Fibromyalgia: A worrying trend in the medical management
Hello
I was browsing through news articles on fibromyalgia from a specialist healthcare website for doctors and providers like me and found a very worrying study.
It is titled Opioid use in fibromyalgia continues despite guidelines that do not support its efficacy or risk.
This study looked at almost 700 patients with fibromyalgia and found that almost 30 % of them were taking opioid pain killers.
Opioid pain killers are very addictive painkillers like codeine, tramadol and morphine derivatives that make not only the pain worse, the longer they are used but also a whole host of psychological issues that come with fibromyalgia.
They also found that people who used them tended to use them for a very long time, more than 3 years, were more impaired due to their pain and had significant psychological problems associated with fibromyalgia when they used opioids.
At the end of the article, they reiterated that “Opioids are not recommended for the treatment of fibromyalgia under the current guidelines. The greater burden of illness appeared to be associated with the prescription and use of opioids in this population.”
This population means people suffering from fibromyalgia.
Is your pain pills making things worse?
Maybe it is time to get off them with our expert help?
Jason
