opioid epidemic?

[patsummers]

Here's a cut and paste from a CDC site I do this because I don't want to but too much up here but it looks to me like we don't have an opioid crisis we have a fentanyl crisis.

from 2009 through 2013, the report found, but then headed upward at about 27 percent each year from 2013 through 2018. Approximately 80% of overdose deaths involved opioids, and three of four opioid overdose deaths involved illicitly manufactured fentanyls (IMFs). The supply of fentanyl and overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids are projected to have increased for the seventh straight year in 2019. Fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, or methamphetamine (alone or in combination) were involved in nearly 85% of overdose deaths. The CDC report suggests the combination of drugs complicates intervention and treatment efforts; one-half of these deaths involved two or more of these four drugs.

80% of ods involved opioids and 75% of those involved sentinel, you notice they use the term three out of four nice wording.

I'll sit down with a spreadsheet at some point and try to figure that stuff out because I have a learning disability in math. but it
Looks to me like we have a fentanyl crisis. Opioids, I don't know for sure there's not a lot of hard data out there and I tend to be a little bit empirical about this sort of thing.

Just feel like whining and bitching a little bit hope y'all don't mind LOL

B

0h, I forgot to add that I am, from what I've seen in this course, screwed.

That is because I am:

1. Caucasian

2.male

3. Rural

4. Have a history of using alcohol or nicotine

5 have a history of alcohol or drug abuse in my family.

I think that's all of it that's what I remember from yesterday anyway LOL. bitch moan whine, gripe and I'm sure I could come up with a few more but I don't want to ruin my good mood LOL LOL

 

[TommyAC]

@patsummers Thing is, opioid epidemic is the reason anyone takes fentanyl. Prince died of a fent overdose, he wanted to take p3rcocets. That's the situation for a big chunk of the dead. I don't really get implication tho. Whether it's fentanyl or opioids, what impact does it have? Is there an implication to it that I'm not seeing? At one point it was mostly h3roin and before that mostly pills, so yeah the main opioid(s) that kills people has change, isn't it the same problem anyway?

 

[Deepnorth]

Regardless it now includes all walks of lives because of what they have done with chronic pain and surgery patients. I would have to literally have a limb hanging to agree to anymore hardware. Most of mine have been athletic emergencies but it all leads to same road and now a stigma and dirty meds. I mean dirty as in tainted and or not the meds the person needs to stay on track and not down a dangerous path. I hope we look to Portugal.

 

[patsummers]

Another thing I noticed they don't talk much about polymeds, I mean like what else did these folks have in their system.? The son of somebody big I think the mayor of Nashville OD'd on 'opioids", thing is, but they also found benzodiazepines and liquor and some sort of psychostimulant I want to say it was an amphetamines but, it's an opioids somebody on something that he was CDC finally admitted that a large percentage have other meds in their system especially respiratory depressants. A friend of mine who got loads of morphine from the VA and was a heavy drinker got put in jail for 6 months and then they finally let him out and I guess he had some of that stuff stashed and two days later he woke up dead. Was it the morphine? Or was it the morphine in the liquor? Maybe we'll never know but I still would like to know the percentage of people that have other depressants in their system I mean if they're going to fight a war they got to let us know what's happening on the front.

Again, I'm just sounding off but I'm tired of this war on drugs. Worn out with it I don't believe there is that big of an opioid crisis I think there's something else attached to it. And in the case of fentanyl I think Occam's razor might apply.

