Sponsored News - Now what?
That’s the question chronic
pain sufferers are asking following the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention’s release of the first-ever national guidelines designed to curb
the alarming increase in prescription drug deaths.
A
record high 47,055 overdose deaths were recorded in 2014, according to the latest
statistics, which is 6.5% percent higher than the previous year. 61% of
those deaths (28,647) were due to prescription pain killers, which is 14% higher than in 2013! And the
government’s response advising doctors not to prescribe the potentially
addictive pills in most situations for chronic pain couldn’t have been plainer.
“It has become increasingly clear
that opioids carry substantial risk but only uncertain benefits especially
compared with other treatments for chronic pain,” CDC Director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden
told reporters in March.
The one catch? Right now it’s purely voluntary whether
doctors used to prescribing the likes of OxyContin stop or not. So if, for example, you’re concerned about
overdosing and experiencing musculoskeletal
conditions including low back
and neck
pain, many experts say it’s time to consider an alternative like chiropractic care.
Even before the CDC acted,
drug-free chiropractic care was being touted as the go-to first option over
both prescription pills and surgery as a result of research showing it yielded
improved patient outcomes, higher satisfaction, and lower costs. “It’s
heartening to see the growing opioid epidemic is finally gaining the attention
it deserves,” said Sherry
McAllister, DC, executive vice president of the not-for-profit Foundation for Chiropractic Progress,
noting that doctors
of chiropractic have a minimum seven years of higher education and provide
care and rehabilitation on issues ranging from musculoskeletal pain to headaches
to general health concerns.
Learn more at F4CP.com.
CDC
Budget Initiative - 2016
|
Drug
Overdose Prevention (+$53.6 million) [Bookmarks→Overview of Budget Request→Initiatives→Drug
Overdose Prevention]
Drug overdose deaths have
skyrocketed in the past decade, largely because of prescription opioids.
Prescription Drug Overdose (PDO) death rates quadrupled since 1999, claiming
more than 16,000 lives in 2013 alone. Overdose deaths are only part of the
problem—for each death involving prescription opioids, hundreds of people abuse
or misuse these drugs. Emergency department visits for prescription painkiller
abuse or misuse have doubled in the past few years to nearly half a million.
Prescription opioid-related overdoses cost an estimated $20 billion in medical
and work-loss costs each year. Stemming this epidemic is essential to CDC’s
goal of preventing the leading causes of disease, disability, and death.
Equally important is the need to address the alarming rise in overdose death
from illicit drugs such as heroin.
In FY 2016, CDC will build on
state PDO prevention activities initiated in FY 2014–2015, including the PDO
Prevention for States program to be launched in FY 2015. The FY 2016 budget
request includes $5.6 million to support CDC’s efforts to address the troubling
rise in overdose deaths from illicit opioids such as heroin. An additional
increase of $48.0 million above the $20.0 million provided in FY 2015 will
enable CDC to expand the PDO Prevention for States program to fund all 50
states and Washington, D.C. for a truly comprehensive response to the national
epidemic. CDC funding will scale up existing state Prescription Drug Monitoring
Program (PDMP) programs to improve clinical decision-making and to inform
implementation of insurance innovations and evaluation of state-level policies.
In addition, the increased investment will support rigorous monitoring and
evaluation, and improvements in data quality, with an emphasis on delivering
real-time mortality surveillance. CDC also will scale up activities to improve
patient safety by bringing together health systems and health departments to
develop and track pain management and opioid prescribing quality measures in
states with the highest prescribing rates.
