Seniors Often Left Stranded in Emergency Rooms

By Judith Graham, KFF Health News

Every day, the scene plays out in hospitals across America: Older men and women lie on gurneys in emergency room corridors moaning or suffering silently as harried medical staff attend to crises.

Even when physicians determine these patients need to be admitted to the hospital, they often wait for hours — sometimes more than a day — in the ER in pain and discomfort, not getting enough food or water, not moving around, not being helped to the bathroom, and not getting the kind of care doctors deem necessary.

“You walk through ER hallways, and they’re lined from end to end with patients on stretchers in various states of distress calling out for help, including a number of older patients,” said Hashem Zikry, an emergency medicine physician at UCLA Health.

Physicians who staff emergency rooms say this problem, known as ER boarding, is as bad as it’s ever been — even worse than during the first years of the covid-19 pandemic, when hospitals filled with desperately ill patients.

While boarding can happen to all ER patients, adults 65 and older, who account for nearly 20% of ER visits, are especially vulnerable during long waits for care. Also, seniors may encounter boarding more often than other patients.

The best estimates I could find, published in 2019, before the covid-19 pandemic, suggest that 10% of patients were boarded in ERs before receiving hospital care. About 30% to 50% of these patients were older adults.

“It’s a public health crisis,” said Aisha Terry, an associate professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences and the president of the board of the American College of Emergency Physicians, which sponsored a summit on boarding in September.

What’s going on? I spoke to almost a dozen doctors and researchers who described the chaotic situation in ERs. They told me staff shortages in hospitals, which affect the number of beds available, are contributing to the crisis. Also, they explained, hospital administrators are setting aside more beds for patients undergoing lucrative surgeries and other procedures, contributing to bottlenecks in ERs and leaving more patients in limbo.

Then, there’s high demand for hospital services, fueled in part by the aging of the U.S. population, and backlogs in discharging patients because of growing problems securing home health care and nursing home care, according to Arjun Venkatesh, chair of emergency medicine at the Yale School of Medicine.

Long Waits Risky for Seniors

The impact of long ER waits on seniors who are frail, with multiple medical issues, is especially serious. Confined to stretchers, gurneys, or even hard chairs, often without dependable aid from nurses, they’re at risk of losing strength, forgoing essential medications, and experiencing complications such as delirium, according to Saket Saxena, a co-director of the geriatric emergency department at the Cleveland Clinic.

When these patients finally secure a hospital bed, their stays are longer and medical complications more common. And new research finds that the risk of dying in the hospital is significantly higher for older adults when they stay in ERs overnight, as is the risk of adverse events such as falls, infections, bleeding, heart attacks, strokes, and bedsores.

Ellen Danto-Nocton, a geriatrician in Milwaukee, was deeply concerned when an 88-year-old relative with “strokelike symptoms” spent two days in the ER a few years ago. Delirious, immobile, and unable to sleep as alarms outside his bed rang nonstop, the older man spiraled downward before he was moved to a hospital room. “He really needed to be in a less chaotic environment,” Danto-Nocton said.

Several weeks ago, Zikry of UCLA Health helped care for a 70-year-old woman who’d fallen and broken her hip while attending a basketball game.

“She was in a corner of our ER for about 16 hours in an immense amount of pain that was very difficult to treat adequately,” he said. ERs are designed to handle crises and stabilize patients, not to “take care of patients who we’ve already decided need to be admitted to the hospital,” he said.

How common is ER boarding and where is it most acute? No one knows, because hospitals aren’t required to report data about boarding publicly. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services retired a measure of boarding in 2021. New national measures of emergency care capacity have been proposed but not yet approved.

“It’s not just the extent of ED boarding that we need to understand. It’s the extent of acute hospital capacity in our communities,” said Venkatesh of Yale, who helped draft the new measures.

In the meantime, some hospital systems are publicizing their plight by highlighting capacity constraints and the need for more hospital beds. Among them is Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, which announced in January that ER boarding had risen 32% from October 2022 to September 2023. At the end of that period, patients admitted to the hospital spent a median of 14 hours in the ER and 26% spent more than 24 hours.

