The opioid crisis in America is large and considered a national emergency. Many doctors keep prescribing opioids to threat chronic pain and it’s an issue that needs to be dealt with.
A recent study by the National Institutes of Health has said that 25.3 million adults reported experiencing chronic pain every single day in the three months prior to the study. This is about 11% of the population in the U.S. This is a lot of people, many of which that may be relying on opioids for relief.
The Journal of the American Medical Association published a study comparing opioids to non-opioids to see if thwy were better at treating chronic pain in the back, hip, or knee. Surprisingly, they weren’t.
“Treatment with opioids was not superior to treatment with non-opioids for improving pain-related function over 12 months,” the study wrote. “Results do not support initiation of opioid therapy for moderate to severe chronic back pain or hip or knee osteoarthritis pain.”
Last month a study in the European Journal of Internal Medicine had followed 2,970 cancer patients between 2015 and 2017 as they etered a medical marijuana treatment program for chronic pain.
Marijuana has been praised by many advocates of the drug for being effective at treating chronic pain.
Each patient was able to choose a plan that specifically worked with their lifestyle, and to pick from 16 different strains of the drug. Out of the 1,211 cancer patients who were ultimately surveyed (902 patients from the original group had died and 680 stopped treatment), 95.9 percent reported that they saw a significant reduction in pain.
