I just watched the Dr. Phil show on pain medicine abuse and he referred one of his guests to a facility in CA. called the Casa Palmera. They also treat chronic pain and right on the front page say that 90% of chronic pain patients are prescribed opiods and 10-41% abuse them!!! (pain physician journal 2006) Boy, I'd like to see that journal because another journal reported this year that only 1-3% of pain patients abuse their meds and most of them had an addiction issue before they ever started pain meds.
Unbelievable!
I just went and read that journal and that is what it said although I think the stats are from 2002.
Last edited by Boxerluver; 10-13-2009 at 06:20 PM.
Reason: Read the journal
I am going to take a look at this as soon as I've got some time. Many 'studies' or 'polls' turn out to be horribly skewed if you look at what actually is going on.
That another media type is perpetuating this type of incorrect information infuriates me.
Yeah, me too. The show was filled with "scary" stats and it was promoting a show that will air today on how easy it is to doctor shop and it follows this guy as he goes from appointment to appointment getting meds. I have actually changed my mind about data bases after watching this show. If people can really go to 9 different docs a month to get scripts, then there does need to be a data base to show this.I guess I was naive. I was appauled. Here most of us are afraid to go to the ER so we don't break a contract yet these addicts go to 9 docs a month and get hundreds of pills. It just goes to show you the lengths addicts will go to.
The one thing Phil said though that I was happy to hear was when he asked the 25 year old how did this happen. His mother said it started with his back surgery and pain. Dr. Phil said yeah but many people have surgery and back pain and don't end up abusing their meds. Hey even a small plug helps!
I watched the Documentary he mentioned called The OxyContin Express. Talk about scarry stats. 85% of all oxy prescribed in america is prescribed in FlA because they still don't have a tracking system in place. 11 people die every day in FLA because of oxycodone OD. There are more presciption drug abusers than Heroin, X, and cocaine combined. These numbers aren't made up simply to make the lives of CP patients more difficult.
I remember the years before OxyC was invented and CP wasn't treated with opiates. The study that put the abuse rate at 3% was from that age. It's been quoted since this forum was created over and over, including by myself. That study was released in 98 and was created from stats from the prior 10 years. It's from a population of patients nothing like todays population of pain med users. Back then if someone wasn't post op, a cancer patient or recently had an acute trauma they wouldn't have been given meds. It wasn't a study of CP patients on long acting meds. It was a study of the few patients that did recieve opiates only when the doctors saw fit with meds that were available at the time.
Back then surgical patients were generally cut off entirely within 6 weeks, and those in hospice care weren't selling meds they didn't need. Stories about people dying in pain when they had cancer were as prevolent as stories about OxyContin now. That's a big part of why and how things changed to the way they are now. That study helped things change for CP patienmts, but isn't a reflection of CP patients med use since opiates weren't used to treat chronic pain back then.
They only have the last 15 years of data to draw from as far as Chronic pain and opiates go because these meds didn't exist before 1996. 5 mg percs or Tylox were the strongest dose of oral meds made available out patient back then unless you had cancer. Yes there are more recent articles that quote the earlier statistic sighted and apply that statistic to chronic pain patients making the same assumption that only those truly in pain are reciveing these meds. Unfortunately, that's not the case when 85% of all oxy scripts originate in one state.
It's not statistically probabale to assume only 3% of those scripts are being abused. When 3000 people are dying every year in FLA alone, it's hard to call it a bunch of bad press for oxy. I don't think Oxy is the problem, It's the ease in which it can be obtained that's the problem. IMO
Good luck, Dave
I have definately changed my opinion on the new(or somewhat new)monitoring system which will be coming to Florida soon. But I am afraid that that will not fix the problem. As long as we have people selling their prescriptions and addicts to buy them opiates will still be abused. Of course my main concern is that we all will continued to be affected by this abuse.
Linear Mode
