Chronic pain and the opioid crisis: How a myth defines treatment for pain patients

Chronic pain and the opioid crisis. They’re always linked in the minds of the media and the government.  In the past, I’ve written quite a few angry posts about the way chronic pain patients are being treated. It was really more of a vent session for me because I had to give up my pain treatment thanks to constant harassment from the state, insurance company, and pharmacists. My pain was decently controlled by a very small amount of hydrocodone, but in the end, the amount didn’t matter. What mattered was the opioid epidemic and the addiction of others.

Chronic pain and the opioid crisis

Why pain patients are being punished for the actions or disease of someone else will always be a mystery to me, but over time I have learned that it’s not the fault of people who live with addiction that pain patients are being treated like this. Fault and blame are complicated to pin down, but today I want to talk about one of the biggest myths that have led to the opioid hysteria and demonization of people in pain.

The myth of the innocent person that becomes an addict

This is how the narrative usually goes. Some perfectly innocent person goes in for dental treatment, or breaks their leg and goes to a doctor. The dentist/doctor feels compassion for this person’s pain and gives them opioid pain medication. The person goes home and takes the medicine the doctor gave them. The medicine feels so good they keep taking it even though they don’t need it anymore. They try to stop, but they just can’t. They go back to the doctor/dentist claiming they’re in pain because at this point they are fully addicted after a mere 30 days.

Eventually, pills become less available so they go to the streets to feed their addiction. Street pills are dangerous and eventually they overdose on something badly manufactured in China. This is all the fault of the doctor/dentist that prescribed the original pain pill or the drug company that produced it. It’s definitely not the responsibility of this wonderfully innocent person (who is white, black people don’t get this kind of narrative because pain treatment is racist).

This tragic story is why people in pain shouldn’t ever get treated for it, they’ll become addicts and die on the street!

So what’s wrong with this story? It’s not true.

That innocent (white male) person who went to the doctor/dentist was statistically likely to already have a substance abuse problem.

People who abuse pain medicine already abuse other substances

To begin, Studies found that:

Illicit drug use was a predictor of pain reliever misuse across all age groups.

In other words, people who do become addicted during pain treatment already have problems with drugs and alcohol.  If fact three-fourths of them had already misused medication such as benzos and inhalants, long before they misused pain killers. They were already experiencing addiction.

Additionally, according to a study published in the Annals of Internal medicine:

Misuse and use disorders were most commonly reported in adults who were uninsured, were unemployed, had low income, or had behavioral health problems. Among adults with misuse, 59.9% reported using opioids without a prescription, and 40.8% obtained prescription opioids for free from friends or relatives for their most recent episode of misuse.

In other words, opioid misuse is multifaceted and it’s connected to America’s lack of healthcare and mental health treatment as well as poverty.

Opioid misuse was most commonly reported in adults who were uninsured, unemployed, had low income, or had behavioral health problems. There was no tie to chronic pain. Share on X

The opioid epidemic has nothing to do with chronic pain

People with chronic pain are living and dying in agony because of the opioid crisis Share on X

Chronic pain and the opioid epidemic

A review by the Cochrane Library to study opioids for long term non cancer pain found that treatment with long term, high dose opioids leads to addiction rates of less than 1%. People with chronic pain become addicted very rarely. Which is why the solutions being implemented to fix the opioid epidemic aren’t working. In fact, according to the CDC while prescriptions opioids being prescribed have gone down dramatically, the total opioid deaths have risen due to illegal fentanyl and heroin. People with chronic pain live and die in agony and it’s not even helping.

What it’s like to be a victim of the opioid hysteria

Chronic pain is synonymous with addiction thanks to the opioid epidemic. Pain patients are terrified of telling doctors that they’re in pain because they don’t want to be labeled as an addict. If the doctor doesn’t believe their pain they can write in the chart that the patient is addicted, and that patient will never be treated for pain again. Those records saying they are an addict will follow them everywhere and could ruin their life. Doctors have a lot of power over people in pain. Also, considering the gender and race differential in how pain is treated, women and people of color have to worry even more.

Doctors have power over people in pain, and considering the gender and race differential in how pain is treated, women and people of color have to worry about being labeled as hysterical or an addict. Share on X

Additionally, long term untreated chronic pain has some severe consequences. Ignoring chronic pain has never improved someone’s health, it has only damaged it. Pain patients are begging doctors, the government, insurance companies, and politicians to stop believing the myths.

Believe us. Treat us. Don’t let us die.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources

Science Direct. “Prescription pain reliever misuse prevalence, correlates, and origin of possession throughout the life course.” Mowbray, Orion and Quinn, Adam.

Annals of Internal Medicine. “Prescription Opioid Use, Misuse, and Use Disorders in U.S. Adults: 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.” Beth Han, MD, PhD, MPH, Wilson M. Compton, MD, MPE

Cochrane Library. “Opioids for long-term treatment of noncancer pain.” Noble M, Treadwell JR, Tregear SJ, Coates VH, Wiffen PJ, Akafomo C, Schoelles KM, Chou R.