WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) — A panel of government health advisers said Friday there’s no clear evidence that a harder-to-crush version of the painkiller OxyContin designed to discourage abuse actually resulted in fewer overdoses or deaths.
The conclusion from the Food and Drug Administration advisory panel comes more than a decade after Purdue Pharma revamped its blockbuster opioid, which has long been blamed for sparking a surge in painkiller abuse beginning in the 1990s.
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While there is a problem with opioid addiction, there is another drug addiction that nobody is talking about, which is anti-depressants and other psychiatric drugs like sleep aids.
ReplyDeleteI knew somebody who within the period of a couple of months had voluntarily enterred into two different psychiatric facilities for evaluation, and even went to a hospital emergency center claiming to be suicidal. He did all of that in an effort to get a certain anti-depressant that he had been previously prescribed, but the prescription had expired and he was looking to get it renewed. When one doctor wouldn't prescribe it for him, he would simply go to another facility and try there.
I forget the estimate of the number of people in this country who are on some form of psychiatric drug like an anti-depressant, but the number is staggering. That will spell big time trouble for those around them should something disrupt the pharmaceutical supply chain and they are no longer able to get their psychiatric drug. Going off of psychiatric drugs cold turkey has shown to be extremely difficult that often causes anger, suicidal thoughts and actions, and other extreme behavior.
T Town, It's also other drugs once habituated too, cannot be cut off. They need to be tapered. My late wife was on gabapentin(neurontin), an anticonvulsant used to treat partial seizures, neuropathic pain, et al. It helped block her cancer pain. She was admitted for something unrelated to her cancer. The attending stopped her gabapentin abruptly. She ended being catatonic for months.
ReplyDeleteAnd as for Psychiatric drugs, many can be used for varied things.
Wellbutrin(bupropion) is an antidepressant medication used to treat major depressive disorder and seasonal effective disorder. They use it for smoking cessation, & I take it for ADHD. When I quit smoking 20 some years ago I got brain fog. I was told it would go away. 10 plus years later, I started bupropion, and my brain cleared up.
Even some blood pressure meds when stopped cause, tachycardia(racing heart rate) and palpitations. People fear they're having a heart attack.
Starker