctors wouldn't be grossly outgunned.
I've also heard just the opposite: dr's being afraid to prescribe them or being skeptical of patients' claims of pain out of fear they are just trying to score some pain pills.
My recollection is that I was briefly aware of them working in my mouth but not in any pain.
If your dentist proposes things like this, please, switch to someone else.
(For those unfamiliar, after the shots you feel not much other than some tugging. And you can get up and walk immediately after.)
[1] http://www.medicaldaily.com/baby-girl-cavity-filling-dental-...
[2] http://wgntv.com/2016/02/23/dentists-license-suspended-after...
Still, I don't think the procedure used for wisdom teeth in the US has the same risks as the general anesthesia used in more involved surgeries. It's probably still reasonably described as sedation (in my story, I'm obviously still conscious, just not very aware. I didn't include it above, but I actually asked How much longer? and they just told me to go back to sleep).
Without the general I would still have the teeth today.
Human bodies are not even vaguely consistent in their response to medications.
When I had my appendix removed when I was about 12 I awoke and tried to sit up in the middle of the operation. I remembered it and confirmed it with the doc in post-op. The OP's story of waking up during the wisdom tooth extraction reminded me of my experience. Years later I learned of the connection between pain tolerance and red hair, which I have.
Reading this article now helps me to better understand the pain and suffering he endured from these drugs and now give me insight into the lengths he went to for "rescue" medication, which included doctor shopping and paying retail price for more than half of his meds so that his insurance company wouldn't report him to the state or DEA (he did get caught eventually).
It boggles my mind to think how an industry whose purpose is to help people can become so corrupt and I wonder whether there is any hope of this getting better before it gets much worse. With the mainstream media playing enabler, it's doubtful it will ever happen (name the last news broadcast that wasn't wrapped end to end in big pharma advertising).
Ibuprofen is surprisingly effective for many types of pain, I don't see why doctors immediately prescribe something as dangerous as OxyContin.
We idealize pills. We talk about a future where all food could be replaced with a pill. We attribute the starting gun of women's liberation to... THE pill. So many pills have captured our imagination and our culture: viagra, valium, adderall, prozac, mothers little helpers, morning after pills To us medicine often means pills.
We live lives that are too busy with artificial constraints, without enough time connected to relationships and leisure and nature. We live accelerated lives and have no time to be unhealthy. A pill that you take home and take just once every twelve hours -- at the start of your work day and the end -- is the only kind of cure we have time for.
There is a reason Americans consume the vast majority of pills. Far far more than other rich countries.
A colleague tells me that they have a street price of like $40/pill. So then I'm wondering how many people know that I have a thousand dollars worth of street drugs in my house. I dropped them off at the local drug disposal facility.
- Corporate misinformation pushing a significant set of users on a repeated and addiction forming schedule.
- Morphine (one of the proven and cheaper alternatives) perceived as problematic / cancer drug
- Doctors having less hassle and financial incentive to prescribe OC on q12 schedule than alternatives
- shame on user side and war on drugs policies that make it hard to reach out for help
The good news is that the internet makes it harder to spin misinformation over the long run.
Guess the jokes on us though the Sackler family gets knighted and modern institutions like MoMA let them slap their name on buildings for $$$ so who's really any better.
The article is even about the supposed justification of choosing Oxycontin, the 12 hour dosing, not being sufficient or even harmful.
So yes, it was partially the fault of the patent system.
I refuse to see doctors as the hapless victims of a corporation.
Oxycontin is essentially hydrocodone with a time-release mechanism. You need to demonstrate significant distance from existing medication in order to get a new patent.
The entire debacle, soup to nuts, was driven by the patent system. Without it, a) the drug wouldn't have even gotten developed, and b) the 12 hour marketing claim would not have been politically and economically necessary for Purdue.
I mean, the doctors can see that information coming from the company can be problematic and be cautious of it. I guess they ideally shouldn't have to be, but that's not the world.