Maura Kennedy, Mass General’s chief of geriatric emergency medicine, described an 80-something woman with a respiratory infection who languished in the ER for more than 24 hours after physicians decided she needed inpatient hospital care.

“She wasn’t mobilized, she had nothing to cognitively engage her, she hadn’t eaten, and she became increasingly agitated, trying to get off the stretcher and arguing with staff,” Kennedy told me. “After a prolonged hospital stay, she left the hospital more disabled than she was when she came in.”

What Seniors Can Do

When I asked ER doctors what older adults could do about these problems, they said boarding is a health system issue that needs health system and policy changes. Still, they had several suggestions.

“Have another person there with you to advocate on your behalf,” said Jesse Pines, chief of clinical innovation at US Acute Care Solutions, the nation’s largest physician-owned emergency medicine practice. And have that person speak up if they feel you’re getting worse or if staffers are missing problems.

Alexander Janke, a clinical instructor of emergency medicine at the University of Michigan, advises people, “Be prepared to wait when you come to an ER” and “bring a medication list and your medications, if you can.”

To stay oriented and reduce the possibility of delirium, “make sure you have your hearing aids and eyeglasses with you,” said Michael Malone, medical director of senior services for Advocate Aurora Health, a 20-hospital system in Wisconsin and northern Illinois. “Whenever possible, try to get up and move around.”

Friends or family caregivers who accompany older adults to the ER should ask to be at their bedside, when possible, and “try to make sure they eat, drink, get to the bathroom, and take routine medications for underlying medical conditions,” Malone said.

Older adults or caregivers who are helping them should try to bring “things that would engage you cognitively: magazines, books … music, anything that you might focus on in a hallway where there isn’t a TV to entertain you,” Kennedy said.

“Experienced patients often show up with eye masks and ear plugs” to help them rest in ERs with nonstop stimulation, said Zikry of UCLA. “Also, bring something to eat and drink in case you can’t get to the cafeteria or it’s a while before staffers bring these to you.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues.

The Emergency Room Quandary

By Carol Levy, PNN Columnist

I went to the ER only once because my pain was so out of control. The nurses and the doctor were nice, but mostly I was ignored. After waiting what seemed like hours, a nurse came to my bedside with a needle.

"Hold out your arm," she said and injected me with... something. She didn't say what it was.

The pain was so overwhelming, I didn't ask. Whatever it was, it did nothing, not even make me drowsy.

They kept me there for a few more hours, offering nothing after the injection but a cursory, "Sorry it didn't help you" and "Maybe rest will help."

After another hour or so, I left. They were of no help. They could be of no help.

I used to work as an emergency room ward clerk, the first person people saw when they came in. I would run back to get a doctor or nurse if a patient had one of three complaints: chest pain, symptoms of a kidney stone, or a migraine. Those patients were immediately taken to an exam room.

All the other patients I signed in, then directed them to the waiting room. “Please have a seat and wait for your name to be called,” I’d tell them.

Often, they would sit for hours watching as others who came in were immediately taken to the exam room. I had to repeatedly explain that other patients' complaints were more serious and they had to be seen first.

Some of those waiting patients became angry. They had no clue how many patients were already in the exam rooms, or if the doctors and nurses were dealing with critically injured patients from auto accidents or others with serious health issues.

The ones who came in with complaints of “I have a cold” or “I hurt my finger 3 weeks ago” went to the bottom of the list. So too did those whose main complaint — such as chronic pain — was not of immediate concern. It may have seemed like an emergency to them, but to the ER staff it often isn't. An emergency room can never operate on a first come, first serve basis.

Often, as chronic pain sufferers, we have trouble finding doctors or pain management specialists who are willing to take us as patients. Without a doctor we are vulnerable. When the pain gets too bad or feels uncontrollable, our only alternative may be the ER.

The problem with that is the emergency room is not going to help us much, if at all. They don't know our history. They don't know us. When a patient says they don’t have a doctor and insists on getting opioid pain medication, they immediately become suspect. They might be an addict trying to cadge an opioid.