Everybody be careful and be healthy and have fun at work tomorrow if you're able to work and if not have fun doing what I do lay around and play with the computer LOL sarcastic LOL

B

 

[TommyAC]

@patsummers Well, if you want to talk about the war on drugs, maybe start there. Because what I'm getting is you're tired of the government placing the blame on the drug rather than the insititutions but they have always been doing that, the crack epidemic was mostly political, however, it was very real. Both things can happen at the same time. The reality is that most users right now are poly-drug users, something to pick you up from the opioid, something to help you sleep. Or just something like benzo dope, people smoking fent and etlzolam at the same time. But here's the thing, what are most of these people addicted to? I would argue is usually the opioid, sometimes it's another downer, sometimes it's booze, but people that love MDMA don't die of heroin OD. In nearly 100% of the case the person intended to consume an opioid, consumed their opioid of choice plus something or just simply used their opioid of choice. However, the most important thing is what's killing them. Short story, it's opioids. Sure it's mostly fent but that's because somehting like 90% of heroin is cut with fent, they're making fake xan@x bars with fent, they're adding it to coke. But most of these people got hooked on pain-killers, if not heroin. A very, very tiny porcentaje of cases are people that OD'ed on their first drug of choice, they're using what  they can get, and right now what you can get the easiest is fent. But that's just an expression of the epidemic, not war btw, that's dogshit, but epidemic. If I dare getting political (Which I assumed was the case since the first post), drug wars are made to target a demographic. Crack was against black people, downers was middle-class white women, weed was against hispanics and painkillers was against poor whites in Appalachia, but has spilled all over the place by now. Personally I don't really care who targeted them or why, or even if they intended to do so. you just look at who's suffering the most. Purdue Pharma probably wasn't targetting Appalachia at first, but when rates of drug addiction exploded there, they certainly didn't give a shit, so they kept killing them and making their profit. If I rob a pharmacy to steal a bunch of percs or I get them prescribed to me, the manufacturer doesn't care, they made their money. Same goes for China, or Mexican Cartels or some dude making moonshine in his bathtub,

 

[Deepnorth]

Awesome post. Absolutely although some of Appalachia could have related to the coal mines which is hard living…..as was the crack deal ( in reverse) but 100% well written! 

 

[patsummers]

Very, very well written! I wish that good.

B

 

[patsummers]

I don"t know if this will work or not, if so, it's an awesome audio and transcript. Makes a lot of sense. Somebody try it and see.

https://edhub.ama-assn.org/ama-journal-of-ethics/audio-player/18527238#quiz

 

[patsummers]

The indivdual is a bioethesist at Johns Hopkins. He was hurt in a motorcycle wreck. Acouple of his comments:

: In your article for the journal of this month, you respond to a case where it seems like that sort of intimate knowledge, and interaction between patient and clinician is particularly important. You argue that a patient's physical dependence on a medication might ethically require a physician to maintain a high dosage that created the chemical dependance in the first place. Since this might sound counter intuitive to many of our listeners at first you know the first time they hear it, can you draw what you see as the primary reasons for your line of thinking here?

Wellt that patient shouldn't be on high dose opioid therapy, they're missing the fact that if they're already on it, you're going to have to expose them to potential harm to get them off it. And that's because you're going to have to taper. So now there's a distinction. If they're taper badly or tapered well, and so you know my own experience of being tapered shows just how bad withdraw can be. And for anyone who's interested to you know, I did a TED talk on this or to go read the book. It's laid out in pretty excruciating detail. I mean at the end of opioid withdrawal, I was thinking about killing myself. I had my foot blown apart in a motorcycle accident, and every moment of withdrawal was the worst moment of my life. And so the first thing to know is that being forced into withdrawal and to live with excruciating unmedicated pain on top of that is is is a very serious moral consideration in its own right. That is something to be avoided.

I downloaded the audio and the transcript. and got.5 CME for it. lol

Thank y'all for bearing with me.

B

 

[amputated.]

So I am currently in recovery from oxycodone and use to attend a weekly group recovery group. Every week u hear someone new sharing about how they or  someone they knew od’ed on fentanyl. 

 

[Dr-Octagon]

So I am currently in recovery from oxycodone and use to attend a weekly group recovery group. Every week u hear someone new sharing about how they or  someone they knew od’ed on fentanyl. 

  Used to be pills were safer but all the counterfeit pills have been knocking ppl off.  t's just dangerous out there.