It’s an ongoing debate in the medical community and among those who suffer from chronic pain: is it worse to suffer from pain or deal with addiction to the opiate painkillers prescribed to alleviate that pain? According to Medical News Today, the debate continues and neither side of the argument shows signs of giving way.

No one thinks that opioid-based medications should be done away with completely. Obviously. Chronic pain is an issue of quality of life and we live in a scientific age that allows us to live free from pain. Doctors struggle with the legal implications of possibly affording someone a prescription for illicit purposes as well as the ethics of treating their patients to the best of their ability.

What the Professionals Have to Say

Srinivasa Raja, MD is a professor of anesthesiology at Johns Hopkins University Medical School. He says: 

“Physicians today face a dilemma in trying to balance the needs of their patients with demands from society for better control of opioid medications. We also are dealing with unfounded accusations in the media that increased prescribing of opioids for severe chronic pain is responsible in large part for reported upswings in the abuse of pain medications.

“We do need stronger evidence about which patients will benefit most from these medications to help make better prescribing decisions.But for most chronic pain patients, drugs are not the sole solution. More and more studies are showing that multi-faceted treatment involving physical and cognitive-behavioral therapies and appropriate interventional strategies lead to the most favorable outcomes.”

The American Pain Society

The American Pain Society is “a multidisciplinary community that brings together a diverse group of scientists, clinicians and other professionals to increase the knowledge of pain and transform public policy and clinical practice to reduce pain-related suffering.” They believe that the best way to deal with the problem of prescription drug abuse is through the collaboration of the medical and legal communities as well as the pharmaceutical industry.

Says Raja, “First, I believe physicians should be diligent is communicating with their patients about the benefits and risks of opioids and also screen them for drug-seeking behavior and other warning signs of potential abuse. Also, we must monitor patients carefully to determine when doses can be lowered over time as they improve their pain control and overall functioning.”

What do you think?

Percocet is the brand name for a drug that combines oxycodone and acetaminophen. This same combination but in different strengths can also be found in the brand name drugs, Roxicet, Tylox and Endocet, but Percocet is by far the most popular prescription painkiller.

Unfortunately, it’s pretty easily prescribed: get a tooth pulled at the dentist or a couple stitches at the doctor’s office and head home with a bottle of Percocet (or at least a script for one). Take them for too long and you end up with something much worse than that: a physical dependence upon Percocet, otherwise known as Percocet addiction.

Now, the acetaminophen in Percocet is relatively innocuous. Though you can overdose on the drug and it can kill you, my understanding is that it would take a couple of weeks and it’s a long, slow, painful death. The oxycodone in Percocet, on the other hand, can end your life with a single overdose depending upon your tolerance. It also impairs your ability to think clearly, to make good decisions and your hand-eye coordination. Driving is extremely dangerous under the influence.

So what’s it like to go through a Percocet withdrawal? Not fun. Just like all opiate painkillers, your body comes to depend upon a certain amount of the drug in your system at all times. When you stop taking it without warning, your body kind of goes into shock, which translates into withdrawal symptoms that are nothing nice. It’s like the flu with fever, sweating and chills, runny nose and eyes, anxiety, nausea, stomach cramps, diarrhea…. I could go on and on. In short, it’s not fun. But there are ways to get off the Percocet without experiencing the withdrawal symptoms that go along with a cold turkey Percocet detox.

Taking advantage of buprenorphine in the form of Suboxone and Subutex is one way to bypass the most fierce symptoms and, in some cases, avoid them altogether. Depending upon what dose you are at and how long you have been maintaining your Percocet addiction, your Suboxone detox will be shorter or longer. With a treatment plan, you can be off it and complete drug-free in as few as six weeks. Check it out!

Chances are that about half of you who have prescriptions for Vicodin or Lorcet or Norco don’t receive a little bottle from the pharmacy with the brand name on it. Most likely it will use the generic name: Hydrocodone and Acetaminophen. Is there any difference between brand name and generic prescription painkillers? And more importantly, is either more or less addictive than the other?

In a word, no, on both counts. Generic versions of brand name prescription drugs are the exact same thing and of the same quality and therefore just as addictive. Their strength is the same as are their side effects and intended usage and administration. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) makes sure of that with stringent requirements for the companies who make the generic version of your medication. In fact, the FDA estimates that about half of all generic drugs are made by brand name companies in the same facilities in which they make their brand name drugs.

So if you’ve heard rumors that the generic drugs are less potent than the brand name ones and therefore less addictive, you’ve heard wrong.

There are differences, however. Trademark laws require generic versions of the drug to look different than their brand name counterparts. They may be a different shape, color or, if liquid, a different flavor. They may even have different inactive ingredients. Again, inactive ingredients, so the efficacy of the drug is not affected. Oh, and brand name drugs are capitalized when their generic versions usually are not. But the active ingredients and their amounts must be the same in both versions of the drug, which means that they are equally addictive.

So what is the purpose of this and how does it happen? For one thing, generic forms are not available for all drugs; only after the patent is up can it be made generically. And the reason why the generic form is cheaper has nothing to do with the manufacturing but with the fact that the company did not have to invest in the original research, development and marketing. The price gets even cheaper when more than one company is approved by the FDA to produce a drug generically. 

So if your insurance company has anything to say about it, you’ll most likely be receiving the generic version for the duration, but don’t think for a second that they’re any less addictive. Opiates in any form are dangerous.

If you’d like to know more about Suboxone detox to break your addiction to opiates, check out the cache of articles at Meditox.