Personally, I'd be fine dismantling Purdue for something like this. We need to start recognizing that large institutions make mistakes for reasons that can't be fixed.
I find myself thinking back to this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11627213
Where I quoted Peter Pronovost (the checklist guy) saying:
The fundamental problem with the quality of American medicine is that we’ve failed to view delivery of health care as a science. The tasks of medical science fall into three buckets. One is understanding disease biology. One is finding effective therapies. And one is ensuring those therapies are delivered effectively. That third bucket has been almost totally ignored by research funders, government, and academia. It’s viewed as the art of medicine.
This is literally a case of boxes 1 and 2 being checked, with little attention to box 3.
As for the FDA guy materializing at Perdue this is par for the course of all gov positions. A cabinet minister here was instrumental in vetoing the Bank Act which saved banks millions in taxes. Of course that minister materialized on a bank's board of directors after being kicked out of office by the voters as a thank you. When that bank started making large party donations they appointed the same ex minister as dean of a local university where immediately upon being parachuted into the role credit card tables were set up by the same bank on campus to rope students into applying for them. Plenty of city employees and councillors that allowed unpopular developments ended up on the board of developer corps too only later to be appointed to special environment advisory committees that of course pushed for pro development regulations. I'm sure this ex FDA pharma shill will end up somewhere else so he can further manipulate the system to the benefit of his patron too.
They don't go into the mechanism in the article, but my assumption is that some peoples bodies dissolve the costing more quickly than others, and those people get the dose in a shortened time period.
can you elaborate on this? I'm not sure how the mechanism works to prevent splitting the pill in two. (I'm not sure how the mechanism works at all, really.)
I found this article: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-05/science-un-cru...
edit: read through it, splitting should still be possible.
The "abuse-resistant" tablets are made by mixing the active ingredients with a polymer, a plastic- or glue-like substance that, when dried, is very hard and slightly malleable. Typically, attempts to crush these tablets simply flatten them out rather than pulverize them. They can still be cut in half, but doing so is more difficult and dangerous than with a standard tablet (you need a very sharp knife/razor to cut them, and you need considerably more effort as well, which increases the risk of injuring yourself while attempting the cut).
Patients who wish to pulverize these pills can still do so using a Dremel or similar power tool, but direct insufflation tends to result in gunking up their nostrils: when the powder mixes with mucous, it turns into a thick goo that clogs the nasal passages. This can be circumvented by cutting the powder with the powder of a crushed over-the-counter medication (typically acetaminophen/paracetamol). At a ≥50% paracetamol ratio, the resulting mucous goo can be avoided entirely.
Patients who wish to inject the substance will also run into the goo problem when trying to dissolve the powder in water or other liquid. The goo is too thick to inject with a typical syringe. I'm almost 100% certain there's a way around this as with insufflation, but I'm not sure what such a method would be. I guarantee you that users who inject already know.
It seems to me that pharmaceutical companies are constantly being surprised by the lengths to which drug addicts will go to get their fix. The only effective way to "combat" drug abuse would be to decriminalize possession and (ab)use of these substances (in the sense that perpetrators will not be regarded as criminals), to start viewing users as sufferers of an illness / mental health problem rather than as criminals, and to make treatment for their addictions readily available without stigma. Slapping addicts with a felony and sending them to prison is the current practice, and it is absolutely ineffective at combating drug abuse. In terms of government funding, I seriously doubt that treatment for addiction will be any more expensive than imprisonment, and it may even be cheaper. Of course, medical providers can do their part by prescribing such addictive substances only as a last resort, and only at the smallest effective dosage.
The problem with opiates is that by the time you get to a dosage that's therapeutically effective, you'll end up building massive amounts of tolerance to the drug. I'm sure pharma companies are well aware of this fact. Strange how we as a society use opiates for pain management rather than cannibanoids like CBD or CBN.
This is just plain wrong. Pharmaceutical companies shouldn't be permitted to use this kind of 'bribery'.
