Something Great Happened Today

 

 

 

 

Today we admitted a young man to our opioid treatment program who was referred from a Big City Hospital, where he was started on buprenorphine/naloxone. Everything happened exactly like it should, and the patient got excellent care. This should happen everywhere.

This patient went to the emergency department at Big City Hospital at the urging of his family, who recently discovered he had opioid use disorder. They were worried about him and convinced him to seek help at the hospital close to them, BCH.

Big City Hospital admitted him for detoxification and started him on a low dose of a buprenorphine product. Over the four days that they kept him, they slowly increased his dosage to a total of 8mg per day. At that dose, his withdrawal symptoms resolved, and he had no cravings to use illicit opioids. BCH also drew blood from him, and he tested negative for infectious diseases and other medical problems.

Once he was stable, the social worker at Big City Hospital needed to find a program or provider  his community that could take over his care. As it happened, he wanted to move away from where he’d been living. He feared his friends, with whom he’d using drugs, could lead him to relapse back to drug use. He decided to move in with some supportive relatives, who happen to live near our opioid treatment program. The social worker called our program and arranged an appointment for admission for the day after he was to leave BCH.

BCH gave him a dose the afternoon he was discharged from their hospital, and he kept his appointment with our program early the next morning. He was just starting to feel a little withdrawal from his last dose of buprenorphine. Big City Hospital had already faxed his records to us, so those were available for me to review.

He was a nice young man from a good family who had fallen, as so many have, into opioid use disorder before he knew what was happening. He had a strong desire to change his life and leave his addiction behind. We continued his dose of buprenorphine products, and started intensive counseling right away.

I’m so happy that appropriate treatment was offered to this young man at the time he reached out for help. He was admitted, started on treatment and then transferred to us without any gap in treatment. A successful inpatient treatment episode flowed seamlessly into our outpatient program, without relapse and without the patient being forced back into withdrawal.

All worked as it should. It’s not that hard.

So how can a large hospital nearly a hundred miles away refer a patient to us but we don’t get referrals from our local hospital a few miles away?

My answer is that though our local hospital is close in miles, it’s far away in its ideology about the role of buprenorphine and methadone in the treatment of patients with opioid use disorder.

However, there’s reason to hope that this is changing.

A few weeks ago, I was asked to come to the hospital to give a presentation of opioid use disorder and its treatment with medication for nursing personnel. I was thrilled. Our program director and clinical director were thrilled. We scheduled a “Lunch ‘N Learn” for noon, with the hospital graciously furnishing the food.

I was surprised and pleased when a room full of people showed up for my talk. The head of pharmacy was there, who has always supported MAT, with a few pharmacy students. None of the staff nurses were there, but nursing supervisors were, and some people from our local mental health agency, who just got a grant to care for pregnant ladies on MAT. We had the director of the local health department, who has always been supportive, and many other people. Two doctors and at least two physician assistants were there too.

I gave my usual 50-minute presentation, and the audience asked great questions when I was done. Then, to drive the message home, we had a former patient tell her story of life on methadone, off methadone, and now back on methadone. She has that gift of speaking from the heart, and I think she helped inform audience members more than anything I could have said.

I wanted to get copies of TIP 63 to pass out to all people in the audience, but it was bad timing – TIP 63 wasn’t available because it’s being re-done. I like to give people TIP 63 because when they challenge me on this point or that, it contains all the pertinent studies supporting what I say about MAT.

One audience member appeared to disapprove of starting pregnant patients with opioid use disorder on methadone or buprenorphine. She claimed that all babies born to moms taking these medications had withdrawal when born, and that the withdrawal lasts for many months. I tried to describe the results of the MOTHER trial, done right here in North Carolina, since it was one of the most recent landmark studies.  It showed that around 50% of babies born to moms on buprenorphine or methadone have withdrawal bad enough to need medication, and that babies born to moms on buprenorphine had much less severe withdrawal and stayed in the hospital about half as long as babies born to moms on methadone.

I did not get through to her. I sensed she relied much more on her own perceptions and experiences than on data from research studies done on hundreds of patients.

Despite that disagreement, I thought the event was a great success.

Now we are asking to come back and do another presentation for the staff nurses.

We’ll keep trying. Someday I hope to see a local patient who arrives in our local hospital’s emergency department, gets diagnosed with opioid use disorder, is treated in a respectful and compassionate way, gets started on buprenorphine and then gets referred to our opioid treatment program (or other MAT program) right away.

I’d like to see a Big City response to our rural crisis.

New Data from State Prescription Monitoring Program

 

 

North Carolina’s Health and Human Services published a most interesting data set recently: http://www.ncdhhs.gov/divisions/mhddsas/ncdcu/Prescription-Rates-by-County

This interactive map shows information, by county, of the prescribing rates for opioids, benzodiazepines, and stimulants for the years 2012 through 2015. It also includes the average morphine milligram equivalents, or MMEs.

This data was gleaned from my state’s prescription monitoring program, called the North Carolina Controlled Substance Reporting System, abbreviated NC CSRS.

Quantifying MMEs, sometimes also called MEDDs, for morphine equivalent daily dose, is a way to quantify the potency of the opioids being prescribed. For example, since fentanyl is so potent that it’s prescribed in micrograms rather than milligrams, a prescription of 10mg of fentanyl would be very different than a prescription of 10mg of hydrocodone. So using MMEs, prescribed opioids are “translated” into the potency of that dose if it were morphine.

This data is important, since the risk of opioid overdose death risk increases when patients are prescribed higher MMEs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said MME doses higher than 50mg per day should be used with great caution, since doses above this cut off are associated with higher risk of opioid overdose death.

I looked at my own county first, and found some puzzling data. For 2015, Wilkes County was fifteenth out of one hundred counties for the number of opioid pills prescribed per resident. The table said county residents were prescribed one hundred and two opioid pain pills per resident, giving an average of 1.3 opioid prescriptions per resident.

But when I looked at the 2012 data, Wilkes County averaged eighty-two pills per resident, giving an average of 1.1 opioid prescriptions per resident. In other words, the data showed more pills are being prescribed in 2015 than in 2012.

That’s disheartening.

A new pain clinic opened in late 2014, which could explain some of this data. Also, since this is data collected by the patient’s county of residence, perhaps county residents travel to physicians in other counties for prescriptions, and then bring them to Wilkes County to fill.

Then I looked at the MME, the abbreviation for morphine milligram equivalents.

Wilkes County was number one out of one hundred NC counties for highest total morphine milligram equivalents. That says our county’s residents are prescribed more opioid firepower per capita than any other county in the state.

