It looks like we inherit not only chronic physical pain but also a fourfold increased risk of both anxiety and depression.
Somehow, it makes sense to me that having a body “too loose” and being physically “unstable” would also manifest as being mentally “unstable”, that along with our physical pain, we also suffer from mental pain.
Abstract
To assess the risk of psychiatric disorders in Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) and hypermobility syndrome. Continue reading
In My Chronic Illness, I Found a Deeper Meaning – The New York Times – Jan 2018 – by Elliot Kukla
I’m not usually a fan of “I accepted my pain, so it got better” stories because they so often reach an overly optimistic and, to me, unrealistic, outcome. But this excellent essay paints a far more realistic picture of what acceptance might look like and how it could be nurtured.
…I had discovered that I was no longer trusted by my doctors about my own body or experiences.
I think this distressing experience is common to all people with invisible and externally undetectable illness, especially when reporting chronic pain. Continue reading
Time to Bring the Troops Home: More Veterans Committed Suicide Last Decade Than Died in Vietnam – by Matt Agorist – Mar 2020
I knew there was a high rate of suicide among veterans since pain medications have been restricted, but I had no idea that those on active duty are also dying from suicide (though I’m not terribly surprised).
It is no secret that the leading cause of death among active duty troops deployed to the Middle East is not combat or accidents, or IEDs — it’s themselves.
The Pentagon’s own statistics show that this is a crisis but it is being ignored.
This crisis is also happening in the civilian population. No one is making the logical connection between forcing so many Americans to give up effective pain relief and the increasing numbers of suicides. Continue reading
Life after opioids: ‘I went home and cried for a long time. I felt really stupid’ | Australia news | The Guardian – by Celina Ribeiro – Feb 2020
Ms. Ribeiro has written an excellent two-part article on our plight:
For people managing chronic pain, the push to reduce opioid prescription has left them feeling lost and unsupported.
…and with untreated, extreme, and suicide-inducing pain.
Louisa O’Neil inhales deeply when she is asked about her history of pain. Then, dispassionately, like recalling a string of part-time jobs, she lists the history of surgeries, injuries, accidents and conditions that have rendered her in a near permanent state of pain for the past 16 years. Continue reading
Damaging State Legislation Regarding Opioids: The Need To Scrutinize Sources Of Inaccurate Information Provided To Lawmakers – free full-text /PMC6857667/ – Michael E Schatman and Hannah Shapiro – 2019 Nov
On January 22, 2019, a Massachusetts State Representative introduced House Bill 3656, “An Act requiring practitioners to be held responsible for patient opioid addiction”.
Section 50 of this proposed legislation reads, “A practitioner, who issues a prescription … which contains an opiate, shall be liable to the patient … for the payment of the first 90 days of in-patient hospitalization costs if the patient becomes addicted and is subsequently hospitalized”.
When asked of the source of medical information on which he based his bill, the Representative mentioned the name of a nationally known addiction psychiatrist.
Though unmentioned, this is clearly referring to our nemesis, Mr. Kolodny, who has continued using cherry-picked data from years ago to make his claims that “opioids cause addiction”. Continue reading
This is a series of PubMed articles (in numerical order) dealing with the classification and coding of chronic pain in the upcoming 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases.
Getting this right by creating the right descriptions for each type of pain is critical for meaningful diagnoses and pain research.
Chronic pain as a symptom or a disease: the IASP Classification of Chronic Pain for the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). – PubMed – NCBI – Jan 2019 Continue reading
A Practical Approach to Opioid Weaning in the Midst of an Opioid Crisis – Pain Medicine News – by Mary Milano Carter, MS, APRN-BC, RN-BC – Sep 2019
The expanse of chronic pain in the United States is incredible. According to U.S. government statistics, pain affects more people than diabetes, coronary heart disease or cancer.
Low back pain gets the gold medal here, affecting 27% of individuals with chronic pain, per the National Institutes of Health.
Approximately 26 million Americans between 20 and 64 years of age experience frequent episodes of low back pain, and it is the leading cause of disability in Americans under 45 years of age, according to the AAPM.
As providers, we struggled to treat our patients’ complaints of debilitating pain, and sales of prescription opioids quadrupled between 1999 and 2014.
