In their August 2009 issue, the peer review journal Population Health Management revealed statistics about pain management that confirmed what many had believed. Approximately one million pain sufferers were part of a clinical study that verified that the majority of those who had been prescribed opioids to manage chronic pain were not taking their medication in accordance with the prescribed dosage.
A primary tool used by the medical community for pain management are pain control medications, so insuring proper use of prescription drugs represents a significant challenge. The results of the study in the journal addressing this area were published as“Inappropriate Drug Use in the Chronic Pain Population.” The way the statistics were broked down revealed a broad spectrum of inappropriate use of pain medication.
38% of those studied showed no trace of the prescribed medicine in their systems. In 27% of the study group, the level of the prescribed drug was too high, which is what we assume when we are looking into potential pain medication abuse. 15% showed that the level of pain medication in their systems was below expected levels. But one category that is of particular concern evidenced that 11% of those tested had the prescribed drug in their systems but also evidence of illegal drug use. The illegal drugs that were found included methamphetamines and cocaine.
The abuse or incorrect use of pain management medication was evident in all demographic categories. However, men were more likely to be using pain medication incorrectly or abusively. In addition, the age category of 12 to 21 was more than twice as likely to be found with illegal drugs in their systems along with their prescription pain medication. This is an obvious concern not only from a legal standpoint but also because of the potential of negative interactions between pain medications and strong recreational drugs.
Pain management physicians gain a great deal of important information through urine testing of their patients. The goals of this kind of testing is not exclusively to surface the use of illegal drugs. It is important that physicians are able to detect incorrect use of pain medication in all its variations so that they can determine the effectiveness of the drugs they are using to help their patients. Moreover, by detecting potential problem interactions of prescription and nonprescription drugs, doctors can be alerted to issues that patients may encounter and assist those they wish to help to avoid disastrous drug interactions.
http://www.medicinenet.com/pain_management/article.htm