More than 16,000 Americans die each year from prescription opioid overdoses, with a disproportionate number of these deaths attributed to methadone. Now, the federal government is calling on states to consider removing methadone from the list of preferred drugs used as pain relievers for Medicaid patients. This proposal is part of a larger White House initiative to stop the nation’s prescription drug abuse epidemic.
The evidence of harm associated with methadone for pain is clear. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that while methadone accounts for just 2 percent of opioid pain reliever prescriptions, the drug is responsible for nearly one third of prescription opioid overdose deaths. And from 1999 to 2010, as the use of methadone for pain increased, so too did the extent of associated harms. In fact, CDC found overdose deaths associated with methadone for pain increased nearly six-fold in that time, jumping from 784 deaths to 4,577 deaths.
Why does methadone put patients at greater risk?
The unique properties of methadone distinguish it from other opioids. Pain relief ends sooner than the drug’s effects on respiratory and cardiac systems. Because the pain returns before the body has fully metabolized the drug, patients may be tempted to take more, putting them at risk of overdose and death from respiratory depression or heart-beat abnormalities.
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Methadone is just another, get high drug.
ReplyDeleteYou've obviously never tried methadone. Most people die because its hard to get "high" off it. They don't "feel" the high so they keep taking more and more of it and before you know its too late.
Delete12:05 - For some it is. For others it's the only pain control measure that works. My sister has taken methadone for over ten years to deal with the orthopedic and neurological pain nightmare that followed being crushed in her car after being broadsided by a dump truck loaded with crushed stone, driven by a guy who had a four beer lunch. All of the other pain meds either didn't work or made her even more dysfunctional. The methadone she gets is via a subcutaneous pump, so dosing is highly controlled and tailored to her needs with no real possibility of abuse or overdose.
ReplyDeleteThey should make drugs illegal, then people wont do them.
ReplyDeleteOh wait....
The point of methadone for heroin recovery is that it takes away the physical craving for heroin but doesn't give a heroin high at managed doses. Only people who are serious about leaving heroin behind should apply.
ReplyDeleteHotspice used methadone to help relieve my Mothers
ReplyDeletepain from Cancer. In a controlled situation it's
a Blessing.