By: Addie Robinson
As a child, having a father with Ankylosing Spondylitis, a rare bone disease, meant watching him scream when trying to stand up. It meant letting him use my car to drive to his specialist hours away because it had better gas mileage, and probably the most important thing, it meant that I learned to not touch his medicine cabinet.
Chronic illness affects more than the disabled. It affects everyone around them. Seeing a loved one in constant, excruciating pain is agonizing to watch. The able-bodied people around them can feel like there’s nothing they can do to stop or prevent it.
Think about how far modern medicine has come just over the last century. The development of antibiotics, life-saving surgical procedures and healthcare accessibility have made us a more healthy and able species than ever before. However, there is an ugly side to medicine.
Opioid products made from the opium poppy plant, are used to relieve pain from an individual that has a chronic illness or is recovering from surgery according to John Hopkins Medicine. Prescription painkillers, such as Oxycodone (branded as OxyContin) and Hydrocodone (branded as Vicodin), are examples of opioids a doctor would prescribe to a patient.
When a pain reliever is taken, the chemicals in the medication is released, binding to the pain receptors in the brain, which blocks the feeling of pain, according to the National Library of Medicine.
These pills are not just used by people trying to relieve pain. They’re also used to get high. The biggest threat to able-bodied people is the fact that these products contain highly addictive chemicals that can ruin people’s lives.
Opioids are making substances that are already dangerous even more dangerous. More accessible and less addictive “street drugs,” such as marijuana and cocaine, have recently seen more cases of being laced with fentanyl. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid 50 times more potent than morphine, causing drug users to unknowingly overdose.
“[in Georgia] painkillers are used more by those aged 12-17 than those over 18,” said a researcher from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. A study done by SAMHSA says that among 12-17 year olds in the state of Georgia, between 1.80%-2.06% misuse prescription pain relievers.
The world has taken some steps towards solving the opioid crisis. With the creation of Narcan, an opioid antagonist, opioid-related deaths in the United States have seen a drastic decline.
“Narcan is a nasal spray that a caregiver can use on you to help you regain consciousness if you overdose on opioid medication. It works by blocking the effects of opiates to relieve dangerous symptoms caused by a high level of opiates in the blood,” Kameron Lannan, a pharmacy technician, explained.
Even Narcan has its drawbacks though. Lannan also said that, “Narcan is a prescription, and a doctor needs to write it for someone to get access to it, even then, the generic brand can be $40 without insurance and name-brand Narcan can be close to $150, so yes, it is life-saving, but it is also a lot of money for one-time use.”
With the opioid crisis comes another dangerous side effect; the people who need opioids to combat their chronic illness have to go through great lengths to even keep their prescription, let alone the steps they have to take to get their prescription into their hands.
It is a common practice now to drug test people who are prescribed narcotics to make sure that it is in their system recently enough that they are not selling the drugs. If pharmacists or doctors have any amount of suspicion that a patient is selling their prescriptions or using them recreationally, they can revoke their prescription. It is precautionary, however, it can be humiliating for a patient to go through this.
There is still a glimmer of hope for the opioid epidemic. When it comes to accidental overdoses, advocacy groups have been pushing for the accessibility of recreational drug testing kits to prevent users from accidentally consuming fentanyl.
They’re also pushing for more recovery efforts for those who have a narcotic addiction, and closely monitoring the dosage of opioid medication for those who need it to prevent possible addiction or accidental overdose.
The first steps to ending the opioid epidemic is to destigmatize addiction, focus on recovery, and end the humiliation of both people with narcotic addictions and those with chronic illnesses that require opioids. This paves the way where people like my dad can live a life with less pain.