Really? This data doesn’t feel right to me. My impression from the new patients I admit to the opioid treatment program is that area physicians are prescribing lower doses than in the past.

So I started thinking…the opioid addiction treatment program where I work has been growing, accepting more patients, and our census is a little higher than one year ago. But data from my opioid treatment program is not part of the prescription monitoring data, because we must adhere to a higher standard of confidentiality, given the stigma attached to medication-assisted treatment of opioid use disorders.

Except for the office-based buprenorphine patients. At present, they are not protected by higher levels of confidentiality and their data is part of the prescription monitoring program. I only have thirteen patients in that program in Wilkes County, but the pain clinic also prescribes much buprenorphine, for both pain and addiction.

Buprenorphine is an odd drug, since it is a partial opioid agonist with a ceiling effect at 16-24mg per day.

The American Society of Addiction Medicine published a paper giving instructions about how to calculate MME for methadone and buprenorphine. Their position paper on this issue (http://www.asam.org/docs/default-source/public-policy-statements/public-policy-statement-on-morphine-equivalent-units-morphine-milligram-equivalents.pdf?sfvrsn=0 ) says,

1. When used for the treatment of addiction, methadone and buprenorphine should be explicitly excluded from legislation, regulations, state medical board guidelines, and payer policies that attempt to reduce opioid overdose-related mortality by limiting milligram morphine equivalents (MME). Higher MME of these medications are necessary and clinically indicated for the effective treatment of addiction involving opioid.
2. State medical boards should not use MME conversions of methadone or buprenorphine dosages used in addiction treatment as the basis for investigations or disciplinary actions against prescribers.

In other words, when buprenorphine is used to treat addiction, translating the dose into MMEs is misleading. I would add that given the ceiling effect of buprenorphine, a partial opioid agonist, overdose is much less likely with this drug than with full agonists for opioid-tolerance people. And really, the risk for overdose death is the purpose for collecting MME data.

My state’s prescription monitoring program does use MMEs for buprenorphine. I’ve seen it on my office-based patient reports, and it annoyed me, knowing ASAM’s position statement about this issue. But I didn’t realize using MMEs for buprenorphine could potentially skew data until now.

What if residents of my county are prescribed more buprenorphine than other counties, both because it’s being prescribed appropriately for the high incidence of opioid use disorder in the county, and also because at least one physician group prescribes buprenorphine off-label for pain?.

To get an idea of how badly buprenorphine MMEs could skew data, I went back and looked at one of my office-based patients. The NC CSRS (our state’s prescription monitoring program) gave a MME of 360mg for a buprenorphine dose of 12mg.

That’s misleading. Morphine at a daily dose of 360mg would place a patient at infinitely more risk than buprenorphine at 12mg.

Just a few days ago, I sent an email to some of the smartest people in my state, asking them to consider this issue. As I was getting ready to post this, I heard back. The NC CSRS plans to separate office-based treatment data. I’ll update readers.

Black Box Warning

 

 

Last month the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) announced their decision to require black box warnings on opioid and benzodiazepine prescribing information. This warning will state that co-prescribing these two classes of medications increases the risks to patients of death, coma, sleepiness, and respiratory depression. The FDA also said they would require medication guides for patients, describing these risks.

Black box warnings are the strongest warnings issued by the FDA. These warnings are literally placed in a bold black box at the top of the prescribing, where the information is most noticeable.

I applaud the FDA’s action. I think FDA’s statement will make physicians and other providers think twice before blithely writing a benzodiazepine prescription for a patient already prescribed opioids. A black box means, “Take this seriously!”

Ten years ago, co-prescribing of opioids and benzodiazepines was commonplace for primary care physicians in my area. Earlier this year, our state medical board announced they would investigate the top prescribers of opioids and benzodiazepines together. Since then, I have noticed some prescribers appear to be backing away from the routine prescribing of benzodiazepines..

Most opioid treatment centers have policies in place to address benzodiazepine use, both licit and illicit. There are still a few OTPs who approve benzodiazepines to be prescribed for methadone or buprenorphine patients, but I think they are in the minority. Most opioid treatment program physicians feel that besides the dangers of sedation and overdose, there are few medical indications for long-term (more than three months) benzodiazepine prescriptions, and much better long-term treatments for anxiety disorders.

An article In the April 16^th, 2016 issue of the American Journal of Public Health underlined how important it is to evaluate benzodiazepine prescribing in the U.S., particularly when prescribed along with opioids. [1]

The authors begin the article by stating that benzodiazepines were found to be involved in nearly a third of opioid overdose deaths in 2013. The authors wished to investigate nation trends in benzodiazepine prescribing and in fatal overdoses involving benzodiazepines.

The authors found the percentage of U.S. adults filling benzodiazepine prescriptions increased significantly over past years. They also found that among people who filled benzodiazepine prescriptions, the amount, defined as lorazepam equivalent doses, also increased significantly. Simultaneously, overdose deaths rates involving benzodiazepines rose nearly four-fold, though deaths appear to have plateaued since 2010.

Another study, this time in Canada, evaluated the risk of death in polysubstance users. In a prospective cohort study of IV drug users, done from 1996 through 2013, benzodiazepine use was more strongly associated with death than any other substance of abuse. [2

Many patients ask why they can’t take benzodiazepines while on methadone or buprenorphine. I tell them I’m mainly worried about the increased risk for overdose death, but I also tell them benzodiazepines are over-prescribed. Prescribing information suggests benzodiazepines are most beneficial when prescribed for no more than three or four weeks. Long-term prescribing of benzodiazepines is generally discouraged, due to serious side effects seen even in patients with no substance use disorders.

Benzodiazepines are associated with increased risk of auto accidents, increased risk of completed suicide, worsening of mood disorders like depression, increased risk of drug-induced dementia, and increased risk of daytime fatigue. Benzodiazepines are also associated with increased risk of cancer, falls, and pneumonia.

Although an association of benzodiazepines with these conditions doesn’t necessarily mean benzodiazepines cause these conditions, it’s a good reason to be conservative when prescribing benzodiazepines and other sedatives, pending further studies.

Sedative medications including benzos can make undiagnosed sleep apnea worse, even to the point of causing death. Obesity increases the risk of sleep apnea, and with more adults becoming obese, the risks of benzodiazepines in such patients may be overlooked.

As for my patients, many of whom are prescribed methadone or buprenorphine, the risk of drug interaction and overdose with the hypnotics usually outweighs all of the benefits, and I recommend that patients do not mix these two types of medications.

