A new study from UNSW Sydney has analysed findings from a five-year cohort of 1514 people who have been prescribed opioids for chronic non-cancer pain, finding that risk for problematic opioid outcomes is related to a combination of patient characteristics and pre-existing factors, rather than opioid dose alone. Well, duh. From the report : "“Long-term opioid use for...
An open letter to the RACGP and Dr Simon Holliday, Re: Article and interview with Dr Simon Holliday: Can pain self-management avoid the need for opioids? In short, for a few maybe. For most? No. Absolutely not. There are a number of egregious errors in the article by Dr Simon Holliday that contribute to the misinformation and...
Reading through the multitude of articles based on the Pennington Institute's Annual Overdose report, one ONE is reporting the very important fact that HEROIN is now the cause of most opioid deaths. The media has been having a field day for the last few years with the dramatic headline that "pharmaceutical opioids cause more deaths than...
The Pennington Institute's Australia's Annual Overdose report was released today, and along with it a flurry of media stories on opioids, and how many Australian's are dying every year due to overdoses. In every article, chronic pain patients are included in the same patient group as those with substance abuse disorders, and never is...
It seems Australian medical authorities have not learnt from the harsh opioid prescribing guidelines in America, which have harmed untold numbers of chronic pain patients amidst the "opioid hysteria" sweeping the Western world....