Dangers of NSAIDS and Opiate Pain Medications
The "Silent Epidemic" of NSAIDs
Why not just put all patients on NSAIDs? Here's why. From The New England Journal of Medicine, June 7, 1999: "It has been estimated conservatively that 16,500 NSAID-related deaths occur among patients with rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis every year in the United States. This figure is similar to the number of deaths from the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and considerably greater than the number of deaths from multiple myeloma, asthma, cervical cancer, or Hodgkin's disease. (Fig. 1). If deaths from gastrointestinal toxic effects of NSAIDS were tabulated separately in the National Vital Statistics reports, these effects would constitute the 15th most common cause of death in the United States. Yet these toxic effects, a largely "silent epidemic," with many physicians and patients unaware of the magnitude of the problem. Furthermore, the mortality statistics do not include deaths ascribed to the use of over-the counter NSAIDs. "Gastrointestinal Toxicity of Nonsteroidal Antiinflammatory Drugs," M. Michael Wolfe, MD, David R. Lichtenstein, M.D., Gurkirpal Singh, MD, The New England Journal of Medicine, June 17, 1999, v. 340, n. 24.
Why not just put all patients on narcotic pain-killers? Here's why.
(AP) In 16 states and counting, drugs now kill more people than auto accidents do, the government said Wednesday.
Experts said the startling shift reflects two opposite trends: Driving is becoming safer, and the legal and illegal use of powerful prescription painkillers is on the rise.
For decades, traffic accidents have been the biggest cause of injury-related death in the U.S., and they are still No. 1. But drug overdoses are pulling ahead in one state after another.
"People see a car accident as something that might happen to them," said Margaret Warner, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But as for death from a drug overdose, "maybe they see it as something that's not going happen to them."
The drug-related death rate roughly doubled from the late 1990s to 2006, according to the most recent CDC data . . .
While cocaine and heroin continue to be significant killers, most of the increase is attributed to prescription opiates such as the painkillers methadone, Oxycontin and Vicodin . . . Read entire article by clicking here.
Prescriptions now biggest cause of fatal drug overdoses
By Liz Szabo, USA TODAY 10/02/09
Debra Jones didn't begin taking painkillers to get high.
Jones, 50, was trying to relieve chronic pain caused by rheumatoid arthritis.
Yet after taking the painkiller Percocet safely for 10 years, the stay-at-home mother of three became addicted after a friend suggested that crushing her pills could bring faster relief. It worked. The rush of medication also gave her more energy. Over time, she began to rely on that energy boost to get through the day. She began taking six or seven pills a day instead of the three to four a day as prescribed.
"I wasn't trying to abuse it," says Jones, from Holly Springs, N.C., who has since recovered from her battle with addiction. "But after 10 years, I couldn't help what it did to my body or my brain. It was hard to work without it."
Addiction to prescription painkillers — which kill thousands of Americans a year — has become a largely unrecognized epidemic, experts say. In fact, prescription drugs cause most of the more than 26,000 fatal overdoses each year, says Leonard Paulozzi of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The number of overdose deaths from opioid painkillers — opium-like drugs that include morphine and codeine — more than tripled from 1999 to 2006, to 13,800 deaths that year, according to CDC statistics released Wednesday.
In the past, most overdoses were due to illegal narcotics, such as heroin, with most deaths in big cities. Prescription painkillers have now surpassed heroin and cocaine, however, as the leading cause of fatal overdoses, Paulozzi says. And the rate of fatal overdoses is now about as high in rural areas — 7.8 deaths per 100,000 people — as in cities, where the rate is 7.9 deaths per 100,000 people, according to a paper he published last year in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety.
"The biggest and fastest-growing part of America's drug problem is prescription drug abuse," says Robert DuPont, a former White House drug czar and a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "The statistics are unmistakable."
Debra Jones, of Holy Springs, N.C., had become addicted to prescription Percocet, which she was taking for rheumatoid arthritis, and had to seek substance abuse treatment. She's been clean two years.
Click here to link to the full article on the USA Today webpage.
Chiropractors effectively treat pain without drugs in many cases thus sparing patients from the dangers of NSAIDs and opiates. Chiropractic should be tried first and, if it is not successful in adequately controlling pain, then NSAIDs and opiates should be considered. This is the optimum public health policy.