We are so mired in the “opioid crisis” that it blinds us to the other issues that are harming us. We need to look at all the issues that make us vulnerable. Being able to find a doctor should be high on the list of what we need to fight for.

Carol Jay Levy has lived with trigeminal neuralgia, a chronic facial pain disorder, for over 30 years. She is the author of “A Pained Life, A Chronic Pain Journey.”  Carol is the moderator of the Facebook support group “Women in Pain Awareness.” Her blog “The Pained Life” can be found here.

It’s Not Urgent and They Don’t Care

By Mia Maysack, PNN Columnist

There are no words to convey the extent that I, along with so many others, have endured medical trauma. It’s even more impossible for us to get those who haven't to understand what it's like or the toll that it takes.

A loved one of mine had an injury not too long ago that required a small dose of medical hoop jumping. Just the tip of the broken-healthcare-system-iceberg was enough to leave a lasting impression on them, to the extent they still haven't stopped complaining about it.

But when I attempted to express my own fresh experience with said iceberg, this same person described me as "too sensitive." That is dreadfully inaccurate, especially when you consider I've lived this way for over two decades and they had one adverse experience.

My aim is not to belittle or attempt competitive victimization. I understand how health problems impact us on different levels and in various ways. I simply find the lack of empathy -- yet the simultaneous expectation of it -- to be painfully fascinating.

Within the last few weeks, I've been hospitalized multiple times, essentially back-to-back for the same issue. That's part of what being chronically ill looks like. The difference between these recent visits, as opposed to all the others, is the spite I feel for providers who are supposed to be working for me.

I currently don’t have a primary care provider, so my only option when I have an urgent need is to go to a hospital emergency department. I was in one recently at two o’clock in the morning, freezing on a cot in an isolated exam room.

A nurse came in for the rundown as to why I was there, followed by a brief appearance from a doctor who didn't make eye contact or even face me. He kept his back turned while working on a computer.

The nurse proceeded to speak about me and my situation with Doctor Awesome, as if I was not even there. I interrupted their conversation, because I’ve already endured enough lack of bedside manner and respectfully expressed my concerns and wishes.  I asked for an exam and tests to ensure my medical issue wasn’t progressing, I also needed a prescription to relieve side effects from a medicine I was taking to manage my complications.

After laying all this out in a concise, professional manner, Dr. Awesome finally decides to turn around to face me and dryly asks, “So what brings you in tonight?”

Stunned, I politely responded that I’d previously been to this ER and was advised to return if needed. His reply was that my requests are more of a “clinic thing” and “weren’t necessary.” He then dismissed himself and I did not see him again for the hours I was left alone there. He did not come back to check on me before discharge or bother to report the results of my testing. No one did.

An assistant I hadn’t seen before eventually popped in and provided more warmth than anyone else I’d encountered, just by saying, “Awww, you do not look like you feel very well.” 

I thanked her for the acknowledgement and asked for an exam from anybody who was qualified -- it certainly didn’t need to be Dr. Awesome. She was appalled that I had to ask and left promptly to flag someone down.

So now another person I had never met and who didn’t bother introducing themselves, came in and spent less than a minute with me before they left.

At a different point in my journey, this sort of encounter would’ve completely shattered me, because of how low and how long I’ve been knocked down by those entrusted to aid in healing

Those days are over. Today, I’ll stop at nothing to pursue and obtain what’s in my best interests. Instead of feeling depleted after mistreatment like this, I internalize it as empowerment. I’ve made the decision to give up on them instead of myself, and to continue battling for the sake of my life quality. Even if that means fighting against the harm that they vowed not to inflict in the first place. 

Mia Maysack lives with chronic migraine, cluster headache and fibromyalgia. She is the founder of Keepin’ Our Heads Up, a Facebook advocacy and support group, and Peace & Love, a wellness and life coaching practice for the chronically ill. 

Moderation – Not Prohibition – Is Key to Treating ER Patients With Opioids

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

Over the years many people living with pain have told us that they avoid going emergency rooms because they fear their pain will be ignored and that they’ll be treated as an addict if they ask for opioids.  

