11/30 article on topic: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/11/30/after-rec...
Data source: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm
There is certainly far more work to be done.
And if the difference is merely dose and you're suggesting people should do it or otherwise they won't get the effective painkillers, this seems like an obvious injection of cost disease into the existing stupidly expensive healthcare system.
I never suggested people do anything. Just explaining certain changes to the system as a result of the crack down.
But I think the thought is requiring the Rx Tylenol be tried first does successfully deter people who fit drug seeking behavior and second physicians were to often writing opioids as a first line of defense to pain, whereas Tylenol will work just fine for most.
My guess is studies also show that overall healthcare costs go down and not up as you say. Maybe in those instances a patient really needs the opioid for pain they have a slight cost increase, but for many others it will save them from addiction, weed out a lot of drug seeking patients and the costs associated with addiction/hospitalization/OD/etc.... There are a lot of hidden costs in opioid abuse.
Still it’s not my rules or changes, if you don’t like it and think you can show in the aggregate these changes are driving up costs in healthcare to the detriment of patients who legitimately need opioids, write your congressman. But I don’t think to many people will give your stance a sympathetic ear so long as people who do need them can still get them.
After some emergency dental work last week, I was given Rx Tylenol. It has a low dose of codeine, which is an opiate.
> None of my pharmacist friends will even fill an opioid anymore until the patient has filled and tried using a Rx Tylenol first.
Is an oxymoron? (Opioids are a superset of opiates, for what it's worth.)
There are scales to this stuff, like you wouldn’t lump heroin or morphine (both opiates) with Tylenol with codine (then again...maybe you might), but that’s the point you said you didn’t want to have a highly trained pharmacist fill your Tylenol, but based on all the questions you have, that is probably the most appropriate course of action. Then you can get a handle on the risks of these therapies, the difference and allow that to inform your decisions.
see: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...
I'd imagine you'd need some sort of formal study of the data to try to assign why deaths are starting to decline/plateau and what share a certain thing is responsible for, there are other possible causes.
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Opiate prescriptions are falling pretty significantly. Number of prescriptions is down 22% from 2012-17, and volume (mg of opiates dispensed) dropped 12% in 2017 alone. https://www.aafp.org/news/health-of-the-public/20180425opioi...
That could be contributing to a decline in the "pipeline" of new addicts. Less people starting on them and lower doses and shorter durations when they are prescribed.
It would make sense for a decline spurred by that to not show up in opiate deaths for a few years, my impression is that most people spiral downward for a while before actually dying/ODing.