How a More Varied and Natural Approach to Pain Management can Help Lower Rates of Addiction
Opiate addiction is having a devastating impact on communities all across the United States. One of the things that’s making the situation more alarming is that many of the people now addicted to opiates were prescribed the drugs by a physician in an attempt to manage the pain they were suffering from an injury or ailment. Anesthesiologist Dr. Brad Stahlheber is in the forefront of a movement that seeks to lower opioid addiction rates by encouraging physicians to use a multimodal pain management system to treat people suffered with chronic pain and severe injuries.
What Is Multimodal Pain Management
Multimodal pain management is the use of two or more methods or medications in order to get a patient’s pain under control. This system has proven to be as effective as using opioids alone for pain mitigation. The results of a study published in the American Society of Anesthesiologists peer-reviewed medical journal Anesthesiology Online First edition, showed multimodal pain management helped decrease patients’ opioid use, common opioid-related complications and the need for opioid prescriptions in people who had undergone total knee and hip replacements.
Raising Awareness Is Important
It’s important patients become aware that there are a number of different options for treating the pain they have to endure during and after surgery. Many think opioids are the only choice and may be skeptical when their doctor prescribes a combination of different drugs in addition to opioids. Critical care services director for New York’s Hospital for Special Surgery Department of Anesthesiology Dr. Stavros G. Memtsoudis, PhD., explained that patients should understand that if doctors prescribe a range of pain medicines for them, it can reduce their chances of becoming addicted to opioids.
Many Different Options
While opioids are the best known and most common treatment for chronic, debilitating pain, there are many other effective pain medications and treatments that can be used as part of multimodal pain management. They include acetaminophen, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or NSAIDS, peripheral nerve blocks, ketamine or other cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitors and gabapentin/pregabalin. Using these in multimodal pain management not only gives patients the relief they need, it also reduces their risk of developing a dangerous opioid addiction.
Opioid Side-Effects
The high potential for addiction isn’t the only reason doctors should consider multimodal pain management treatment. Patients using them can suffer other dangerous side-effects like drowsiness, nausea, constipation, and vomiting. These side-effects can make it difficult for patients to recover from their surgical procedures. Multimodal pain management can include opioids during surgery and immediately afterwards, however the patient won’t be overly reliant on opioids to relieve their pain.
A Common and Expensive Choice
With 100 million American adults experiencing chronic pain, it’s now the leading cause of unemployment. But the dramatic increase in opioid addiction is making multimodal pain management an even more attractive option. Nationwide people spend more than $625 billion a year on pain treatment. That’s more than Americans spend on cancer, diabetes and heart disease combined. Too often the money is spent on opioids and not only the patients, but often their family and friends take the drugs and become addicted.
Other Effective Pain Relief Options
Multimodal pain management includes the use of interventional pain management techniques. Some interventional pain management methods include spinal cord stimulation, injection of anesthetics, drug-delivery system implants and nerve blocks. Other pain reduction techniques include behavioral and psychological approaches like cognitive behavioral therapy, stress reduction and relaxation training, flare management and other mind-body relationship techniques. Passive modalities like acupuncture, acupressure, biofeedback, deep breathing, distraction, guided imagery, hypnosis, massage, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation and visualization can also help.
Support, Knowledge and Expertise
As an experienced anesthesiologist, Dr. Brad Stahlheber is aware of the many alternative pain management methods. He sees their judicious use as valuable as part of effective multimodal pain management and a viable weapon in the war against opioid addiction. With his bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry from the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, his degree from the College of Osteopathic Medicine at Oklahoma State University and medical school and anesthesiology residency at Tulsa Regional Medical Center, Dr. Brad Stahlheber understands how opioids impacts patients chemically, biologically and physically. He’s also acutely aware of it potential for abuse.
A renowned anesthesiologist, Dr. Stahlheber has been working at St. John Medical Center for more than 3 years and has witnessed the devastation the opioid epidemic has wrought. He also knows the great potential of multimodal pain management holds for helping to put a stop to it.