Chronic Pain May Make Opioid Use Disorder Worse

Researchers following the data for people with fibromyalgia and opioid use disorder found that people with chronic pain may have more challenges when staying sober.

Chronic Pain and Opioid Exposure

Many people first use opioids to treat pain. Physical pain can significantly contribute to the development of opioid use disorder. Opioids are commonly prescribed to manage chronic pain; over time, people may develop a tolerance to the medication. They may require higher doses to achieve the same pain relief. As a result, individuals may become physically dependent on opioids, which can lead to opioid use disorder.

Most people’s first exposure to opioids is through an illness or injury where a doctor prescribes drugs like Percocet or Oxycontin.

Chronic Illness and Opioid Misuse

Chronic pain can increase the risk of addiction, overdose, and other adverse effects.

There is also a chance …

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Pain Management Intervention Reduces Opioid Use

According to a study on a hospital intervention program for people with thyroid cancer operations, preoperative counseling and having multiple ways to control pain reduced the amount of opioids patients needed. Post-operative opioid prescriptions were dramatically reduced among many thyroid cancer patients discharged. Because of personalized medication management, fewer people took opioids home from the hospital.

Supporting Patients’ Pain Management Individual Needs

The study’s findings were retrospective and focused on thyroid cancer surgery. The study showed that hospitalized people needed very small amounts of postoperative opioid medication for pain management. The authors wrote that offering multiple types of pain management helped manage pain. “Adequate postoperative pain control was achieved using non-opioid interventions. Implementing an intervention to decrease the quantity of unnecessarily prescribed opioid medications during hospital discharge may help to reduce the risk of opioid addiction and overdose in patients …

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Oxycontin Makers Sink Claws Into China

A report has come out detailing the marketing moves that Purdue Pharma, the drugmaker responsible for Oxycontin and other variations of opioid, has moved on to China. Of course, it’s no big secret that companies like food and pharmaceutical makers take their wares overseas to new markets.

What’s unusual about Purdue’s business moves is that the behavior that cost billions of dollars in US lawsuits is now being deployed in China.

Boosting Sales and Breaking Laws in China

Stat News claims that when sales began to crash due to the opioid crisis, the Sacklers and their subsidiaries set their eyes on the global market. In China, Purdue’s international pharma dealer, Mundipharma, pushed for profits over ethics without fail. While the profit scheme unraveled very publicly in the US courts, quietly, Purdue Pharma began marketing elsewhere.

Current and former employees told …

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