We’re Thinking About Pain All Wrong

We’re Thinking About Pain All Wrong
New York Times, By Maia Szalavitz. Opinion Writer, 12/24/23
For many years I’ve written about people suffering intractable pain, and how their agony and increased risk of suicide and death has been ignored in the rush to end the overdose crisis. ... Between five million and eight million Americans currently rely on opioids to treat chronic pain, and thousands need them for end-of-life pain at any given time. Despite their risks, opioids remain the best available pain treatment for many patients—and there is little evidence that addictions are prevented or treated by denying them to those who have already used them safely for years. Concerns about the harms associated with indiscriminate cutbacks have been raised by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and major medical organizations. Nevertheless, doctors continue to abandon these patients while the overdose crisis worsens.