Appropriate Use of Opioids in the Management of Chronic Pain

Painted by Martin Edwards as part of the Paint Your Pain program initiated by the Pain Management Center at Overlook Medical Center, Atlantic Health System, Summit, New Jersey. For artwork of other patients in the program, go to http://bit.ly/ 1Ns0PxL.The dangerous misuse of prescription opioids and drugs like heroin has been much in the news, but millions of patients continue to suffer both acute and chronic pain. For many, prescription opioids play a vital role in alleviating that pain. How can health care providers most effectively and safely use opioids in the treatment and management of chronic pain? Some answers can be found in a CE article in the July issue of AJN: “Appropriate Use of Opioids in Managing Chronic Pain.”

Related questions on opioids and chronic pain addressed in the article include:

2016-11-21T13:01:03-05:00July 22nd, 2016|Nursing, pain management, patient safety|0 Comments
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AJN in July: Opioids and Chronic Pain, Moral Distress, Prediabetes, More

CE Feature: “Appropriate Use of Opioids in Managing Chronic Pain.”

Unintentional death related to prescription opioids has been identified as a public health crisis, owing in part to such factors as insufficient professional training and medication overprescription, misuse, and diversion. The authors discuss current best practices for prescribing opioids for chronic pain, emphasizing patient assessment and essential patient teaching points regarding safe medication use, storage, and disposal, and after you find a more permanent solution people could totally quit opioids by using a detox methods that goes from medicine to even a detox tea like leptinteatox. There are some medicines or supplements that are more easy to use, depending on the problem, like the peruvian brew, that helps with erectile dysfunction and is pretty safe. After that you only need to be careful with stds diseases you can go and test at https://www.stdaware.com/chlamydia-test.

CE Feature: “Moral Distress: A Catalyst in Building Moral Resilience.”

Moral distress is a pervasive problem in nursing: an inability to act in alignment with one’s moral values is detrimental not only to the nurse’s well-being but also to patient care and clinical practice as […]

2017-05-26T00:08:51-04:00June 24th, 2016|career, health care policy, Nursing, nursing research, pain management, Patients|0 Comments
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Recent Decline in U.S. Opioid Prescriptions: Good News But Some Concerns

by frankieleon/ via flickr by frankieleon/ via flickr

It was widely reported in the past week that there have been steady declines in the number of opioid prescriptions in the U.S. for the past three years, with the declines the steepest in some of the states considered to have the worst opioid misuse crises.

This is good news, suggesting that efforts to address some problem areas like renegade pain clinics prescribing for profit, patients who go from doctor to doctor seeking opioid prescriptions, and the diversion of legitimate opioid prescriptions may be starting to bear fruit.

A balanced overview of the situation can be found in this New York Times article. The authors also acknowledge that patients in pain are now facing new hurdles to pain relief, quoting the director of one prominent medical school’s program on pain research education and policy: “The climate has definitely shifted. . . . It is now one of reluctance, fear of consequences and encumbrance with administrative hurdles. A lot of patients who are appropriate candidates for opioids have been caught up in that response.”

Much of the reporting on the opioid epidemic lumps all people who take opioids into one big statistical brew. While startling and alarming numbers about overdoses from legal and illegal opioids steal the headlines, little media and scholarly analysis focuses on the lower […]

2016-11-21T13:01:12-05:00May 26th, 2016|health care policy, Nursing, nursing perspective, pain management, patient experience, patient safety, Patients|1 Comment
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CDC Opioid-Prescribing Guideline for Chronic Pain: Concerns and Contexts

by frankieleon/ via flickr by frankieleon/ via flickr

By Jacob Molyneux, senior editor

The CDC’s new Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain was released this week. The context for this comprehensive new guideline is widespread concern about opioid-related overdose deaths and substance abuse in the U.S.

The guidelines make 12 main recommendations, among them the following:

  • nonpharmacologic or nonopioid pharmacologic treatments should be considered “preferable” first-line therapy for those with chronic pain.
  • a daily opioid dosage limit of morphine milligram equivalents should be imposed.
  • immediate-release opioids should be prescribed before moving to extended-release formulations.
  • urine testing should precede new opioid prescriptions for chronic pain and treatment goals should be set.
  • clinicians should prescribe the lowest possible number of days’ worth of medication for acute pain (often three days or less).
  • prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) databases should be consulted to determine patients’ past histories of opioid prescriptions.

Some of the recommendations would seem to be no-brainers, such as consulting PDMPs when writing new prescriptions. Others, such as a “one-size-fits-all” daily dosage limit and restrictions on the use of extended release formulations, have raised alarms among pain management experts. See, for example, “I’m Worried About People in Pain,” a recent AJN Viewpoint essay by Carol Curtiss, a nurse and pain management expert, who notes the increased stigmatization experienced by pain patients and the chilling effects of […]

2016-11-21T13:01:23-05:00March 17th, 2016|Ethics, Nursing, nursing perspective, pain management, patient engagement|4 Comments
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Ethical Practice with Patients in Pain

Photo @ AJ Photo / Hop Americain / Science Photo Library Photo @ AJ Photo / Hop Americain / Science Photo Library

Pain is difficult to define and hard to convey. The way both patients and clinicians respond to it can be influenced by a multitude of possible biases. This month’s Ethical Issues column in AJN is by Doug Olsen, PhD, RN, an associate professor at Michigan State University College of Nursing. In “Ethical Practice with Patients in Pain,” Olsen summarizes the challenge nurses and other clinicians face in treating patients’ pain:

Responding to a patient’s pain is a fundamental ethical obligation in nursing. However, nurses caring for patients in pain can run into ethical conflicts from both over- and undertreatment of pain. Undertreatment of pain represents a failure to fulfill the core nursing obligation to alleviate suffering—but overtreatment may ultimately harm the patient, contradicting a core nursing value, nonmaleficence. The complex nature of pain complicates efforts to provide treatment that is ‘just right.’ Nurses must understand that complexity if they are to make ethical decisions in the care of patients who experience pain.

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2016-11-21T13:01:32-05:00January 20th, 2016|Ethics, Nursing, nursing perspective, pain management, patient experience|1 Comment
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