1. Bachhuber et. al., “Increasing Benzodiazepine Prescription and Overdose Mortality in the Unites States, 1996-2013,” American Journal of Public Health, April 16, 2016.
2. Walton et. al., “The Impact of Benzodiazepine Use on Mortality Among Polysubstance Users in Vancouver, Canada,” Public Health Rep., 2016 May-June;13(3)491-9.

Judges Behaving Badly

 

Methadone and buprenorphine treatment for opioid use disorders saves lives. Over five decades, we’ve accumulated more studies to support this treatment than any other medication, device, or intervention that I can think of. And yet, opioid use disorder appears to be the only disease where medically untrained people dictate medical treatment. The above memo from a judge of the 24^th District Court in North Carolina illustrates this all too well.

Let’s change that sentence in the middle of Judge Ginn’s memo: “Therefore, effective immediately, the use of insulin as a treatment for diabetes will no longer be allowed as a part of any probationary sentence in the 24^th Judicial District.”

It wouldn’t make any sense, would it? People would wonder why a judge was involved in a patient’s medical care. They might even be tempted to believe a judge had no authority to dictate medical care.

I worked in Boone, North Carolina, when this memo was issued, and it caused a great deal of suffering for patients. These patients, contrary to the judge’s beliefs, were doing well on medication-assisted treatments. They were no longer injecting drugs or committing crimes to support their active addiction. Their involvement with criminal justice system almost always pre-dated their entry into treatment. Yet the judge proclaimed they must stop the very medications that were helping them become productive members of society again!

I wrote letters of advocacy and information, citing studies that support MAT. I encouraged patients, and told them to expect their lawyer to advocate for them on this issue. The patients said their lawyers often advised them just to do what would make the judge happy. Patients, understandably, were timid about pushing against a judge with so much power over their lives.

Ironically, many of the people Judge Ginn thought were doing well in his court were also our patients. It was widely known that probation officers’ drug tests didn’t detect methadone or buprenorphine at that time. Unless the offender told the truth about being in treatment on buprenorphine or methadone, the court never knew. I’d estimate that dozens of people successfully passed through Judge Ginn’s court while being treated with buprenorphine or methadone, without him ever knowing about it, due to inadequate drug testing. The people who told the truth were penalized by being told to quit life-saving medication.

I know Judge Ginn is now retired, but I suspect attitudes and beliefs of the judiciary in that area haven’t changed much.

One of the opioid treatment programs in the area tried to advocate for their patients, by seeking some sort of censure against Judge Ginn, but I don’t know what came from that.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) both strongly recommend expanding opioid addiction treatment with medications to criminal justice participants. Congress just passed a bill that recommends spending money to treat opioid addiction in jails and prisons That bill pushes for people with opioid use disorder to get treatment instead of jail sentences. Experts everywhere advocate for expanding medication-assisted treatments to patients involved with the legal system, whether in jail, on parole, or on probation.

All of these actions are great. But Judge Ginn is an example of the many obstacles to implementation of the evidence-based treatments that experts recommend. Particularly in rural Appalachian areas, people in positions of power actively thwart life-saving medical treatments.

I don’t understand how judges can get away with such irresponsible actions. To me, it appears Judge Ginn practiced medicine without a license. If I somehow lost my medical license but continued to practice, I’d be committing a felony.

What if Judge Ginn commanded a patient stop buprenorphine or methadone, and the patient died in a relapse? Would Judge Ginn have any liability, civil or criminal?

I don’t know what can be done about judges like him, but don’t they have to answer to someone? Are they appointed, or elected? If elected, perhaps we need to start understanding judges’ positions on medical treatments before we vote for them.

Thank you Nurses!

 

This will be the first blog entry about how much I appreciate nurses at the opioid treatment programs I work with.

I’ve been remiss. Some of the best people I’ve ever met have been nurses at opioid treatment programs. Nearly without exception, they have been bright, caring, and compassionate.

At my OTP, we are temporarily short-staffed with nurses, so the stress they deal with is even more evident than usual. New nurses are being hired, so help is on the horizon, but right now, things are tense. Our nurses try to dose patients as quickly as possible without making any dosing errors.

Being a nurse at an opioid treatment program isn’t an easy job. I’ve overheard one imprudent program manager, several years ago, make an unfortunate comment that being a nurse at an OTP was easy, and that “anyone” could do it. He had no medical background, so he can be forgiven for his lack of knowledge.

Not every RN or LPN can manage to do this job well; it takes a special heart.

First of all, the state of North Carolina disagrees that “anyone” can do the job of a nurse at an OTP. They insist you have a nursing degree, so there’s that.

Secondly, medical professionals of all types have jobs where mistakes can be deadly. The ordinary human errors that cause problems in other work environments can kill in our line of work. That’s a special kind of stress. We accept that stress as part of the price of working as a medical professional, and we also accept that other people can never understand what that feels like.

Over a decade ago, I knew a nurse who made a dosing error by mis-reading the physician’s induction order for a patient on methadone. She gave a somewhat higher dose than was ordered by the physician on day two and day three. The patient died on day three. Of course the family was devastated, and a lawsuit ensued, settling for an undisclosed amount. But that nurse will never be the same. She left the OTP and I don’t know if she’s still working as a nurse or not. But that illustrates what a nursing error at an opioid treatment program can mean.

Out of all we do at OTPs, the most critical moment of care happens when the nurse hands over the patient’s daily dose of medication. The patient must be quickly assessed for impairment by the nurse, and the correct dose of medication given. This must be done perfectly, day after day, patient after patient. Any mistakes made at this point can undo the rest of treatment.

Any time perfection is expected of you at your job…that’s stress. And just like nurses in all medical settings, they are also being asked to work faster and faster, to be ever more efficient.

I’m not saying the counselors don’t also have high-stress jobs. Lord knows they do. But their errors don’t have the same ability to kill someone.

Thirdly, the amount of documentation and record-keeping demanded from nurses at the opioid treatment program is mind-blowing. These documents are intermittently inspected by the state’s department of health and human services, by the DEA, by the state opioid treatment authority, by CARF, etc. Someone is always looking over their shoulder, because they are working with strong opioid medications.

I’ve seen many nurses who couldn’t cut it in the OTP. It’s fast-paced and exacting, and often they deal with difficult people. Sometimes patients get angry at the restrictions of the opioid treatment program, many of which are mandated by state and federal organizations. Patients often direct their anger at the nurses. I’m often amazed at their ability not to take these outbursts personally. I’m afraid I might harbor resentment, but they seem to start over every day.

