For a better acknowledgement of how severely we struggle with pain: there is some value in being aware of the opiod crisis that has plagued the US over the past 20 years. Prescription opioids are a justifiable tool for about 0.0001% of pain sufferers. The class of poor unfortunate souls who have suffered the likes of extensive burns or nerve damage. Significant trauma and significant disease, are sound justifications for the use of this class of drugs.
At the height of the American opioid epidemic in 2012; the number of annual prescriptions peaked at 255 million. OxyContin is to heroin what treacle is to table sugar; the distinctions are more micro-molecular than they are meaningful. So realistically this was a case of 255 million ‘heroin’ doses being dispensed to chronic pain sufferers by American doctors in 2012. A huge number of these patients would have been back pain, knee pain, hip pain, foot pain sufferers and the like.
Statistics published in the American Journal of Public Health: estimate that there were between 17,000 and 32,000 deaths from prescription opioids during 2016. Each of whom was someone's mum, dad or at least someone's child, lest we forget what statistics represent.
On top of the thousands of deaths you can safely assume that for each death there are perhaps 5-10 or even 20 other patients living an utterly miserable addicted existence.
The American CDC estimates the total economic burden of prescription opioid misuse in the US is $78.5 billion a year.
Realistically, all the stats are glorified guesses, no one really knows how bad it all is. Death certificates for the 42,000 total opioid overdoses in 2016 do not make a distinction between deaths caused by illegal opioids like heroin, and deaths caused by prescription opioids.
These opioid deaths are not like the inevitable toll we associate with extreme medicine, like emergency open heart procedures where it was touch and go for the patient pre-admission. These are deaths caused by pain relief medications!
Make sure you continue with parts 4 and 5 of this presentation where I tell you about the real causes of lower body pains, and the best ways we use to help you.