Is this just a US thing? I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this kind of behaviour is not permitted across Europe.
Would a doctor refuse to prescribe different, much cheaper drug, keeping them on expensive drug that does not work? Should not they then lose licenses?
The whole prescription medicine system always seemed evil to me.
I did notice, however, when I had some shoulder pain the other day from weightlifting, that Norco is now very hit or miss for me. So I usually end up going with a high CBD edible or strain whenever I have acute pain.
(opiates and paracetamol do not have those effects)
I wonder, for those people who do not get the full 12-hour effect, are they eliminating the drug quicker or metabolizing it into its bioactive agent quicker? It could be that not only are they going into withdrawal, they're actually experiencing more of an effect than they are supposed to. (I do not know. It'd be interesting for somebody who knew something to chime in here.)
When my wife (chronic pain patient) wanted to switch from one pain med to another because of diminishing effect, I helped her neurologist review literature on the equianalgesia properties of various options.
For several meds, blood concentration vs. time varied by one order of magnitude among patients who were otherwise well-matched subjects. Some metabolized/eliminated a med to non- therapeutic levels in a day, others took nearly two weeks. Same dose, same route of administration. Probably different P450 enzyme activities [1] among other things.
I came away from the experience appreciating how incredibly difficult it is to construct a good pain management plan. It takes more time and info than many doctors can bring to bear on each patient.
Of course that started in the 19th century so we're not so easily fooled any more, right?
Anyways, this just highlights the issue with the DEA. People should be able to fairly freely get pain medications. It's their choice and they should not have their freedom curtailed by professional gatekeepers and bureaucrats.
A mere fine for ruining the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people.
DHC Continus (extended relase dihydrocodeine) claims to last 12 hours, but for me at least only lasts 7-8 hours.
I've also been on extended release Tramadol in the past, which only lasted around 6 hours.
I suppose a smartphone app could ask the patient to tap one of the ten pain-level smiley - frowny - sweaty faces at intervals as well.
If so, there'd be a way to measure how fast these painkillers clear from each patient. It might even make it possible for some patients safely to play an active role in their own dosing. Avoiding wide swings in blood concentration is the safest way to go.
Anyways, I've realized to take Maher's views and endorsements regarding the medical field with a grain of salt.
So there's a difference, and I agree with him. I vaccinated my kids, and I even take the flu shot because my kids are still young. But given the fact that the flu vaccines is sometimes less than 50% effective some years especially in the years when it's a new strain, it's mostly an enormous waste of money that is going into the pockets of the drug companies. They have marketed the idea and created vaccine militants when practically it's not effective. If you even dare to say you don't want to take a flu-shot, you're labeled as an anti-vaxxer kook, basically exactly what you did.
Depends on what you mean by "low-risk disease." If you mean diseases that are rarely seen, then I think you need to re-examine your stance. The reason a lot of those diseases are low-risk is because the population has herd-immunity from decades of vaccination. This is a good thing. But if people stop vaccinating against those diseases, they will become higher risk.
Yes, HPV causes cervical cancer in some cases. But they want to innoculating every single child for a disease that kills 3000 women a year in the US. That is less 10% of the number of people killed in driving accidents per year. That sounds like a money grab by the drug manufacturers by making up a boogyman in HPV, and collecting the money from our government and us through our taxes. It's genius, in some senses.
It's the equivalent of banning all peanut products from every school in the US to protect those few that are deathly allergic, and then paying a company for the enforcement of the ban.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/04/opinion/carroll-douglas-hpv-va...
> Such cancer still causes the death of 4,000 women each year in the United States. It's estimated that about 15,000 HPV-associated cancers could be prevented each year by the vaccine. HPV is, unfortunately, often transmitted through sexual activity. It's the cause of genital warts, and it's an extremely common sexually transmitted infection.
> The vaccine is safe. By the summer of 2012, more than 46 million doses of the vaccine had been given in the United States -- almost all to girls because of early awareness of HPV's link to cervical cancer -- and adverse events from vaccines are closely monitored.
