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Opioids: Be afraid

Chiropractic is gaining recognition in the world of traditional medicine, as a safer alternative for treatment of pain, particularly chronic lower back pain. Why should you care about this? In a word: OPIOIDS. Let me share a few facts about the U.S. with you:

“Each day we lose 115 Americans to an opioid overdose – that’s one person every 12.5 minutes” (U.S. Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams, 4-5-18)

”An estimated 2.1 million people in the United States had a substance use disorder related to prescription opioid pain medicines in 2016.” (National Institute on Drug Abuse)

 “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the total economic burden of prescription opioid misuse alone in the United States is $78.5 billion a year, including the costs of health care, lost productivity, addiction treatment and criminal justice involvement.” (Stanford School of Medicine; Stanford Health Policy)  Those costs also include treating babies born dependent on opioids, greater transmission of infectious diseases, and injuries associated with drugged driving. (National Institute on Drug Abuse)

It used to be thought that doctors could prescribe opioids liberally to “carefully selected” patients without causing problems. Not so! Studies have found “...opioid addiction among 4% to 26% of such patients, with even higher rates of serious opioid misuse. From 1999-2009, drug abuse treatment admissions for prescription opioids grew six-fold, to 140,000 a year, with more than three-quarters of a million opioid addiction treatment admissions in that time-span. Fatal overdoses involving opioid analgesics increased four-fold, to over 16,500 a year, with more than 125,000 overdose deaths from 1999-2010.”(National Center for Biotechnology Information)

There’s no denying that some people require powerful drugs to help them endure intractable pain. Most patients, however, are encouraged to try chiropractic before risking the addiction that is possible with medications such as hydrocodone, codeine, oxycodone, or morphine. Chiropractors want to relieve your pain AND remedy the pain-causing condition. Try the safer route!


Please contact our office if you would like links to sources for the above information.

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