This is not a glamorous field of nursing. On the totem pole of medical specialties, addiction medicine and especially opioid treatment programs are the part of the pole that’s underground. When these dedicated professionals tell their friends and families about the work they are doing, they are sometimes chided for not doing something more mainstream. Or their family thinks their job consists of “shooting up them addicts with methamphetamine,” as one nurse told me.

Of course, we in the addiction treatment field know these nursing professionals are likely helping more people at the opioid treatment program than they would at any office or hospital setting.

It takes strong character to do a difficult job well, especially when you don’t get a lot of praise from nurse peers who know little about this niche area of medicine

So today I am honoring the nurses who work at opioid treatment programs. Thank you for the work you do. You are appreciated.

 

 

Cotton Fever

An addict still using heroin recently asked me what “cotton fever” was, and how he could tell if he was sick with it.

 Cotton fever is caused by bacteria commonly found on cotton plants, initially named Enterobacter agglomerans, later changed to Pantoea agglomerans. Most intravenous drug addicts filter heroin through cotton filters, to remove particles that could clog both their injection needle and their veins. Sometimes fibers of cotton break off from the filter, carrying the bacteria with it. These bacteria in the bloodstream cause fever and chills, but in a healthy person, this usually resolves on its own. It’s rare to see it cause serious infection. However, doctors still recommend addicts with cotton fever seek medical care and receive appropriate antibiotics. (1)

At least one study isolated an endotoxin produced by this bacteria, so it’s possible that the fever is actually caused by this toxin, released from the bacteria, and not from an actual infection.

 Enterobacter species, while found in feces of both animals and humans, are also found in the plant world. Usually, these bacteria aren’t a particularly vicious, which is why they rarely cause sepsis (overwhelming infection) unless the individual has an impaired ability to fight infection. In the 1970’s, some medical products (blood, IV fluids) were found to be infected with this species, and caused significant infections, but this was probably due to a large amount of the bacteria infused into patients.

 Cotton filters become more fragile with use, so addicts using new filters probably have a lower risk of cotton fever. After cotton filters are used, they remain moist and can become colonized with all sorts of bacteria, especially if they are kept warm, as happens when they are stored in a pocket, close to the body. This bacteria can cause infection when injected. Cotton filters can transmit hepatitis C and possibly other infections, if they are shared with other drug users. (2)

 Filters also retain some of the injected drug, making them of some value in the world of intravenous addicts. It’s considered a gesture of generosity to offer another addict your “cottons” because the addict will get some small amount of the drug. (3)

 Even in view of all of the above, it’s still better to use a filter than to use unfiltered heroin. A new cotton cigarette filter has been shown to remove up to 80% of particulates in heroin, and reduces the risk of thrombosis of the vein from particles. Other makeshift filters are made from clothing, cotton balls, and even tissue paper.

 Syringe filters are manufactured for medical and laboratory use. They can be designed to filter particles down to 5 micrometers. Besides being more expensive and difficult to obtain, studies show these filters retain more of the drug than other makeshift filters, making them less desirable to some addicts. (2)

 Cotton fever itself usually isn’t fatal. The biggest challenge is knowing if the addict has cotton fever or something worse, like sepsis. Sepsis is an infection of the blood stream, and even heart valves can become infected, causing serious and life-threatening problems. 

I asked a former IV drug addict about his experience with cotton fever.

 Me: What does cotton fever feel like?

 Former Addict: You get a fever that kind of feels like withdrawal. You know there’s something bad wrong, and you don’t know what to do about it. I’ve laid on the floor and thought I was going to die. A lot of times people get it when they’re rinsing, and that means they’re coming down anyway. When the dope got short and I was rinsing cottons, that’s when I got it.

 Me: How long does it last?

 FA: It seems like it lasts a long time, but the intensity is bad maybe an hour or two. You shake, you sweat; it feels just like the flu.

 Me: Ever go to the hospital with cotton fever?

 FA: No, no! (said emphatically) I was usually wanted by the police. Only time I went to the hospital is with severe trauma.

Me: I don’t understand what you mean by rinsing.

 FA: Rinsing’s when you squeeze that last little bit of drug out of the cotton [filter]. You rinse the spoon and cotton with a little water. I would save all my cottons. That was my rathole for when the dope ran out. I would actually load the cottons into the barrel of a syringe then draw water in to the barrel of syringe, then squeeze until they were bone dry. I squirted that on to a spoon, and used a new cotton to draw that into a syringe.

 Me: Why do you use cotton filters? Do you use it with every drug you injected?

 FA: I used cotton to strain any dirt that may be in the product, that might get up in the syringe. I didn’t want no dirt. Didn’t have to be cotton. [If you don’t use a filter, you] shoot a bunch of trash up in yourself, and get trash fever.

 I used an itty bitty cotton. Some people would use a quarter of cigarette butt. That was wasteful to me. It got too saturated, could hold too much residue, or dope.

 I didn’t have to use cotton with quarter gram morphine or Dilaudid. Not enough trash to stop it up. If there’s trash in the syringe, I used a cotton.

 Thankfully, this person has been in recovery from addiction for more than thirteen years. When I asked him how he was able to stop, he said Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

 Recovery is the best way to avoid cotton fever. You never have to go through that again.

1. Rollinton, F; Feeney, C; Chirurgi, V; Enterobacter agglomerans-Associated Cotton Fever,  Annals of Internal Medicine 1993; 153(20): 2381-2382.
2. Pates, R; McBride, A; Arnold, K; Injecting Illicit Drugs, (Oxford, UK, Blackwell Publishing, 2005) pp. 41-43.
3. 3.       Bourgois, Phillippe; Schonberg, Jeff; Righteous Dopefiend,(Berkeley, California, University of California Press, 2009) pp8-9, 83-84.

The Story of a Recovering Addict

Following is an interview with a successfully recovering opioid addict. He received treatment at methadone clinics off and on for years, and finally achieved medication-free recovery after going to an inpatient treatment program for 42 days. Later, he began to work in the field of addiction treatment as a methadone counselor. He was promoted multiple times over the years to his present position as director of the narcotic treatment program at his clinic. This is his perspective about his own experience and what he’s seen with methadone treatment.

JB: Can you tell me your title at the opioid treatment clinic where you work?

KS: Director of Narcotic Treatment, which is our opioid treatment program. [He supervises counselors working at multiple clinic sites, with a total census of around thirty-four hundred methadone patients]

JB: Can you please tell me about your own opioid addiction, and how you got into recovery, including what kind of substances you may have used, what kind of treatments, and your experiences with them?