> Moreover, there is growing evidence that the recent increase in cancers of the head and neck are also associated with HPV infection. A recent study of more than 1,300 patients with oral cancer found that more than 55% of them were infected with HPV.
You explicitly stated that this isn't going to be the case:
> I'm not going to get my son vaccinated.
Next question please.
Please tell me your post was ment ironic. There are people out there who cant move without pain medication - and who regularly hear a "Get a job." from the same guys who recommend "Dont do drugs!".
It may come as a shock: I know, its a strange thing to contemplate- but others might not be a copy of you. Like, there are other people, but they are diffrent?
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg173/chapter/1-recommendat...
http://pathways.nice.org.uk/pathways/low-back-pain-early-man...
http://pathways.nice.org.uk/pathways/opioids-for-pain-relief...
(There's lots on NICE. That's the organisation that assesses effectiveness and cost effectiveness of treatments, and makes recommendations about whether they should be used in English National Health Service. I guess this is one of the "death panels" we have in this country.)
BBC Radio Four have a programme called Inside Health. They had an episode on the benefits of exercise, including exercise as a treatment for arthritis pain. Sadly, BBC geoblock some programmes. (I have no idea which ones either.) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06vkg24
doctors are full of alternatives, but people loooooove opioids so that's what they prescribe. people also think doctors always make the best decisions, but that's horseshit, they commonly make terrible decisions because they're overworked and their patients are terrible at communicating.
the last time i went in for pain they immediately offered me opioids, i said nope and LO, AND BEHOLD, an alternative was immediately offered.
and GUESS WHAT, they were SUPER CHEAP. hmmmmmm....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketorolac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylprednisolone
I was misdiagnosed as having IBS a couple of years ago, and became addicted to oxycontin, because the pain was no severe I couldn't go to work without it.
At one point I had to have a colonoscopy, and I had to stop taking oxycontin 48 hours before the procedure, the withdrawl was hell.
I remember being scatter brained, unable to focus on anything for more than a few seconds, I was sweating and shivering, and it felt like my bones were on fire. The withdrawl caused a deep pain, especially in my joints, ankles and knees were the worst. It was a strange pain I had never felt before, like fire and electric. Even my teeth hurt.
It took 24 hours or so to get past the worst of it, and I have been VERY lucky to get another diagnosis and some medication that helps. I will never take oxycontin again, but sometimes, you just cant help it.
Coming off that was absolutely horrible, about as ill as I've felt since I had the flu and nearly ended up hospitalized.
I have a spinal condition and opiod's have been suggested by multiple docs but I simply won't take them until the equation balances, withdrawl and potential depency vs not be able to function.
This might sound dumb, but I think part of it might depend on your experience with recreational drug use. The effects of Oxy are...off-putting if you don't know what to expect, and I'd agree that it might mess with your "focus". But, personally, I've found altered mental states to increase focus, once you can "harness" it.
Note: I'm not advocating experimenting with OxyContin, as it has serious physically addictive properties.
That's a great suggestion! however if I do it's quite simple, don't do drugs, can you do it's quite simple don't be an empathy lacking idiot?.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
They didn't work for me personally, opioids did, but prescribing such antidepressant type medications first seems a reasonable course of action
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).
Why not? Because they can be dangerous and require precautions to be taken before use? Should I stop driving cars too?
Coming soon.
I refuse to use opioids anymore, I can't code on them, they muddle your brain. But I wouldn't wish this life on anyone, not even the morons who glibly state that all you have to do is not take drugs.
It's like the mind has a thought, then checks to see how the body reacts (i.e. with joy or fear) and this in turn affects how the thought is interpreted, which then influences what is the next thought, etc.
The oxycontin or whatever temporarily cuts off this mind-body connection (without paralysis!) but eventually the fear comes back in a downward spiral. Even the appearance of everyday objects can then seem threatening and disturbing.