Treating benign pain with opioids became an accepted part of the treatment plan, keeping in mind the need to satisfy the Joint Commission’s standards for pain management.
In 2016, the “CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain” stated that opioids should not be prescribed as first-line treatment for chronic pain, and that prescriptions should be kept to 90 mg of morphine or less daily, or the equivalent in another opioid
No, it did NOT say to keep rx at 90mg or less – it merely said to be more cautious.
Unfortunately, a guideline that was aimed at primary care providers became a standard of care to insurance companies. Providers had to comply with weaning patients on opioids to satisfy the CDC guideline
But the guideline never mentioned anything about weaning. In fact, it said nothing about patients already taking opioids.
It’s all the other people/agencies meddling with our meidcal care that unilaterally decided to wean current patients.
Pain management providers have been adept at weaning patients from opioids due to severe side effects, patient noncompliance with treatment, unsafe patient behaviors, lack of efficacy of the medication or just simply patient desire.
But most patient being weaned don’t exhibit these wigns of opioid use disorder. It seems Ms Carter is saying that while they’ve always had to wean people who had problems with using opioids or their efficacy, now they “had to” wean patients for no other reason than to satisfy bureacracy or managers they are working under.
The Process of Tapering
How long does it take for a patient to become opioid tolerant?
The FDA definition is a patient taking 60 mg of oral morphine daily, or the equivalent of that in another opioid, for at least one week.
If a patient discontinues abruptly or is tapered down rapidly, withdrawal symptoms can occur.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse states that the length of withdrawal symptoms is dependent on
- how long the drug was taken,
- the dosage of the drug,
- the half-life of the drug,
- the patient’s age and
- comorbidities.
And NIDA (the agency with extensive history and expertise on drug abuse) helpfully explains the journey through withdrawal:
- The typical onset of withdrawal is approximately 12 hours, starting with myalgias and excessive yawning.
- By day 2, hyperhidrosis, anorexia, diarrhea, runny nose, and anxiety and panic attacks can occur.
- By the third or fourth day, the patient can experience abdominal cramping and vomiting while the myalgias begin to subside.
- By days 5 to 6, most of the physical symptoms will resolve, but the psychological symptoms can be long-lasting (Table).
Table. Opioid Withdrawal Symptoms
When initiating an opioid taper, alert the patient that the process typically takes two weeks to six months—and sometimes up to 24 months, depending on opioid usage.
The total daily dose of opioids can be reduced 10% to 20% every one to two weeks, and reduced up to 50% at a time if the dosage is low or truly as needed.
Dies this mean opioids were used when they were *not* needed?
If the dose of a medication is taken truly “as needed”, this statement means the patient is suffering from symptoms that medication can ameliorate.
This seems a clear medical reason to continue the medication. Otherwise, a doctor is literally deprescribing a medicine that was medically needed.
When the total daily dose becomes very low, it should be reduced by 5% at a time.
It is important to monitor the patient closely for withdrawal symptoms, and individualize the plan of care.
When performing an opioid taper without a medical reason, only because of outside influences, how can that be individualized? When a patient needs a medication, treating them as an individual would mean continuing to prescribe the needed medication.
If the patient is reporting withdrawal symptoms, you can use the Clinical Opiate Withdrawal Scale.
Eleven symptoms are graded and tallied, and total score will indicate mild to severe opioid withdrawal (Figure).
Figure. Clinical Opiate Withdrawal Scale.
Based on J Psychoactive Drugs. 2003;35(2):253-259.Medication therapies to assist with weaning and withdrawing opioids include:
- lonidine (physical withdrawal symptoms, decreases sympathetic activity)
– mg po bid; Catapres TTS1 patch- nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs/acetaminophen (pain)
- loperamide (diarrhea)
- melatonin or trazodone (sleep)
- prochlorperazine (nausea and vomiting)
- hydroxyzine (anxiety)
- oxybutynin (sweats)
- antidepressants
- antiepileptics
The patient should be reassessed every three to seven days. It is not recommended to treat withdrawal symptoms with other opioids or benzodiazepines.