KS: I started out using pain killers, mostly Percodan tablets, back in the late 70’s, which lead me to using heroin. Heroin wasn’t easy to get [where I lived], so I started using Dilaudids [a name brand of the drug oxymorphone]. I started using Dilaudid on a regular basis in the county I lived in. That was the primary drug I used for quite a few years.

[My] first experience with methadone treatment started in 1978, with a brief episode of treatment, a matter of a month or so, with no success. Pretty much during the 1980’s, I was on and off methadone programs with little or no success, because I refused to participate in group or individual sessions. At the time, there was very limited counseling going on [at methadone clinics]. If there was a problem, you saw your counselor, and that didn’t happen a whole lot. Patients were simply trying to get more methadone. At that point, the methadone dosages were very low. I think the average dose back then was somewhere between forty and fifty milligrams. And we [patients on methadone] didn’t know that. We didn’t know that. We just found out through….

JB: You didn’t know what dose you were taking?

KS: Oh, no. We didn’t know what dose we were taking, for a number of years. As a matter of fact, that didn’t change until right before 2001.

JB: Wow

KS: Yeah.

JB: Could the patient find out if they wanted to? [the dose they were taking]

KS: We were blind dosed then. That didn’t change until just before 2001.

JB: Was that unusual for methadone clinics to do?

KS: To my knowledge, I think we [the clinic where he now works, and previously was a patient] were one of the last ones to keep doing that. It was just something we had done over the years and never changed it. [The patients] didn’t know what their dose was.

Through the 1980’s, I was on and off methadone programs, sometimes for a few years at a time, and sometimes had some success. The biggest benefit I had from taking methadone and being on the program was that I was able to work. I held a job the entire time, and I wasn’t doing anything criminal.  It served the purpose it was supposed to serve there, because I had to work, and I was able to function fairly normally. But I never moved into actual recovery, and still used some opiates from time to time. So that was pretty much the 80’s. Two good things happened in the 80’s. In 1981 my son was born, and in 1989, I got clean.

JB: Big things.

KS: Two monumental things in my life. So, I went through that period of time I had talked about, when I started using opiates, in about 1974. Then I started getting on the methadone programs, on and off, [starting] from ’78, but I continued to use. I was using Dilaudids on a daily basis for a number of years. When I got on the methadone program, I would curtail that, but always wanted to go back to Dilaudid. That [Dilaudid] became my drug of choice.

I was on the methadone program in 1989, and having some problems with alcohol. Prior to getting on the program, I was told, “We’re not going to allow you on the program, unless you go on Antabuse.” So I did that and I was successful at stopping drinking, and had some success with methadone. I decided I wanted off the methadone, started detoxing off, and had a series of positive drug screens for a variety of opiates: morphine, Dilaudid, and several different things I had access to. The methadone center said, “We’re going to make a recommendation that you enter residential treatment.” And I said, “Sounds great to me, I’ll do that in a couple months.” And they said, “No. We’re going to make a recommendation you do that… pretty quickly.”

And that’s what happened. I said, “I don’t think I can do this. I’ve got some things to do.” And I remember it like it was yesterday. The counselor got up and walked out of the room and he left me sitting there by myself. Then he walked back in, said, “We’ve got you a bed.” And that’s what lead me to [inpatient treatment].

So I went to forty-two days of residential treatment, and actually entered that program ready to quit using and get into recovery. And from that point on, recovery has been the most important thing in my life….family, of course…but I’ve pursued recovery since May 3, 1989. I followed all the suggestions. [I’m] still really involved with 12- step meetings, and still really involved with some of the same things I did when I first came in [to recovery]. Obviously, I don’t go to as many meetings, but still go to meetings on a regular basis

JB: Do you have any regrets about either type of treatment? The forty-two day inpatient or the methadone?

KS: I do believe that in my case, I needed to be taken away from my environment, simply because of the people I was associated with. That’s not the case for everyone. In my case, I needed to be away from my environment. So the detoxing from the methadone and going into a residential program, that’s what worked for me. Obviously, people can do that other ways. But I still had people in my life that were negative influences.

JB: If you had an opioid addict who presented for treatment for the first time, what would you recommend? If money were no object?

KS: I’d recommend that individual seek inpatient treatment. Now, if they had an extended history of opiate dependency, then that person’s success rate in residential treatment is obviously going to be limited….and…it would just depend on the individual. Methadone treatment might be the way for them to go. I know that’s kind of teetering on the fence. I’m going to be somewhat….I’m going to hold on to how powerful residential treatment was for me. But I had failed at methadone treatment. And, there again, it was a different time, the methadone doses weren’t enough at the time.

JB: Did you feel normal on your dose of methadone or did you [still] feel withdrawal?

KS: I was feeling normal, however, I could still feel drug use [other opioids].

JB: So it wasn’t a blocking dose?

It was not a blocking dose. You knew if you got medicated at 7:00 am, at 5:00 pm you could fairly well feel somewhat of a rush and feel the effects of [other opioids].

JB: How did you get started working in the field of addiction treatment?

KS: I came out of treatment, worked for a family business for a couple of years, and always, from day one, I thought, “What a fascinating thing….if I could somehow do this…to get into that line of work [meaning addiction counseling].

 I started, after two years, as an evening counselor at a residential treatment program, and saw that I really wanted to do that. There was an avenue for non-degreed people to come in to a counselor position. You didn’t have to have a degree in substance abuse or anything like that, so I pursued that, and followed the certification process. I didn’t work in residential treatment but nine months, and then moved to methadone counseling. From that point on, I had found what I wanted to do. And I’ve been offered a promotion at the treatment center to another department when I was over the methadone program, and turned it down to stay with that population [meaning opioid addicts in treatment on methadone].

JB: So you obviously enjoy it.

KS: Oh yeah.

JB: What did you like about it?

KS: I think my ability to relate to that population, without having any thought or putting any real effort…I don’t have to think about it. I know I can talk to that population, and I know I can make them feel normal, by just holding a conversation with them….it might not be about drug use. It might not be about anything pertaining to the treatment episode, but I feel like…that I know exactly where they’re coming from, and I can give them some hope that they don’t have to keep living that way. Just an identification with that population.

JB: That’s a precious gift.

KS: I agree.

JB: Do you believe that your background in addiction helps you when you talk to patients?

