To me, the most important line in the NY Times Suboxone series was this one, "[Dr. Sullivan] considered opioid addiction "a hopeless disease'". We believe that maintenance approaches are rooted in the belief that most opiate addicts are not capable of recovering in the same manner that doctors recover. Most of the arguments for maintenance treatments … Continue reading no hint of opinion here
Tag: death
Quality of life and death
A study out of Australia looks at death rates among opioid addicts receiving opioid substitution treatment (OST, for short. It's methadone.) in New South Wales between 1985-2005. It's a HUGE sample--43,789 people. If fact, the paper says: This cohort is likely to represent the majority of opioid dependent people in that State during this period, … Continue reading Quality of life and death
Indescribable horror turned into advocacy
Bill White appears to have started blogging! His most recent post touches upon an issue that is close to my heart. People in recovery and their family members are leading what is rapidly becoming an international recovery advocacy movement, but there are faces and voices notably absent from the frontlines of this movement: the families … Continue reading Indescribable horror turned into advocacy
no hint of opinion here
From an article about a new report on medications for opiate treatment: The report also examined studies that evaluated buprenorphine, methadone, injectable naltrexone, and oral naltrexone and concluded a benefit in patient outcomes as well as costs. "I can say with no hint of opinion here, it's simple fact, they are all effective," McLellan said. … Continue reading no hint of opinion here
Prescription drug overdose statistics visually
Popular Science has a chart with US overdose deaths by drug: ...the rate of reported overdoses the U.S. more than doubled between 1999 and 2010. About half of those additional deaths are in the pharmaceuticals category, which the CDC has written about before. Nearly three-quarters of the pharmaceuticals deaths are opioid analgesics—prescription painkillers like OxyContin and … Continue reading Prescription drug overdose statistics visually
Road traffic crashes and prescribed methadone and buprenorphine
Last year, a study questioned whether buprenorphine patients should be allowed to drive because 60% tested positive for other drugs. Now, another study reaches similar findings: Background Opioids have been shown to impair psychomotor and cognitive functioning in healthy volunteers with no history of opioid abuse. Few or no significant effects have been found in opioid-dependant … Continue reading Road traffic crashes and prescribed methadone and buprenorphine
