The Reality of Prescription Pain Pill Addiction (Part II)

Addiction to prescription pain medication is a widespread issue, but it is also a widely misunderstood one. There are several myths surrounding the use and misuse of prescription painkillers, which can be frightening and even dangerous for those who take them.

WebMD spoke with experts on addiction and pain medicine in order to debunk common myths about addiction to prescription pain pills. Part I of this article looks at these three popular beliefs:

1. If you need a higher dose or experience withdrawal symptoms when you stop taking a medication, you are addicted to it.
2. Everyone gets addicted to painkillers if they continue to take them.
3. I can take prescription pain pills whenever I want to because most people do not get addicted to them.

Here are four more misconceptions about this type of addiction:

Myth: Suffering through the pain is better than risking addiction to pain medication.

Pain left untreated or undertreated can cause unnecessary suffering. Any pain patients experience should be discussed with a doctor, as should any worries they have about addiction.

"People have a right to have their pain addressed," says Fishman. "When someone's in pain, there's no risk-free option, including doing nothing."

While some people choose to suffer through pain because they fear addiction, others use painkillers too casually.

"We don't want to make people afraid of taking a medication that they need," says Susan Weiss, PhD, chief of the science policy branch at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "At the same time, we want people to take these drugs seriously."

Myth: Easing my pain is all that matters.

Pain relief is obviously important, but there are other goals doctors have when they prescribe pain medications to their patients.

"We're focusing on functional restoration when we prescribe analgesics or any intervention to control the patient's pain," says Gharibo. Functional restoration means "being autonomous, being able to attend to their activities of daily living, as well as forming friendships and an appropriate social environment,? he explains. "If we're faced with a situation where we continue to increase the doses and we're not getting any functional improvement, we're not just going to go up and up on the dose. We're going to change the plan."

Myth: I won?t get addicted; I?m stronger than that.

Willpower has very little to do with addiction, which is a chronic disease that some people are genetically more likely than others to develop.

"The main risk factor for addiction is genetic predisposition," says Seppala. "Do you have a family history of alcohol or addiction? Or do you have a history yourself and now you're in recovery from that? That genetic history would potentially place you at higher risk of addiction for any substance, and in particular, you should be careful using the opioids for any length of time."

According to government data from 2007, about 1.7 million people (12 and older) in the U.S. abused or were addicted to pain relievers, and 57 percent of people who reported taking these medications for "nonmedical" uses in the previous month said they got the pills from someone they knew.

"These are not something that you should hand out to your friends or relatives or leave around so that people can take a few from you without your even noticing it," adds Weiss.

Myth: My doctor will make sure I don?t become addicted.

Although doctors do not want their patients to get addicted, many of them do not have much training in pain management or addiction.

"We've got a naive physician population providing pain care and not knowing much about addiction," says Seppala. "That's a bad combination."

Fishman urges patients to do their own research and educate themselves about the medications, and then discuss this information with their doctors. "The best relationships are the ones where you're partnering with your clinicians and exchanging ideas."

Source: WebMD

Source: http://www.addictioninfo.org/articles/prescription-drugs/the-reality-of-prescription-pain-pill-addiction-part-ii

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