‘Deprescribing Clinics’—The Next Evolution of a Cure

This week, just like any other week, has been rough in regard to the opiate crisis. Just today, the lead singer of the 90’s Irish rock group, The Cranberries, suddenly passed away by what some are saying was a potential overdose. What we have to realize is that people die every day from complications of drug use and no one is immune to this crisis. Your average, blue-collar family is just as likely to suffer from an overdose as an upper-class, affluent family. No longer are the days of the homeless addict shooting up under a bridge. This crisis has hit every suburban community across the country. And no, even celebrities aren’t left out as potential victims of overdose. As we trudge on through this thing, every now and then some good ideas are created as potential solutions to this enormous problem and one such solution just came to light.

Tons of opiate prescriptions are given out each year… more than 250 million to be exact. That’s a whole lot of pills! And due to all those prescriptions, more people are addicted to opiates than ever before. Opioids have been regarded as the most effective way to treat pain for years and years and doctors dolling out prescriptions like candy have caused one of the worst drug epidemics on record…killing more than the AIDS crisis and most American wars. The fact of the matter is that opioids just aren’t the best way to treat pain. After a while, they are actually known to exacerbate pain rather than dull it. That being said, there are a lot of people who need to get off of these drugs but aren’t able to do so on their own because of the nasty withdrawals and the need to still treat their pain. These drugs are highly addictive, plain and simple, and it’s not easy to get off of them.

So, in response to this, an experimental clinic in Santa Clara, California was created to help get people off of opioids and still handle their painful conditions. Called Pain Management Rehabilitation, doctors work with patients to slowly taper their medications down while giving them different tools to help them cope with pain like physical therapy, pool therapy, and things as simple as group walks. The idea here is not to necessarily get rid of pain entirely, which is virtually impossible but help people cope with it and manage it. So far, this program has proved to be a low-cost and effective way of getting people off their opioids. Emergency room visits for program patients are down 80% and primary care visits are down 20%.

I think this is a marvel idea that has a lot of potential. For those who deal with chronic pain, this program is a great way to not only get them off the drugs that are no longer working for them or posing a problem for them (addiction) and get them drug-free and teach them how to manage their pain.

Pain is a part of life and no matter how many drugs we take, pain still exists. We must learn to deal with it and manage it appropriately because we all can’t just escape into a bottle of pills. Learning to confront the uncomfortable parts of life is crucial in handling this drug epidemic and, so far, the deprescribing clinic idea seems to be a great way of going about it.