The guidelines, which was released Tuesday, March 15, laid down some updated protocols as to which cases opioid should be prescribed as a painkiller. “Beginning treatment with an opioid is a momentous decision”, and can carry more risks than benefits, said CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden.
Advertisement
Frieden said the guidelines were meant to be “a tool for doctors and for patients to chart a safer course”, describing them as a benchmark for medical practice, not an unbending dictate.
“Recognizing that patients living with chronic pain need access to treatments that will relieve their suffering, I encourage physicians to adopt these new guidelines and discuss alternatives to addictive opioids with their patients”, Baker said in a prepared statement.
The US doctors wrote roughly 200 million prescriptions for opioid painkillers in 2014, while the toll of deaths tied to the drugs went up to almost 19,000, which is the highest number on record.
“Most often, cancer patients deal with lasting effects from their disease or treatment including pain for a significant period of time or indefinitely”, he pointed out.
The guidelines address the initiation or continuance of opioids for chronic pain; opioid selection, dose, duration, follow-up and discontinuation; and assessing and addressing the risks and harms of opioid use for primary care providers, according to the CDC. The CDC is now saying that opioid painkillers shouldn’t be the first option.
Locally, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office logged 246 opioid overdose deaths in the county previous year.
Aside from asking the doctors to refrain from prescribing opioid for patients with chronic pain, patients are likewise asked to be honest as possible in disclosing their opioid use with their physicians. They call for patients to be urine tested before getting prescriptions and for doctors to check prescription drug tracking systems to make sure patients are not secretly getting medicine somewhere else. They also criticized the guidelines as an incursion into the role of doctors. The idea, he said, is to balance the risks of addiction with the needs of patients. CDC Director Thomas Frieden shared the reason behind the new set of guidelines for opioids. Outside those excluded categories, the CDC advises that non-opioid therapy is preferred for treating longer-term pain. And at 90 you should really think hard… consider referring them to a pain specialist. “We hope to see fewer deaths from opiates”.
Advertisement
They recommend that doctors now try Tylenol, ibuprofen or ice first and to avoid opioids if the patient is taking certain antianxiety medications.