KS: I do. I believe wholeheartedly that you can’t teach that. I’ve had some people work for me who had a graduate degree, have never personally had an incidence of opioid addiction or any addiction in their family, and they’re absolutely fantastic clinicians. And you know they’re in that line of work for a reason. So [personal experience with addiction] does not need to be a criterion; in my case, it helps. I find it fascinating to watch someone work who has no self-history of addiction. They can be very effective.

JB: What are the biggest challenges you face now at your work?

KS: That would be…documentation. [The demand for] documentation in this field has really overcome the interpersonal relationship. I can’t help but think as time goes on, that’s going to continue. We don’t have twenty or thirty minutes to sit down with a client, and get into one issue after another, or whatever [the client] may have on their plate. And in opioid treatment, a lot of times it’s brief therapy. They [patients] don’t want to talk to you for twenty or thirty minutes. But you don’t have time to do that, because of the documentation. [The counselor has] three people waiting in the lobby, and you’re kind of selling that person short.

The documentation standards continue to rise, and in methadone treatment, I don’t know how that can go hand in hand with a fifty to one case load. Whereas, someone else might have the same documentation required in the mental health field, but they might have sixteen people they’re seeing.

JB: So you’re saying that the state and federal regulations about documentation actually interfere with the amount of counseling the patients get?

KS: Right. Right.

JB: That’s sad.

The clinic where you work has eight different sites. Can you tell me about what sort of interactions you’ve had with the community leaders, local police, and medical community?

KS: Overall, with any opioid treatment program [methadone clinic], there’s going to be a negative stereotype associated with it in the community, as you well know. Local law enforcement has a bias [against] the [methadone] program. What we’ve found is, any interaction we have with them, and the better understanding that they have [of what we do], the better. And I believe we can make a difference in what law enforcement, and other areas of the community [think about methadone programs].  It’s going to have to happen one person at a time.

An example of that would be when I got a call, a couple of weeks ago, to one of the clinics at ten o’clock at night. An alarm is going off. So I meet the police out there, and we go in, make sure nobody’s in the building. I’m trying to give him some information about it [the methadone program].

He says, “Is it true they come in every day and ya’ll shoot ‘em up?” (laughter) So he thinks that’s what happens.

            So, I educated him on what we do and followed that up with, “Why don’t you stop by and get coffee any time you want to and we’ll give you information.” They were very receptive to that. That’s how you’ve got to approach it. Be willing to talk to people and give them information. [Do the] same thing with community leaders. They’re just not educated in outpatient opioid treatment. Once they get some information, they seem to have a different take on it.

JB: Can you tell me what you’ve seen, particularly over the last seven years, about the types of populations that are coming to the clinics, and if that’s changed any?

KS: I started working in methadone treatment seventeen years ago. We used to have statistics on the methadone program. The average age of a person coming on the program was thirty-four years old, at that time. We had eighty or ninety people on the program and that was it. And they were long term users, primarily heroin as drug of choice. We’ve seen what’s happening over the years.

Heroin has decreased somewhat. Prescription medications went wild. I just read information that forty-four percent of patients entering methadone programs in the nation were on prescription opioids. The age of the person coming on the program has dropped from thirty-four into their late twenties. I don’t have that exact number. But we’ve seen them get younger, and we’ve seen prescription drugs take the place of heroin, in driving people into treatment.

JB: What seems to be the main type of prescription drug, or is there one?

KS: OxyContin changed the landscape in our setting. It’s still a driving force, as far as putting people into treatment. We have an increase in heroin here, but the western part of the state…OxyContin and morphine are on the scene….and any painkiller.

JB: Do you have any opinion about why that happened? Why the incidence of pain pill addiction seemed to rise over the last seven to ten years?

KS: If there’s a reason for it….I think it’s generational. It’s passed down. It’s easy. You’ve got doctors giving the mother and the father painkillers for whatever reason, legitimate or not. It gets passed on…obviously there’s a genetic link for some kinds of addiction or alcoholism. I think you know what you’re getting there [meaning a prescription pill]. People addicted to opioid drugs have very few avenues to get quality heroin in those regions of the country. [Pain pills] are a sure bet. Patients say, “I know what I’m getting when I get that pill.”

JB: If you had the ear of policy makers in Washington D.C., what would you tell them? What would you like to see happen in the treatment field for opioid addiction?

KS: I’m going to refer back to what I said earlier. In methadone treatment, there should be some kind of review, as far as what needs to be documented. Obviously, there needs to be accurate documentation, but not to put methadone or opioid treatment into the same mental health arena for documentation requirements. Because you’re dealing with a different environment, a different population, and a different caseload.

JB: Would you like to see buprenorphine play a role [at the methadone clinic]?

KS: Yes, there’s a need for it. You’ve got such a stereotype against methadone facilities, that’s another avenue for people to be in treatment [meaning buprenorphine]….whether it’s administered in the methadone facility or [community] doctor-based, there’s a need for that.

This interview was with one of the many wonderful people I’ve had the honor of working with at methadone clinics. In my years of work in the medical field, I’ve never been surrounded by as many quality people, who had passion for their work, as I have in addiction medicine. I don’t know if I’ve been extremely lucky, or if all addiction treatment centers draw dedicated individuals to work within their systems. Many of these workers try hard to dispel the stigma and social isolation that addicts feel.

The Pain Management Movement

 In the late 1990’s, organizations like the American Pain Society and the American Academy of Pain Management declared that doctors in the U.S. were doing a lousy job of treating pain, and were under-prescribing opioid pain medications, due to a misguided fear of causing addiction. As a result, there was a national push to treat pain more aggressively. Some states even passed pain initiatives, mandating treatment for pain. Lawsuits were brought against doctors who didn’t adequately treat pain. The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JACHO), the organization that inspects hospitals to assess their quality of care, made the patient’s level of pain the “fifth vital sign,” after body temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate. Pain management specialists encouraged more liberal prescribing of pain medication. These experts told their primary care colleagues that the chance of developing addiction from opioids prescribed for pain was about one percent.

With these limited facts, the pain management movement was off and running. Many pain management specialists, some of whom were paid speakers for the drug companies that manufactured powerful opioid pain medications, spoke at seminars about the relative safety of opioids, used long term for chronic pain. Pain management specialists taught these views to small town family practice and general medicine doctors, who were relatively inexperienced in the treatment of either pain or addiction.

The problem was…the specialists were wrong.

These specialists, in their well-intentioned enthusiasm to relieve suffering, used flawed data when reciting the risk for addiction. The one percent figure came from a study looking at patients treated in the hospital for acute pain, which is quite different from treating outpatients with chronic non cancer pain. (1) In other words, they compared apples to oranges.

