CDC recommends doctors avoid prescribing opioids for chronic pain
Source: USA Today
n an attempt to combat the nation's deadly prescription painkiller epidemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday issued its first set of guidelines on dispensing the addictive medications, urging doctors to avoid providing them for chronic pain.
The agency said the risks from prescribing opiates, a class of morphine-like painkillers, far outweigh the benefits for most patients with long-term pain, except for those receiving cancer treatment or end-of-life care. When the drugs are necessary, the CDC advises doctors prescribe the lowest possible dose for the shortest amount of time.
About 40 Americans die each day from overdosing on prescription painkillers, according to the CDC. In 2013, an estimated 1.9 million people abused or were dependent on prescription opiates.
"We know of no other medication routinely used for a nonfatal condition that kills patients so frequently," said CDC director Thomas Frieden. "We hope to see fewer deaths from opiates. That's the bottom line. These are really dangerous medications that carry the risk of addiction and death."
Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/03/15/cdc-issues-new-guidelines-opiate-prescribing-reduce-abuse-overdoses/81809704/
Just great.
Now, millions of us with chronic pain will just have to suffer.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Just sayin.....
Diabetic neuropathy in my feet, and a herniated cervical disc. I will get my second corticosteroid injection tomorrow for the disc; if that doesn't work, it's off to the spine surgeon for me.
I'm 60, and smoked my share of pot when I was younger, but quit in my late 20's. My chronic pain finally moved me to get a medical marijuana card in January, as topicals didn't really ease the neuropathy. Motrin helped with the disc, but I'm diabetic and that stuff is too hard on the kidneys at the doses required to provide some relief (800mg 3 times per day) for me to safely use it for long.
I have resisted taking Gabapentin because of the negative side effects experienced by a couple of people I know (even my doc wasn't particularly enthusiastic about it when she suggested it).
What I can say about MY experience with medical marijuana is that it lessens the burning in my feet from neuropathy, and relaxes the muscles in my back, shoulder, and left arm enough to provide some relief from the herniated disc. It also reduces the feeling that someone is having at my forearm and scapula with a meat tenderizing mallet, which is caused by the disc impinging on the nerve.
My experience is that it does help with pain, but it isn't a magic bullet. It has to be used in conjunction with other therapies: in my case, probably surgery to fix/remove the disc, and diet, exercise, and insulin to keep my blood glucose levels in something resembling a normal range.
Having said that...one of the posters above is correct, current pot strains can be much stronger than what was usually available 30+ years ago. As an example: when I made my first visit to a dispensary they gave me a free gram of bud as a first time customer. A strain called "Baby Stewie," it was tested at 34% THC...
Don't smoke THAT stuff unless you plan on lying down, incommunicado, for a couple of hours. 
(I'd but in a more humorous smiley except that it would be in genuinely poor taste, and I understand exactly what you are getting at.)
It didn't do shit for the pain, but I did get a nice, scary bleeding episode out of it.
Around here they don't seem to like prescribing opioids even in the short term for acute pain.
I've never wished golf ball sized kidney stones on so many medical people before in my life. 
because you remained alive. How selfish! 
Even though pain is almost never an issue with me, it's frustrating and enraging to what extent doctors won't prescribe enough meds to the people who need them the most.
It progressively got worse and worse. I never knew this type of pain existed. I mean, I've been beat in the face with a baseball bat, and that didn't touch this. I asked my fiance for an Advil. I took several, which of course didn't touch it. After awhile, I thought something may be wrong (a bowel obstruction or something), so I asked my fiance to call the ambulance.
Finally in the ER Cubicle, I was doing my writhing - couldn't stand, couldn't lay down - there was no position that brought relief. I had already vomited three times from the pain alone (I was not nauseous; this was straight pain-induced). I was sweating profusely and in really bad shape. My fiance finally got there and asked me if I got any pain medication, to which I replied, "I didn't know I could ask." She went immediately to the nurses station and as soon as the nurse saw me, she put me on a cycle of delauded. A few minutes later, I asked when it was supposed to kick in. The nurse looked bewildered, so she gave me another cycle. Before I left, they gave me one 5 mg Oxycodone, and a script for the 18 and no refill.
I guess I was lucky. Sorry that they treated you that way.
I, too, am taking measures to not have to rely on ERs - just in case. I hear kidney stones most likely reoccur.
Best of luck to you.
She has chronic and bad back pain due to spinal stenosis and scoliosis. She was not allowed to take any prescribed pain medication and was stuck with NSAIDS. After years of use, she ended up in the hospital for three days from internal bleeding. 
I'm not affected by this because opioids make me horribly sick, but I live with a daily pain level of 7-8 out of 10 every single day. How the hell are people like me supposed to survive without pain relief? And why does cancer pain beat out other forms of chronic pain?
because telling a cancer patient to use yoga and medication for cancer pain would be considered by even most zealots as going too far. Cancer is, after all, a Real Disease. Other diseases, however, have a less effective PR department than cancer and can be meditated away by the strong minded.
During the time my elderly dog was on Tramadol for arthritis, tramadol went from being a matter of routine to being something I had to sign for every time her prescription was renewed. Because, you know, my dog might be an addict or something.....
For those that have never experienced long term chronic pain...that would have been my Mom.
At age 85, she lifted a box and had multiple Lumbar vertebrae (those vertebra in the very low spine, above the tail bone area) crack, crumble and break. She had VERY severe osteoporosis and had never had a bone density scan...from a couple of MRI's we found that she had huge "bites" out of her bones and spider web like fractures all over her spine. The doctors said that they had never seen such a thing and figured that she had been in pain for MANY years.
She had a cyphoplasty procedure done but that didn't really help (and was later determined to be a really bogus procedure).
THE only thing that helped with her pain was oxycodone and later Percoet. She took those for almost 9 years before she passed away. There was also a Fentanyl patch in the mix.
If she did not have the "opiate" for pain relief, she would have been out of her mind in pain. Her doctor was absolutely paranoid about the pills but knew that she had a consistent history (there had to be a couple small increases in dose as the body becomes adjusted, addicted if you will, to the dose) and that I was administering them. Hell, she even got drug tested every year! Can you imagine...a 93 year old having to give urine for a drug test.
So let me say...all this stuff, as they are promoting it (for doctors to avoid these medications) is crap! Telling someone to, Take a Tylenol, ain't killing that horrific pain. And what does the CDC suggest for pain...nada. 
It makes me sick to my stomach to think of those that will suffer in torturous pain because of decisions like this.
Oh and in Mom's case...as a lifelong non smoker of anything...she certainly would not have done weed.
Why are doctors such tools of the pharmaceutical industry?
I completely read your post backwards; my bad!
I just hate that US healthcare is so influenced by former college cheerleaders peddling long-term meds and not patient-centered care and cures.
The suspicious part of me also recognizes that opiates are cheap and not under patent law, so there isn't a lot of money to be made on them per dose.
New, fancy meds however.....
The sad part is, none of the newer meds seem to be as effective as the old standby, our friend the poppy.....
... yep, that'll make the world a better place.
or a bullet to the brain that many chronic pain suffers will resort to now that they will not have access to said opioids.
Once again, they are throwing the baby out with the bathtub.