“Going to the ER terrifies me and I am an RN,” one patient said. “I was recently there on 2 separate episodes for kidney stones. Over a three-day period they gave me absolutely nothing for pain!” 

“I can't and won't return to an ER even if I am dying because I won't accept being treated like an addict ever again,” said a 60-year-old disabled woman.  

“It took me 12 hours and a staged public fit to get any pain relief at my local ER when I went in with a pinched nerve,” another patient told us. 

“Called suicide hotline and was told to go to ER,” said a woman suffering from a severe flare from rheumatoid arthritis. “Well, that was a waste. Told I was drug seeking and received a hefty bill to pile on top of all the others.”

A new study suggests that moderation – not prohibition -- is the key to treating pain in the ER with opioids. Researchers in Canada found that half of patients discharged from an emergency department needed only a handful of opioid tablets to control their pain.

“Patients are often prescribed too many opioid tablets and that means unused tablets are available for misuse,” Raoul Daoust, MD, a professor of Family and Emergency at University of Montreal, said in a press release. “On the other hand, since the opioid crisis, the tendency in the USA is to not prescribe opioids at all, leaving some patient in agonising pain.

“With this research I wanted to provide a tailored approach to prescribing opioids so that patients have enough to manage their pain but almost no unused tablets available for misuse.”

Daoust and his colleagues surveyed 2,240 adult patients who were treated for acute pain at one of six hospital emergency departments in Canada. All were discharged with an opioid prescription and were asked to complete a pain diary for two weeks.

Their findings, presented over the weekend at the European Emergency Medicine Congress in Spain, showed five or fewer morphine tablets (5mg) were adequate for about half the patients. The rest needed more tablets, depending on their condition. For example, patients suffering from renal colic or abdominal pain needed eight tablets, while a patient with broken bones needed 24 tablets. 

Daoust says emergency room physicians need to recognize that morphine can be “very beneficial” for patients. The key is to individualize treatment and prescribe the right amount to minimize the risk of addiction.

“Our findings make it possible to adapt the quantity of opioids we prescribe according to patient need. We could ask the pharmacist to also provide opioids in small portions, such as five tablets initially, because for half of patients that would be enough to last them for two weeks,” said Daoust.

The researchers plan to apply their findings in a clinical setting to evaluate whether they can reduce the long-term use and misuse of opioids. 

“This study shows how opioid prescriptions could be adapted to specific acute pain conditions, and how they could be dispensed in relatively small numbers at the pharmacy to lower the chance of misuse. This research could provide a safer way to prescribe opioids that could be applied in emergency departments anywhere in the world,” said Youri Yordanov, MD, an emergency physician at Saint-Antoine Hospital in Paris, who was not involved in the research.

A large 2017 study found that the risk of long-term opioid use is lower for ER patients than it is for patients treated in other medical settings. Researchers found that only 1.1% percent of ER patients taking opioids for the first time progressed to long term use. That compares to 2% of patients in non-emergency settings.

First, Do No Harm

By Mia Maysack, PNN Columnist

When living in immense amounts of pain, it can be common to regularly dismiss minor inconveniences that would greatly perturb others, if not hinder them immensely.

Speaking from personal experience, I’ve permitted medical situations to worsen due to my tolerance for ailments, as opposed to promptly treating them. What’s one more thing, right?  

But when it begins to get unmanageable and my go-to treatments aren’t working, I’m often at a loss to calm a pain flare or break a pain cycle. Sometimes I am left with no other choice than my absolute least favorite thing to do — which is go to the ER. 

Recently I was severely dehydrated, the main reason I ever visit an emergency department. Because without retaining adequate water, there can be little improvement in any of my other symptoms. I essentially have given up on the pursuit of pain relief.

It’s typical that when I convey my reasons for being at the ER -- such as days or weeks of an unbreakable migraine or a never-ending cluster headache attack -- there’s judgment about my sincerity regarding conditions that don’t present themselves as a broken bone or bleeding cut.

I recall a time before I retired from nursing, when a patient came in with severe head pain. Knowing what that is like, I ensured dimmed lighting, used a soft voice, closed the blinds, and just moved in a way that I’d appreciate if I was the one lying in the bed. Which is far more often than I’d like.   

