Some doctors are changing the way they talk about and address pain, offering hope that fewer opioid addicts will be created.

And we are starting to learn how to better help those with substance use disorder – a term that better describes those addicted or dependent.

I learned a lot in a recent interview with Faye Jamali MD, a California anesthesiologist who found her brain “hijacked” by opioids.

According to Dr Jamali, It began with a fluke of an accident at a child’s birthday party, in which she broke her wrist. Two surgeries followed. Sidelined and in pain, Dr Jamali turned to painkillers prescribed by her doctor. Feeling increasingly depressed, and with easy access to drugs, Dr. Jamali began to inject herself, rather than heading to the ER. “That’s when my brain got hijacked,” she says, adding that “I knew nothing about addiction.”

After going thru the recovery process, she’s been sober for eight years, and recently left Kaiser Permanente to help other physicians recover. Here’s an excerpt from our conversation. (Note emphases are mine, and I while tried to capture her comments precisely I may have made errors)

MCM – How has pain management changed?

Dr Jamali – Over the last 4-5 years there’s been a big push to limit amount of narcotics prescribed. Before, it was taught that if patient has pain, just give them as much as they want…that’s changed, that isn’t being taught now, we are on the right track now.

[Instead medical students are being taught] multimodal analgesia, NSAIDs, nerve blocks, and to use PT more.

In California there has been a big push to look at pain holistically and change patients’ expectations about discomfort levels. You can help manage it using different medications and medical services.

MCM – Can you talk about specific changes you are seeing with pain management?

Dr Jamali – with pre-emptive analgesia, there’s less post operative pain if you block it first with nerve blocks [before surgery is performed], then keep using nerve blocks to reduce the need for opioids after surgery. We found that that the care type was key to minimize the amount of opioids needed pre- and post- surgery. Patients who have pain in the hospital are much less likely to get up and walk around, so [nerve blocks help patients be] ready for more activity.

Patient acceptance of pain is also important; We have worked to help patients understand about managing pain, by decreasing opioids or [prescribing] no opioids, you feel better because your mind will be clearer and you will recover faster. There are other ways to manage the pain, to get you comfortable enough to do your errands. Lots of positive reactions from patients to this as opposed to the last time they had this.

Patients have been very happy with the nerve blocks and nerve catheters… patients doing a second knee replacement said this [change in pain management] was night and day with them, [they were] more clear headed, more comfortable, could do their PT…We take pain seriously – pain impedes recovery, this different strategy was better for them.

MCM – For those already addicted– what has worked?

Dr Jamali – [The most successful] Programs for recovering physicians are completely holistic, not a 28 day approach, may be 90 days. Physicians in recovery should have a 5 year plan of what you should be doing; weekly group, Medication Assisted Therapy, practice monitors. For the general population it is extremely expensive to go to inpatient treatment.

12 step is the only one that is free, but there is very little data [on success rates] as it is anonymous.,. Basic data indicates [long-term success is] 8-10% [of patients], AA-type programs say it is higher. Patients do it because it is free. In and of itself it isn’t enough. Should be longer, include component of what made this person get into addiction, lot of times there are factors that enabled addiction, in many instances that isn’t covered [by these programs].

Relapse occurs because we aren’t treating the disease…we don’t only treat the first 90 days of diabetes…. It [substance abuse disorder (SAD)] is a medical disease that needs long-term treatment.

We need to think of addiction as a disease and not stigmatize it. As long as there is a stigma we won’t treat it as we do with other diseases. All evidence indicates it is indeed a disease, this is a powerful highjacking of the brain that leads to this behavior.

There should be national or state standards for treating SAD, requiring enough long term treatment…Can’t just lock them up, need to have a plan. There should be a gold standard for what should be offered to patients who are addicted right now. Look at the causes, what is needed to deal with that over the long term.

Public perception is changing, it used to be addicts are bad people, now we see doctors, soccer moms, teenagers who are part of the problem, they can’t get more drugs so are doing heroin.

MCM – What is the role of opioid manufacturers?

We dealing with the intersection of profits and what is best for society. Far too many pills are going to small towns. Incentives are in the wrong place. Free market has a role in many areas, in healthcare it should not be a free market system…Should not be a profit in treating patients with illness. There’s no financial incentive to prevent a disease if they can profit from it.

