"How To Make The Move Away From Opioids For Chronic Non-Cancer Pain" - Eli Zimmerman
Standard care of non-cancer pain should start moving away from chronic opioid treatment, which can put patients in greater danger of developing a substance use disorder. As the effects of the US opioid epidemic continue to gain public attention – recently spurring a declaration of a state of emergency – physicians are looking for new methods to treat chronic pain responsibly without adding to the current number of opioid-related deaths. Use of opioid therapy for pain conditions such as osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, and migraine – once a common treatment approach – has been shown to be a dangerous breeding ground for opioid substance use disorders, and physicians would do well to re-evaluate their treatment methods, said Edwin Salsitz, MD, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. One of the major steps toward lowering the rate of opioid addiction through prescription is avoiding opioids as a treatment for acute pain.
- Edwin Salsitz, MD, Assistant Clinical Professor, Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai