Less Morphine – Are There Effective Alternatives to Opiates for Chronic Pain?

If you suffer from chronic pain in your back, knees, neck or anywhere else, you know how hard it is to get a prescription for a medication strong enough to manage it. The medical profession is so afraid of prescribing opiates these days that thousands upon thousands of chronic pain patients go untreated. Even asking for a prescription for narcotics can get the patient slapped with a mandatory drug test – at a cost of over $300 which is not covered by insurance – and a possible referral to a psychiatrist for “drug-seeking behavior.”

The hysteria surrounding the “opioid epidemic” and the rising increases in overdoses has fueled the fear of both the public and the medical profession, but should our doctors really be shy about treating real and debilitating pain?

Chronic pain vs. Addiction

First, let’s consider which is worse – chronic pain or addiction to opiates. It’s not necessarily a trade-off of one for the other, but for sake of argument, let’s assume it is. Chronic pain can make it impossible to work, support a family, sleep, exercise, and just enjoy life. It is there all the time and it hurts. Depression often accompanies chronic pain.

Addiction, on the other hand, is treatable while chronic pain often is not. Just look at the programs of any successful treatment facility like The Recovery Village and you will see that there is real hope for both living with and freedom from addiction. People addicted to opiates can live normal lives with the proper medical oversight and look forward to complete victory over their addiction as well.

The risk of becoming addicted to pain medication during treatment is low (less than one percent) and the risk of undertreated acute pain developing into untreatable chronic pain is high. Current recommendations from pain specialists are to treat pain quickly and aggressively in order to avoid permanent disability.

Alternatives to opiates

Of course, it does not have to be an either/or situation. Many patients cannot tolerate opiates. What alternatives exist to ease the suffering? Pain clinics often rely exclusively on opiates and medical procedures because these interventions have the best research to back them. But that does not mean that alternative remedies such as yoga, acupuncture and meditation are to be simply dismissed. Pain is, after all, an essentially subjective phenomenon and if an individual perceives relief, it actually is relief by definition.

The esteemed Mayo Clinic did a review of the literature on pain relief by alternative methods and here is what they found:

Back pain: Acupuncture, massage therapy, spinal (chiropractic) manipulation, osteopathic manipulation, and yoga were all shown to be effective. The treatments are often dependent upon the skill of the practitioner, so shopping around is a good idea.

Osteoarthritis of the knee: Acupuncture and tai chi were shown to be strongly effective for this condition.

Fibromyalgia: Relaxation techniques and tai chi apparently work for fibromyalgia, although the evidence for tai chi is weaker than for osteoarthritis of the knee.

Neck pain:  Massage therapy is effective for short-term benefit and only when performed in adequate doses.

Severe headaches and migraine: Relaxation techniques work for headaches with a tension element.

Are they safe?

The Mayo Clinic review reported that no serious adverse events occurred with any of the alternative therapeutic modalities examined. With yoga and tai chi, some minor muscle soreness was occasionally noted. Minor pain and bruising sometimes occur with acupuncture treatments.

With 100 million Americans living in chronic pain, there is much that can be safely done to alleviate the agony besides popping a few Percocets.