Key takeaways:

• Substance Abuse Disorder is a chronic disease
• We need to stop stigmatizing sufferers
• Long-term multi-modal treatment is critically important

 

 

 

A 24-year old is acting as chief of staff of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Of course he has no experience, qualifications, or background that qualifies him for this role. And, ts ONDCP has no Director or Chief of Staff, this kid has been one of, if not the, senior executives at the federal agency tasked with addressing the opioid crisis.

Taylor Weyeneth, who happens to be from our town, also submitted a resume to the federal government that exaggerated his “credentials” (he claimed a graduate degree he does not have).

According to newspaper reports, he was involved with a “family company” here that federal records show was “secretly processing illegal steroids from China as part of a conspiracy involving people from Virginia, California and elsewhere.” Weyeneth’s resume claims he was head of production for this company when he was 16.

Weyeneth is the symptom, the Administration’s complete lack of attention to the opioid crisis is the problem.

This personnel debacle follows the Administration’s attempt to appoint Tom Marino as Director of ONDCP. Marino is a politician that sponsored a bill greatly limiting federal oversight of the opioid industry. an attempt that fortunately collapsed amidst bi-partisan outrage.

Seven Administration appointees have left the Office over the last year; that’s more than 10 percent turnover in the 65 person office. There is no Director in place, and no indication there are any plans to appoint one.

The President gives speeches about the crisis, and claims the Administration is doing everything possible to attack the drug crisis – and Taylor Weyeneth is appointed Deputy Chief of Staff.

Words are one thing, actions another.

What does this mean for you?

We aren’t going to get any help from the White House on opioids.

 

Two people very close to me are on the front lines of the opioid disaster.  Working in ERs and ambulances in the northeast, they see – multiple times every day – how bad it is.

You have no idea.

The toll this is taking is wide, deep, and devastating.  Some public safety workers are burning out, beyond frustration and anger to a place of fatalism.

Yesterday an unconscious woman was admitted after her kids told their dad she was taking a nap on the kitchen floor.  The nap was induced by a very heavy dose of benzos on top of heroin; when dad came home from work – he’s a public safety worker too – she was unresponsive.

Revived with a hefty dose of Narcan, the woman “justified” her dosage as needed due to some unspecified mental trauma.

This one example is playing out multiple times every day for every ambulance crew, in every ER, in every neighborhood.  NPR’s morning news greeted me with a piece about elephant-tranquilizer Carfentanil, a made-in-China chemical that is exponentially more powerful than fentanyl, which is exponentially more powerful than heroin.  Now spreading rapidly thru Ohio, Florida, and the midwest, carfentanil will soon find its way into your town.

If you think I’m being alarmist, you’re wrong.

Here’s how this is impacting us today.

• parents are dying in front of their kids.  who’s going to take care of those kids, and prevent them from following in their parents’ tragic footsteps?
• To some public safety workers, Narcan is NOT saving lives, it is a Get-Out-Of Jail-Free card, allowing users to “safely” push the limits of dosing in their quest to get ever higher ever longer.
• opioids may soon be replaced by drugs such as carfentanil.  Why grow poppies when you can just order this pill from a chemical factory in China?
• Public safety workers are at the end of their ropes.  How can they not be white-hot with anger at users when confronted several times a day with parents “justifying” their using after being revived with Narcan.

This started with legitimate “prescription” drugs pushed by pharma companies making billions.  Make no mistake, these bastards are the ones who started the ball rolling, a ball that has gotten ever-larger and is crushing more and more of us as it picks up momentum.

The great late David DePaolo penned a piece on Purdue just days before he died.  It’s well worth reading, and remembering.

But the disaster unleashed by Purdue and their ilk is way beyond what any of us thought it would become.  As powerful and necessary as the Surgeon General’s letter to physicians is, it is so, so late.

Will this epidemic be solved by public health measures far greater than anything we’ve thought of or funded to date, or, like smallpox among Native Americans or the Plague in Europe, is it fated to burn out only after it kills most users, leaving no one else to infect?

Have a great weekend.