You’ve probably heard a lot in the news lately about opioid abuse and the toll it’s taking on our society.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss some of the myths and misconceptions about opioid use and pain, and we’ll explain why these medications are often over used, plus some alternatives to better manage pain.
We hope that after reading this post, you’ll have a better understanding of the problem with opioids as a pain “reliever”.
For years we’ve been told that millions of Americans are undertreated for pain.
While that’s true, there is, there is an insinuation that because we have all these pain issues we just need to start doling out the opioids. That’s the exact wrong way to approach the problem. It’s just the band-aid… Just like treating blood pressure with a blood pressure lowering medication. It doesn’t SOLVE the underlying problem.
We as Americans in spite of being only 4% of the global population, we have the highest rates of pain and the most debilitating pain. Not only that but we’re consuming about 99% of the hydrocodone in the world… That’s a massive amount of opioids being taken.
And yet we still have the worst outcomes. It’s not practical to say Americans are that much more broken than the rest of the world.
Something is not making sense in this equation.
What’s not making sense is we’ve been treating pain in the wrong light. Pain is not a disease, but rather a symptom of innumerable diseases. If we just simply treat pain as if that’s the disease, then we’re missing the innumerable conditions that are causing the symptom of pain.
It’s like putting your hands over your ears to make all the sounds go away.
What’s even more concerning is when you start to dig into the way opioids work in the body, they’re not really suppressing the signal from getting to the brain, all they’re doing is making your brain care less that the pain is there.
As long as the medication is being taken then the patient feels somewhat “normal”. The moment it goes away they’re hearing alarm bells for the pain. People who’ve been taking pain medication for a long period of time feel a higher sensitivity of pain, but it’s not because their condition has declined. It’s because the medication is actually changing the way the brain receives those signals or hears the signals of pain.
Same as talking about eating an excess amount of sugar. Your insulin goes up and your body gets used to seeing that amount of sugar. Your body just keeps your blood sugar up high.
Once people start on pain medication, it’s extraordinarily hard to get off of them because the moment you take that medication away, their brain is thinking something is VERY wrong.
All of these systems are highly dependent on the homeostatic or balanced presence of opioids in your body. You actually produce opioids in your brain. It’s the reason why we hear about soldiers getting shot in the middle of battle and they don’t feel it until they see the blood. This is because your brain has the ability to regulate pain.
It’s just that when you’re dealing with pain that goes on for a long period of time. It can fatigue those parts of your brain. And so that’s when we really need to get involved and figure out what’s the cause of this pain and fix it versus throwing some more pain medications on board and numb your brain to the presence of pain.
If somebody has been having issues with opioid dependency what are they supposed to do about this?
The way to approach things is to look at what’s the underlying problem that’s causing pain, then develop a long-term plan for fixing that.In parallel with that, we need to start undoing the damage the opioids are doing by reducing the level of dependency in the brain.
One treatment to consider is Ketamine infusions. Ketamine is finding a lot of new uses because, in the process of adaptation to opioids, there’s a number of receptors or light switches that get switched on or off. And Ketamine helps to unswitch or reverse the direction and get the brain functioning closer to normal without the presence of opioids. It’s exceptionally effective, but not everybody knows how to use it.
Another option is to do pain mapping to try to figure out why they’re hurting in the first place. Even try some of our acupuncture programs to help with the pain. What we’re doing here at Wellward is becoming the flagship for how to address pain and the body’s big picture.
Healthcare has just been steered in the wrong direction. A lot of it is because of misinformation that came out of the pharmaceutical world. And so not only do we, I see it incumbent upon us to have the dialogue, have the conversation explaining why opioids were not the proper way to address a lot of these issues.
But at the same time, we want to answer the question, well, if not opioids than what, and that answer is out there has been out there for years. It’s just never been consolidated into one methodology or one way of approaching this. And that’s what we want to make mainstream. So by all means, come and see us, put comments in the comment section below, ask us questions. I promise we will read these.
The opioid epidemic is a serious problem, and it’s going to take more than just prescribing more opioids to solve it. We need to address the underlying causes of pain, and find ways to treat patients that don’t involve narcotics. If you’re struggling with chronic pain, CLICK THIS LINK for a free consultation. We can help you find an alternative treatment plan that will help you get your life back.
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DISCLAIMER: The information in this email is not intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. All content is for general informational purposes only and does not replace a consultation with your own doctor/health professional
