Our Opioid Treatment Philosophy

April 13, 2020

For many patients and doctors, Pain Clinic is synonymous with “Opioids.” To many of the same people, “opioids” is synonymous with “lots of opioids,” “opioid abuse” or some other pejorative idea about what might be going on in “those clinics.” Nothing could be further from the truth at Specialists in Pain Care. Through years of experience, considering emerging research and in close adherence to the CDC and other best practices, Specialists in Pain care has developed a philosophy and practice of prescribing opioid medications that seeks to treat patients in the most safe and effective way.

Our patient interactions start and end with patient education. We teach the pros and cons of the opioid class of medications. Patients learn there are limits to what these medicines can do, and there are real risks. Each patient attends a Pain School session at least annually where we discuss how these medication work and other concepts such as tolerance, dependence and abuse.

When prescribing opioids, we will most likely have the patient on a single short acting agent. We rarely will use long acting opioid formulations given the risk of tolerance and opioid induced analgesia. Morphine equivalents will be kept low and continued dose escalation is not seen as a viable strategy to achieve greater analgesia. Whenever possible we utilize adjuvant medicines or techniques, and we emphasize wellness factors as an equal or better treatment for chronic pain. Opioid pain medications are a treatment modality for chronic pain, but as the sole modality, we view that notion as a poor strategy prone to failure.

At Specialists in Pain Care we recognize there is a need for safe, opioid prescription in society. We are not a “one stop shop”. We strongly believe there is a real need for experts who are comfortable managing patients on opioid pain medication. Specialists in Pain Care is comfortable managing that high dose patient as well as tapering patients to safer levels (see our Opioid Reduction Program).

Many patients benefit in real tangible ways from this class of medicine not just through decreased pain scores but more importantly through increased functionality and improved quality of life. We are happy to handle any new patient referral including even for the sole purpose of education and getting a patient to a safer opioid regimen.

The Specialists in Pain Care Team!