By Roger Chriss, Columnist
Contrary to common belief, chronic pain patients are not all opioid addicts and did not cause the opioid crisis. The vast majority of patients who are prescribed opioids rarely misuse or abuse them.
Opioid addiction is real and should not be ignored or downplayed, but we need to identify its true causes. Despite the growing number of restrictions on prescription opioids, overdoses and related deaths continue to rise, which strongly indicates that pain patients have very little to do with the so-called epidemic.
Some recent articles bear this out:
Science Daily reports that while the national death toll from opioid overdoses is soaring, only “a small minority of pain patients are represented in the mortality data.”
The journal Pain Medicine published research showing that most pain patients on low doses of short-acting opioids “have a low risk for developing a substance use disorder.”
Similarly, chronic pain patients generally do not experience dose escalation, but often remain stable at the same dose for months or even years. And according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, doctor shopping by pain patients is rare.
For most chronic pain patients, opioid medications are part of a larger daily routine of pain management, and opioids are not craved any more than an athlete craves a vitamin supplement. Thus, the risks of opioid addiction among chronic pain patients is quite low overall, and there are well-established protocols such as the Opioid Risk Tool to screen patients and monitor those whose risk may be higher.
But all this evidence does not seem to convince regulators, politicians, the news media, and anti-opioid activists like Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing (PROP). Fortunately, it can be clearly shown they are wrong and that chronic pain patients are unfortunate bystanders in the opioid epidemic.
First, there simply are not enough chronic pain patients on opioid therapy to account for the number of opioid and heroin addicts. The American Society of Addiction Medicine estimates that in 2016 there were over 2.5 million people addicted to prescription pain relievers or heroin.
There are at most 11.5 million chronic pain patients on opioid therapy. Even if 5 percent of them develop a substance abuse disorder, that would give us 575,000 opioid addicts. Where did the other 2 million addicts come from?
Second, people who suffer from chronic pain disorders are no longer prescribed opioids lightly or quickly. Instead, they start with NSAIDs like ibuprofen or naproxen, then onto anti-seizure medications like gabapentin or anti-depressants like amitriptyline or duloxetine, all the while also trying physical therapy, injections or other modalities. They are carefully screened, monitored and assessed along the way, with opioids considered only if everything else fails. This makes addiction a rare outcome.
Third, media coverage of the opioid epidemic and case literature on opioid use disorder routinely describe people becoming addicted to opioids after recreational use, trauma or surgery. It may be that “opioid addiction often starts with a prescription,” but it is usually a prescription for acute pain. And for many, the addiction starts with someone else’s prescription, perhaps taken from a family member or obtained from a friend.
Therefore, the treatment of chronic pain conditions can at most have only minimally contributed to the opioid epidemic. Chronic pain patients are not opioid addicts any more than a diabetic is an insulin addict, and in fact insulin is abused.
Unfortunately, chronic pain patients are often treated like addicts and the doctors who prescribe to them are even called “drug dealers.” This is harming chronic pain patients, doctors and people suffering from opioid addiction.
Opioid therapy helps people with chronic pain disorders remain employed, care for themselves and their families, and contribute to and participate in their communities. They are achieving what modern medicine and society wants: people who can work, pay taxes, avoid becoming a burden, and enjoy some quality of life.
Restricting opioids is not slowing the opioid epidemic. The increased availability of naloxone and improved care by first responders and emergency departments is helping to reduce fatalities, but opioid addiction still needs treatment and at present there is not enough of it.
To be clear, chronic pain patients and opioid addicts are two distinct groups, both of which deserve care and support. Treating pain patients as addicts can lead to denial of care, which may actually increase the number of opioid addicts. And conflating chronic pain with opioid addiction may be delaying care for people struggling to find addiction treatment.