"Opioid painkillers put millions at risk"

[ChrisColumbus]

Is this study likely to be a threat to the prescription of low dose opioids in the UK?

theguardian.com/society/art...?

[Madlegs1]

Now that Labour is Government, any Guardian article could have some influence.

Frightening.

I'll read it in the morning.

I'm glad I'm in that study on opioids and RLS management.

[Joolsg in reply to Madlegs1]

Me too Madlegs!

[TheDoDahMan]

I only wish that any politician who votes to allow bona fide pain patients to suffer by withholding opioids, would actually feel that pain themselves. There is this bizarre meme out there that it's better for a person to suffer pain for the rest of their lives than to be prescribed opioid relief for the rest of their lives.

[Oscarcat63]

So sick of Dependence being used synonymously with 'addiction: the pursuit of a euphoric 'high'. '

And yes there is such a thing as 'therapeutic' tolerance !

This just gives doctors another justication to deny treatment !

[Munroist]

Thanks for the article. There’s some acknowledgment that opioids have their place for management of pain but they all manage to avoid addressing the situation of long term pain which is not cured by anything else. If the medical profession accepts that opioids have a role in pain management then unless the side effects are worse than the pain, there should be no issue with continuing prescription of opioids for pain which cannot be managed in a better way. Simple. And as others have said dependence is not addiction. Kidney patients are dependent on dialysis for example, not addicted and that doesn’t get the same publicity. There needs to be more clarity on the terms used. I’m sure there is abuse of opioids but that’s different.

[Joolsg]

Only if doctors refuse to understand the difference between dependence and addiction.Also, opioids for pain relief DO result in tolerance and the need to increase the dose.

For RLS, we are 'dependent' on meds. I was dependent on dopamine agonists and I'm now dependent on Buprenorphine.

Dr Winkelman's opioid study is our only resource to show to UK doctors and to prove RLS patients do not increase the dose of opioids OR develop 'addiction'.

Dopamine Agonists most definitely cause 'addiction'. How many people have we seen over the years taking higher and higher doses and panicking at the thought of stopping them?

[Rameau]

A couple of limitations from the study: "A single study (Baser et al., 2014) [56], contributed to 54% of the entire sample." The abstract also refers to "variability among studies may limit the generalizability and reliability of the findings and further underscores the need for caution when interpreting the results" In my view addiction and dependence are not the same.

[Eryl]

Any pain killer is a way of dealing with pain from acute trauma but shouldn't be used to mask chronic pain. If you mask chronic pain you're not addressing the thing that's doing damage to the body and causing that pain. Any medication that increases dopamine is bound to be addictive.

[fritzb43]

More scare tactics. We have that in the USA as well. The truth is, opioids for RLS, administered at a level well below that used for pain relief has been show to be very effective in reducing RLS symptoms.

This is the *primary* recommendation now from The Mayo Clinic, and they are #1 in the US.

youtube.com/watch?v=daAyvu1...(Not working as expected?)