May 8/17, Canadian Press: New opioid-prescribing guidelines released

May 8/17, Globe & Mail (Canadian Press): New opioid-prescribing guidelines aim to cut use of potent narcotics:

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/new-opioid-prescribing-guidelines-aim-to-cut-use-of-potent-narcotics/article34916609/

 

The new [10 recommendation] guideline document, [from National Pain Centre at McMaster University],  published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, provides much stronger and more detailed advice than a previous version released in 2010...

Dr. Irfan Dhalla, a practising Toronto physician & vice-president of evidence development & standards for Health Quality Ontario:

Doctors must consider the possibility that patients have become addicted to their medication, or are continuing use of the drugs to avoid the often-debilitating symptoms of withdrawal.

 

It’s vital that doctors don’t suddenly discontinue the painkillers or rapidly drop the daily dosage for those who truly need the drugs.

 

“If we attempt to take them off their opioids right away or aggressively taper, many of those patients are going to go into opioid withdrawal and some of those patients if they are denied opioids, if they’re struggling with symptoms of withdrawal, they may feel compelled to seek out opioids from other sources.

 

“In other words, they go to the street, and in particular on the West Coast, we just have a proliferation of illicit fentanyl and even more dangerous agents such as carfentanil.

 

“So in an effort to try to reduce harms in patients that are using high-dose opioids, we may end up putting them in a situation of greater harm — and that’s something we have to be very careful about.”

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May 8/17, CBC- Country in crisis: New opioid prescribing guidelines released:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/opioid-guidelines-1.4102131

The new guidelines from a McMaster-led team are recommendations for doctors, but not regulatory requirements.

 

The new guidelines were developed in light of Canadians being the second highest users per capita of opioids worldwide, with rates of opioid prescribing by doctors and opioid-related hospital visits rising rapidly.

I'm glad to see doctors more clearly implicated in this opioid/fentanyl crisis in Canada.  The wider public needs to know this is not simply a street drug problem involving only homeless, hardcore drug users. 

 

 

The parallels between the opioid and benzodiazepine issues are clear. Over-prescription, dangerous and painful side effects, dependence, addiction, withdrawal, etc....It's all there. Now, when will we see national attention paid to the benzodiazepine issue?

Lucky me, I got to do withdrawal from both.  And the fact that there's so much more publicity about opioids didn't do me any good at all.  It's the same cluelessness on the part of doctors about the effects of withdrawal and how long it can take a brain to heal.