(WMBD) — We often hear about the opioid epidemic from the perspective of those who are addicted But what about the other side of the coin, people who use prescription opioids as a means of treating chronic pain?
Jennifer Bowersock lives her life day to day.
“I am never out of pain, I am in pain from the second I wake up to the second I fall asleep,” Bowersock explains.
Open heart surgery put her on a painful road to recovery.
“Some days I’m good, I can get out of bed, function normally. Then, other days it’s very depressing, you just can’t move, I can’t get out of bed,” Bowersock says.
She takes prescription opioids to take the edge off and help her sleep. Three years later, she can’t imagine life without them.
“I probably wouldn’t be able to function at all.”
For Shari Burdick, it was a diagnosis with Degenerative Disc Disease 10 years ago. Debilitating pain put her out of her longtime job in the school cafeteria.
“I have a new normal, it’s not the normal I used to have,” Burdick says.
Physical therapy and injections didn’t help with the crippling pain. Prescription opioids help her do more of the things she loves, like cooking and spending time with her grandkids.
Shari has been on her medication for 5 years and in that time, has seen changes with every trip to the pharmacy.
“You don’t get as much in one prescription as you used to, they cut it back. You can’t get it early, I mean if you pick up your prescription on a certain day it’s exactly a month later that you can get it. Not a day sooner. They’re very strict with it,” Burdick explains.
If anyone understands why new guidelines are being put in place to limit the supply of opioids available, it’s Burdick.
“My younger brother died from an overdose of opioids so yes I can see both sides of it,” Burdick says.
“Most people don’t realize the other side of the coin, that legitimate pain patients are getting caught up in the hysteria over the opioids,” Pharmacist Mike Minesinger says.
Minesinger is owner and pharmacist at Alwan Pharmacy. He says if prescriptions are going to be cut back, it needs to be done gradually and humanely.
“I’m just seeing reports of people who are being suddenly taken off of them. You know, their suicide rate goes up or you know, alternatively, they switch to street drugs because they can’t get the prescription anymore.” Minesinger explains.
Dr. Dennis McManus is Director of the Central Illinois Pain Clinic. When it comes to prescribing to his patients at the clinic, he takes a tough stance, telling them it’s the medicine contributing to their pain.
“We’re having a lot of people dying, more people than died in the Vietnam War, more people dying than the height of the AIDS epidemic, people are dying and the question is what’s going on? My standpoint is there’s just no good evidence for the use of chronic opioids in chronic pain,” Dr. McManus explains.
Dr. McManus says the evidence shows long-term opioid use actually increases our sensitivity to pain.
“The best way to avoid the problem is not to create the problem in the first place.”
The Centers for Disease Control published a guideline for prescribing opioids for chronic pain in 2017. In it, the CDC says clinicians should prescribe the lowest effective dosage and should prescribe no greater quantity than for the expected duration of pain severe enough to require it. The CDC goes on to say 3 days of less will often be sufficient, more than 7 days is rarely needed.
If the benefits don’t outweigh the harms, the CDC recommends physicians try other therapies and work with patients to taper opioids to lower dosages or discontinuation.
Still, for patients like Bowersock and Burdick, they wish they didn’t need the treatment they call life-changing.
“Try living a day in our life to take them and somebody that doesn’t need them, you’re making it that much harder for the people that actually do need them,” Bowersock says.
WEB LINK: https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/pdf/guidelines_factsheet-a.pdf