How is a patient, crippled by pain, going to get to the doctor every 3 to 7 days? How can a disabled patient afford so many appointments?
Most of the suggested drugs have already been prescribed to pain patients to lower the dose of opioids needed.
There are also adjuvant therapies to assist with opioid weaning.
Nondrug management can include
- support groups and counseling,
What if your pain doesn’t respond to talk therapy because it has a physical cause?
- Referrals to detox/addiction medicine/psychiatry,
No matter how prettily they dress it up we see here that they think we’re all more addicted than in pain.
- nutrition and hydration counseling,
So now our disabling chronic pain might be due to not drinking enough water? To not eating the right food?
- good sleep hygiene,
What if your sleep is horrible *because of* your pain? What if you can’t sleep because you’re no longer given proper pain relief?
- relaxation and meditation,
The modern “cure-all”: you’re hurting because you’re stressed and if you’d just learn to relax, you wouldn’t be having so much pain. Condescending, minimizing,
- Reiki therapy,
Now a medically trained doctor is expected to promote “mystical” alternative therapies? Seriously?
- aromatherapy,
If a patient has pain severe enough to need opioids, aromatherapy will not be effective.
- an exercise regimen.
What if you can’t exercise *because of* your pain? What if tapering causes your pain to increase, and then you can no longer exercise? (that’s my case: the less opioid, the more pain, the less exercise – I doubt I’m unique in that aspect.)
Also, most of these non-opioid therapies are already being used on pain patients in addition to their opioids.
The American Society of Addiction Medicine also has guidelines for opioid withdrawal.
Again, patients are assumed to be addicted.
Recommendations include the use of:
- clonidine to support opioid withdrawal;
- methadone for patients who may benefit from daily dosing;
- oral buprenorphine, initiated after withdrawal, although it has poor medication adherence;
- oral buprenorphine-naloxone, initiated until 12 to 18 hours after the last dose of a short-acting agonist; and
- naltrexone for extended-release injectable suspension (Vivitrol, Alkermes) for those with difficulty adhering to oral daily doses.
In conclusion, clinicians should be aware that there are many options for safely weaning patients from chronic opioid therapy.
I wish they’d explain more about the basic assumption that all patients on opioids MUST be tapered.
There are many patients who use opioids responsibly and only use them as needed for pain, but they are never mentioned. It’s as though it’s no longer legal to treat legitimate pain with effective medication.
Author: Ms. Carter is a member of the Pain Medicine News editorial advisory board.
Director of Nursing Education, Chronic Pain Service/Anesthesiology, North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, N.Y.
It takes psychological flexibility to thrive with chronic illness | Aeon Essays
…approximately a third of adults suffer from multiple chronic conditions, wreaking untold havoc on healthcare systems and economies across the globe. …as a clinical psychologist, I see many people trying to navigate the daily vagaries of chronic afflictions.
The underlying factor for all of them, however, is that, in the absence of a cure, people want to live the best life they possibly can, regardless of their affliction or disability. Continue reading
AMA: Get rid of market barriers to appropriate pain management – by Andis Robeznieks – Senior News Writer – American Medical Association
This article makes a critical point and describes what should be the goal when treating pain: “appropriate analgesic prescribing and pain management.”
Ending the nation’s opioid epidemic requires eliminating obstacles to treatment and appropriate analgesic prescribing and pain management.
New policies adopted at the 2019 AMA Annual Meeting took aim at barriers established by health plans and other players in the medical system. Continue reading
Preventing Opioid Abuse Shouldn’t Mean Ignoring Patients’ Pain – by Subhash Jain – Aug 2019
I’m surprised and delighted that this article was published in the respected “Harvard Business Review” so that it reaches the people making the rules from their seats in the executive suites of medical corporations.
From lawsuits by several states against the manufacturers of opioids to criminal prosecutions against pharmaceutical executives, much has been made about pain medications and their misuse. Unfortunately, if you just pay attention to these headlines, you’re likely to miss an important fact:
Pain medications are an important and medically necessary part of many patients’ treatment.
Hurrah, another doctor pushing back against the widespread policies of reducing long term opioid use to almost zero. Continue reading
EDS and Chronic Pain News & Info 