I'm sorry, but this article infuriated me. Are we moving backwards? I am in chronic pain, can't get a pain doctor to deal with it because guess what?? At least in Michigan (U of M especially), pain managment as a course in college is an ELECTIVE for "doctors to be" and not required. So as they graduate and get their little prescription pads they know how to write for any drug you want, but they have no flipping idea how to get you off the stuff at all. There are about 6 doctors in a 50 mile radius who claim to have any idea, and what do they resort to? Suboxone. Yeah. If you've ever been on Suboxone for a long time and tried to get off it, the withdrawal symptoms are no less than 14 days long and harder than Oxycontin. It's also nearly $10 a pill at your local pharmacy. That's about 6-$800 per month. Only oxycontin (which cost more like 2-$3 a pill at the pharm) is over in about 4 days because Suboxone embeds itself in your fat cells so the withdrawal goes on and on till you think you can't take it any more.
If you ask me, the doctors are already being squeezed and threatened by the DEA. That's not where the MASS quantities of drugs on the street come from, because even those few crooked ones get caught sooner or later. Most doctors really want to help you but have no education on pain meds or how to get people off them or especially how to treat chronic pain. The majority of the street drugs come from overseas pharmacies across our own borders! They are ordered on the internet with no script and sold in mass quantites. It is descreet, and if you don't get caught, you can go on selling oxy's out of a ziplock bag holding literally hundreds of them.
Stop wasting time in school teaching our kids what Zues did in 800 BC and begin teaching them the dangers of putting even one vicodin (which is what they most commonly get started on) in their mouths. Show them what someone in withdrawal goes through. My kid saw me at my very worst ever, on all 4s, screaming for an ambulance after 2 days of cold turkey. He is now 16 and has recently been drug tested and came up completely clean. When asked why he turned it down, his honest answer was, I didn't want to ever go through what I saw my Mom go through, I thought she was dying. So let's get the overseas trade and stop the internet purchases without scripts or even test results. Start there first and you'll find a whole lot less on the streets. Also, parents need to educate their kids. 7 isn't too young and 16 isn't too old to tell them not to use these pills or to show them what the outcome is years after use and abuse. To heck with marijuana - may be emotionally habit forming but not the worst thing out there your kids are being offered, believe me!
That's my 2 cents. For whatever it's worth. All I want to say is anyone thinking of going on Suboxone, if you must, take the smallest amount possible and take it for as short a time as you absolutely can stand and then get away from it.
I agree that doctors need much more training on how to treat pain. In most medical schools they only get one hour's worth of teaching on the subject. I'd like to see more in-depth training be mandatory – including all the various options for treating pain as well as when to prescribe opioids and when not to.