Only 1 in 7 Chronic Pain Patients Use Opioids
/By Pat Anson, PNN Editor
Have you tried physical therapy? What about yoga or Tai Chi? Did massage help you feel better?
Just about everyone in chronic pain has been asked that by family members, friends, doctors and sometimes even complete strangers. The questions are innocent enough and usually well-meaning, but they often imply that a pain sufferer hasn’t looked beyond opioids for pain relief.
A new study shows that most people with chronic pain make extensive use of non-opioids and other “alternative” pain treatments – and that it’s relatively rare for a patient to only use opioids for pain relief.
The findings, published in JAMA Network Open, are based on answers to the 2019 National Health Survey by nearly 32,000 U.S. adults with chronic pain. The 2019 survey was the first to ask people about their use of 11 pain management techniques during the previous three months.
It turns out most people with chronic pain (54.7%) only used non-opioid pain management. And nearly a third (30.2%) used no pain therapy whatsoever. The rest either used opioids alone (4.4%) or a combination of opioids with one or more alternative treatments (10.7%).
That means only about 1 in every 7 adults with chronic pain even use opioids – a startling number when you consider the constant harping from anti-opioid activists and public health officials about how opioids are “overprescribed” in the U.S.
“This study found that adults with chronic pain in the US use a variety of pain management techniques, including opioids,” wrote lead author Cornelius Groenewald, MB, a pediatric anesthesiologist and associate professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine. “Nonpharmacologic and nonopioid pharmacologic therapies are preferred treatments for chronic pain, and it is encouraging to note that most adults with chronic pain use a combination of various nonopioid modalities for treatment.”
Alternative Chronic Pain Therapies Used in 2019
18.8% Physical Therapy
17.6% Massage
15.6% Meditation or Relaxation Techniques
11.6% Spinal Manipulation or Chiropractic Care
8.5% Yoga or Tai Chi
5.1% Pain Self-Management Workshops
3.8% Psychological or CBT Therapy
1.8% Peer Support Group
Nearly 40% of chronic pain sufferers reported using other therapies that were not listed in the survey. That may include treatments such as cannabis, kratom, medical devices, acupuncture or even ice packs. It would be good to include more of those options in future surveys.
Groenewald and his colleagues were disappointed that so few people used psychological techniques such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which was the only alternative pain therapy that they said was “underused.”
The researchers found that complementary, psychological or psychotherapeutic therapies were more likely to be used by younger adults, females and people with more education. Adults using physical, occupational or rehabilitative therapies were more likely to be older, female, highly educated and have medical insurance.
