Host: The U.S Drug Enforcement Administration is going to lash out at the opioid epidemic by slashing the production of a number of popular prescription pain killers.
Speaker 2: Now, Dr. John Michels specializes in pain management and Dr. Michels thanks for joining us. Why are so many people addicted to these pain killers?
Doctor Michels: I think that the pharmaceutical companies over the last couple of decades have actually downplayed the addictive properties of these medications and so they were way over-prescribed for the management of pain and patients were becoming addicted. In fact, last year alone in the United States more people died from prescription opioid use than from automobile accidents. The government is finally catching onto this problem and trying to do something about it.
Host: Is there any concern though that people who are in chronic pain, who really need these meds won’t be able to get them?
Doctor Michels: That’s not what they’re doing, they’ve looked at the changing prescribing habits of physicians over the last few years and they were allowing a 25% surplus of these medications to exist out on the market. And they’ve recognized that over the past four years we haven’t had to dip into that surplus. So, essentially this new law is just eliminating that surplus of these medications that have been out on the market.
Speaker 2: So, then how is that going to help if that’s the surplus that means they’re not being used right?
Doctor Michels: That’s right. So, what it’s starting to do is change the mindset of physicians to say, “Look we don’t need to write as many of these. We have not been writing as many of these and what we need to do is send patients who are in true pain to pain management specialists like myself who can treat pain at its source without having to prescribe high dose narcotics that are potentially dangerous or deadly.”
Host: Do you actually think that general practice doctors, maybe even internal med doctors, do you think they should be prescribing these pain medicines or do you think that everybody who needs them should go to pain management?
Doctor Michels: I think everybody who needs them should see a pain specialist. If you had a heart condition, you wouldn’t want to go see an internal medicine doctor for your heart condition, you’d want to go see a heart specialist. In the same way that if you got a chronic pain condition you want to see a specialist who everyday, day in and day out treats these types of illnesses and knows how to manage them appropriately.
Speaker 2: So, how do you manage them appropriately without pain killers?
Doctor Michels: So, we use minimally invasive image guided procedures to treat pain at its source therefore eliminating the cause of the pain and enabling patients to go about living their lives pain free. We also alter things like their mindset about their pain. We do things like physical therapy, and chiropractic care, non opioid pain management medications, as well as changing things like their diet and exercise patterns in order to enable them to live out their lives with the fullest amount of function pain free.
Host: Well, let’s say that it’s harder to get prescription medications from your doctor. Would one of the unintended consequences be people turning to more dangerous street drugs like heroin?
Doctor Michels: That’s always been the concern and we have seen that happen in the past. The hope is that by not only decreasing the amount of these medications out there but insurance companies are actually going to allow more alternative therapies in order to adequately manage patient’s pain. And that’s something that we all need to be fighting for is other ways rather than these dangerous opioids to effectively manage people’s pain so that they don’t need to turn to dangerous narcotics in order to live their lives.
Speaker 2: And you know, just finally we’ve been … Well no, you know what? We’re out of time unfortunately Dr. John Michels but this is something we definitely I think need to continue talking about as this opioid epidemic, it is killing people, but at the same time you don’t want people who are in chronic pain or who are in acute pain to not be able to get the appropriate treatment for that pain and I think that’s the concern.
Host: Thank you doctor.
