There Are Real Options for Avoiding Opioids

                              Taking Off for The Holidays

I wanted to let you know that I will be taking off publishing the blog for the holidays. The next issue will come out Saturday, January 9, 2021.

                  There Are Real Options for Avoiding Opioids

You’ve been suffering with chronic back pain. You go to you doc and he or she starts you on opioids. With all the addiction and overdose concerns with opioids are you stuck taking them or do you have an option?

Well, according to the United Kingdom’s National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE), you now have options to taking opioids. NICE’s job is to recommend treatments and drugs that are safe, effective and offer good value for the money.

What the researchers did first was to examine the standard pain killers, such as, acetaminophen, NSAIDs, benzodiazepines and opioids. They actually found none of them to be effective for chronic pain!

Does this mean there’s no hope for reducing your level of pain? The short answer s there’s more than hope! The NICE researchers started looking for other options and they found several. 

At the top of their list was acupuncture as the better way to manage chronic pain. Other treatments that they recommended include physical exercise, psychological therapy and antidepressants as proven ways to manage chronic pain.

So…you’ve got chronic pain, start exploring the options before you even think about taking drugs (except for antidepressants).
(Reported Discover, November/December 2020)