To many addiction specialists, an addiction risk of only one percent seemed improbable, since the general population has an addiction risk estimated from six to twelve percent. Surely, being prescribed pain pills would not lessen the risk for addiction. Yet the one percent figure was often cited by many pain management professionals, as well as by the representatives of the drug companies selling strong opioids. 

Some pain management specialists even took a scolding tone when they spoke of some primary care physicians’ reluctance to prescribe strong opioids. They often muddied the waters, and grouped patients with cancer pain, acute pain, and chronic non-cancer pain together, and spoke of them as one group. This can feel insulting to doctors who, though reluctant to prescribe opioids endlessly for a patient with chronic non cancer pain, are adamant about treating end-of-life cancer pain aggressively with opioids. No compassionate physician limits opioids for patients with cancer pain or with acute, short term pain. However, chronic non-cancer pain is different, with different outcomes than acute pain or cancer pain.

 We didn’t learn from history, or we would have learned that when many people have access to opioids, many will develop addiction.  We are scientifically more advanced than one hundred years ago, but we still have the same reward pathway in the brain. The human organism hasn’t changed physiologically. The present epidemic of opioid addiction is reminiscent of the early part of the twentieth century, just after the Bayer drug company released heroin, which for a short period of time was sold without a prescription, before physicians recognized that over prescription of opioids caused iatrogenic addiction.

 Few pain patients intended to become addicted. Some addicted people blame their doctors for causing their opioid addiction, but most doctors were conscientiously trying to treat the pain reported by their patient, and the pain management experts had told these doctors the risk of addiction was so low they didn’t have to worry about it.

Certainly many patients made bad choices to misuse their medications, either from curiosity or peer influence, pushing them farther over the line into addiction. Patients need to recognize their own contribution to their addiction. But with opioid addiction, as the disease progresses, the addict loses the power of choice that he once had. If the addict is fortunate enough to have a moment of clarity, before the disease progresses too far, he may be able to stop on his own, without treatment.

 By their very nature, opioids produce pleasure. Any time doctors prescribe something that causes pleasure, we should expect addiction to occur. Some people, for whatever reason, feel more pleasure than others when they take opioids, and seem to be at higher risk for addiction. As discussed in previous chapters, genetics, environment, and individual factors all influence this risk.

Opioids treat pain – both physical and emotional. Many of the neuronal pathways in the brain for sensing and experiencing pain are the same for both physical and psychological pain. For example, the brain pathways activated when you drop a hammer on your toe are much the same as when you have to tell your spouse you spent the rent money while gambling. Opioids make both types of pain better. Chronic pain patients with psychological illnesses are at increased risk for inappropriate use of their pain medications.

 In a recent study, the rate of developing true opioid addiction in patients taking opioids for chronic pain was found to be increased fourfold over the risk of non-medicated people. (2) Instead of a one percent incidence, as estimated by pain medicine specialists in the past, it now appears eighteen to forty-five percent of patients maintained long-term on opioids develop true addiction, not mere physical dependency. (3) If this information had been available in the late 1990’s, doctors may have taken more precautions when they prescribed strong opioids for chronic pain.

 Researchers have identified the risk factors for addiction among patients who take opioids long-term (more than three months) for chronic pain. Studies now show that a personal past history of addiction is the strongest predictor of future problems with addiction, as would be expected.  A patient with a family history of addiction is also at increased risk for addiction, as are patients with psychiatric illness of any kind, and younger patients. (4)

However, at the height of the pain control movement, there were no good studies of the addiction risk when opioids were used for more than three months. The little information that did exist was misused, resulting in an incredible underestimation of the risk of addiction in patients with chronic pain, who were treated with opioid medications for more than three months.

 With the momentum of the movement for better control of pain, both acute and chronic, the number of prescriptions for opioid pain pills increased dramatically. In the years from 1997 through 2006, prescription sales of hydrocodone increased 244%, while oxycodone increased 732% during that same time period. Prescription sales for methadone increased a staggering 1177%. (5)

It’s not just patients who are at risk for abuse and addiction. The increased amount of opioids being prescribed meant there was more opioid available to be diverted to the black market. When an addicting drug is made more available, it will be misused more often.

1. Porter and Jick, New England Journal of Medicine, 302 (2) (Jan. 10, 1980) p. 123.
2. Michael F. Fleming, Stacey L. Balousek, Cynthia L. Klessig, et al. “Substance Use Disorders in a Primary Care Sample Receiving Daily Opioid Therapy,” Journal of Pain, 207; Vol. 8, issue 7: 573-582.
3. 7. Steven Passik M.D., Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, Vol. 21 No. 5, (May 2001), pp.359 – 360.
4. Chou, R, Fanciullo, G, Fine, P, et. al., “Opioid Treatment Guidelines: Clinical guidelines for the use of Chronic Opioid Therapy in chronic, non-cancer pain.” The Journal of Pain, 2009, Vol. 10, No. 2. pp. 113-130

5. Andrea Trescott, MD, Stanford Helm, MD, el. al., “Opioids in the Management of Chronic Non-cancer Pain: An Update of American Society of the Interventional Pain Physicians’ Guidelines,” Pain Physician 2008: Opioids Special Issue: 11:S5 – S 62.

Description of Methadone Patients

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of my book, titled, “Pain Pill Addiction: Prescription for Hope.” In this chapter I’m describing the patients I saw at methadone clinics where I worked in the years 2001 through 2009.

 I was surprised how casually people shared controlled substances with one another. As a physician, it seems like a big deal to me if somebody takes a schedule II or schedule III controlled substance that wasn’t prescribed for them, but the addicts I interviewed swapped these pills with little apprehension or trepidation. Taking pain pills to get through the day’s work seemed to have become part of the culture in some areas. Sharing these pills with friends and family members who had pain was acceptable to people in these communities.

In the past, most of the public service announcements and other efforts to prevent and reduce drug use focused on street drugs. Many people seemed to think this meant marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin. The patients I saw didn’t consider prescription pills bought on the street as street drugs. They saw this as a completely different thing, and occasionally spoke derisively about addicts using “hard drugs.” Most addicts didn’t understand the power of the drugs they were taking.

 Some opioid addicts came for help as couples. One of them, through the closeness of romance, transmitted the addiction like an infectious disease to their partner. Most were boyfriend/girlfriend, but some were married. The non-addicted partner’s motives to begin using drugs seemed to be mixed. Some started using out of curiosity, but others started using drugs to please their partner. I was disturbed to see that some of the women accepted the inevitability of addiction for themselves as the cost of being in a relationship with an addicted boyfriend. Often, addicted couples socialized with other addicted couples, as if opioid addiction bound them like a common fondness for bowling or dancing. Addiction became a bizarre thread, woven through the fabric of social networks.

 We saw extended family networks in treatment for pain pill addiction at the methadone clinics. One addicted member of a family came for help, and after their life improved, the rest of the addicted family came for treatment too. It was common to have a husband and wife both in treatment, and perhaps two generations of family members, including aunts, uncles, and cousins. Many addicts who entered treatment saw people they knew from the addicted culture of their area, and sometimes old disputes would be reignite, requiring action from clinic staff. Sometimes ex-spouses and ex-lovers would have to be assigned different hours to dose at the clinic, to prevent conflict.

 When the non-profit methadone clinic where I worked began accepting Medicaid as payment for treatment, we immediately saw much sicker people. Over all, Medicaid patients have more mental and physical health issues. Co-existing mental health issues make addiction more difficult to treat, and these patients were at higher risk for adverse effects of methadone. However, data does show that these sicker patients can benefit the most from treatment.

 When I started to work for a for-profit clinic, I saw a slightly different patient population. I saw more middle class patients, with pink and white-collar jobs. Occasionally, we treated business professionals. The daily cost of methadone was actually a little cheaper at the for-profit clinic, at three hundred dollars per month, as compared to the non-profit clinic, at three hundred and thirty dollars per month. However, the for-profit clinic charged a seventy dollar one-time admission fee, to cover the costs of blood tests for hepatitis, liver and kidney function, blood electrolytes, and a screening test for syphilis. The non-profit clinic had no admission fee, but only did blood testing for syphilis. I believe the seventy dollars entry fee was enough to prevent admission of poorer patients, who had a difficult enough time paying eleven dollars for their first and all subsequent days.

The patients at the for-profit clinic seemed a little more stable. Maybe they hadn’t progressed as far into their disease of addiction, or maybe they had better social support for their recovery. This clinic didn’t accept Medicaid, which discouraged sicker patients with this type of health coverage. Both clinics were reaching opioid addicts; they just served slightly different populations of addicts. The non-profit clinic accepted sicker patients, which is noble, but it made for a more chaotic clinic setting. This was compounded by a management style that was, in a few of their eight clinics, more relaxed.

 For the seven years I worked for a non-profit opioid treatment center, I watched it expand from one main city clinic, and one satellite in a nearby small town, to eight separate clinic sites. The treatment center did this because they began to have large numbers of patients who drove long distances for treatment. This indicated a need for a clinic to be located in the areas where these patients lived. Most of this expansion occurred over the years 2002 through 2006.

 Three of these clinics were located in somewhat suburban areas, within a forty-five minute drive from the main clinic, located in a large Southern city. The other four clinics were in small towns drawing patients from mostly rural areas. One clinic was located in a small mountain town that was home to a modest-sized college. Nearly all of the heroin addicts I saw in the rural clinics were students at that college. But by 2008, we began to see more rural heroin addicts, who had switched from prescription pain pills to heroin, due to the rising costs of pills.

Within a few years, clinics near the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina were swamped with opioid addicts requesting admission to the methadone clinics. These clinics soon had many more patients than the urban clinic.

I saw racial dissimilarities at the clinic sites. In the city, we admitted a fair number of African Americans and other minorities to our program. Most of them weren’t using pain pills, but heroin. I don’t know why this was the case. Perhaps minorities didn’t have doctors as eager to prescribe opioids for their chronic pain conditions, or perhaps they didn’t go to doctors for their pain as frequently as whites. If they were addicted to pain pills, maybe distrust kept them from entering the methadone clinic. In the rural clinics, I could count the number of African-American patients on one hand. They were definitely underrepresented. The minorities we did treat responded to treatment just as well.

A recent study of physicians’ prescribing habits suggested a disturbing possibility for the racial differences I saw in opioid addiction. (1) This article showed statistically significant differences in the rate of opioid prescriptions for whites, compared to non-whites, in the emergency department setting. Despite an overall rise in rates of the prescription of opioid pain medication in the emergency department setting between 1993 and 2005, whites still received opioid prescriptions more frequently than did Black, Asian, or Hispanic races, for pain from the same medical conditions. In thirty-one percent of emergency room visits for painful conditions, whites received opioids, compared to only twenty-three percent of visits by Blacks, twenty-eight percent for Asians, and twenty-four percent for Hispanic patients. These patients were seen for the same painful medical condition. The prescribing differences were even more pronounced as the intensity of the pain increased, and were most pronounced for the conditions of back pain, headache, and abdominal pain. Blacks had the lowest rates of receiving opioid prescriptions of all races.

This study could have been influenced by other factors. For example, perhaps non-whites request opioid medications at a lower rate than whites. Even so, given the known disparities in health care for whites, versus non-whites in other areas of medicine, it would appear patient ethnicity influences physicians’ prescribing habits for opioids. The disparities and relative physician reluctance to prescribe opioids for minorities may reduce their risk of developing opioid addiction, though at the unacceptably high cost of under treatment of pain.

Interestingly, we had pockets of Asian patients in several clinics. We admitted one member of the Asian community into treatment, and after they improved, began to see other addicted members of their extended family arrive at the clinic for treatment. Usually the Asian patients either smoked opium or dissolved it in hot water to make a tea and drank it. When I tried to inquire how much they were using each day, in order to try to quantify their tolerance, the patient would put his or her thumb about a centimeter from the end of the little finger and essentially say, “this much.” Having no idea of the purity of their opium, this gave me no meaningful idea of their tolerance, so we started with cautiously low doses.

One middle aged patient from the Hmong tribe presented to the clinic and when I asked when and why he started opioid use, in broken English and with difficulty, he told me he had lost eight children during the Vietnam War, and was injured himself. After the pain from his injury had resolved, he still felt pain from the loss of his family and he decided to continue the use of opium to treat the pain of his heart, as he worded it. I thought about how similar his history was to the patients of the U.S. and how they often started using opioids and other drugs to dull the pain of significant loss and sorrow. I thought about how people of differing ethnicities are similar, when dealing with addiction, pain, and grief.

1. Pletcher M MD, MPH, Kertesz, MD, MS, et. al., “Trends in Opioid Prescribing by Race/Ethnicity for Patients Seeking Care in US Emergency Departments,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 2008 vol. 299 (1) pp 70-78.