A colleague stormed in, turned on the lights and basically shouted at the patient. He later conveyed a disbelief for the patient’s claims -- even though the oath we took includes trusting discomfort as being just as the patient describes it.

The fact of the matter is that no one is able to fully comprehend another person’s pain. And it’s not up for any of us to have a final say on what we don’t personally experience.   

For years, providers have been up in arms regarding the misuse of opioid medication, and as a result are trying to over-correct a mistake that was never the patient’s fault. It’s now impossible for many of us to receive adequate pain relief.   

This has led to a distrust in the healthcare system and is also playing a large role in the number of lost lives we’re seeing.  One of the leading causes of death is suicide. And one of the leading causes of disability is depression. There’s definitely no shortage of reasons to feel down. What’s occurring in our world is cause for chronic sadness. 

As I sat there in the ER with my shades on, while picking up on their shade, I had to use all my might to explain why I was there – telling them my history and answering their questions. There are no words to adequately explain what it’s like to go through inquisitions like that so many times. To have hundreds of appointments, spend countless hours on the phone or in waiting rooms, and fighting for a proper diagnosis. Not to mention all the trial and error treatments, and the constant “permission slip” signing of authorizations just to be seen.  

Having been through it for as long as I have, it has caused its own form of trauma, something I believe is underappreciated. There are moments when I’m not even able to bring myself to enter a medical clinic due to the impact of things like being stereotyped, not believed or even helped. 

This could obviously lead anyone to seek out some sort of way to assist or soothe on their own. That includes, but isn’t limited to, checking out of their own physical existence. I’ve felt pushed to contemplate that a number of times, which I’m not ashamed to admit. Because this needs to be talked about more.   

The healthcare system often fails to such an extent that people are left to feel as though they have no other choice than to find an exit. If only things were set up to truly be concerned about our well-being. Then suicide prevention would look a lot like harm reduction, in the form of providing basic needs like affordable housing, food security and access to mental health resources.  

The medical-industrial complex can lead a person to believe their life does not matter. I live on in spite of it and to honor those who are gone.

Mia Maysack lives with chronic migraine, cluster headache and fibromyalgia. She is the founder of Keepin’ Our Heads Up, a Facebook advocacy and support group, and Peace & Love, a wellness and life coaching practice for the chronically ill. Mia is the recipient of the International Pain Foundation’s “Hero of Hope” award for 2022.

Study Identifies Medications Most Involved in ER Visits

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

Here’s a question for you: What type of medication is most likely to be involved in a visit to a hospital emergency room?

1. Opioid pain relievers

2. Blood thinners

3. Psychiatric drugs

4. Insulin

5. Antibiotics

Given the well-publicized risks of addiction and overdose associated with opioids, you might assume it was opioid pain relievers. You’d also be wrong, according to a large new study that looked at medications associated with emergency department (ED) visits in the U.S. from 2017 to 2019.

CDC researchers looked at a representative sample of nearly 97,000 cases of adverse events involving medication and found that warfarin (Coumadin) and other anti-coagulant blood thinners – typically prescribed to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke -- were the leading cause of ED visits.

Among patients of all ages, insulin was the second leading cause of medication-related adverse events, followed by psychiatric drugs, antibiotics and the over-the-counter pain relievers ibuprofen and acetaminophen. The opioid oxycodone came in last on a Top 10 list of drugs involved in ED visits.

TOP 10 MEDICATIONS INVOLVED IN EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT VISITS

SOURCE: CDC

The study findings, published in JAMA, help dispel many of the myths associated with the risks of opioids — at least in comparison to other widely used medications.

There are many reasons for someone to have an adverse reaction to medication, ranging from allergies to dosage errors to taking drugs intended for someone else. About a third of the ED visits were so serious, the patient was admitted for hospitalization.

Compared to seniors age 65 and older, young adults were significantly more likely to abuse a medication or to use it for intentional self-harm. Seniors were far more likely to only take a drug for its intended therapeutics use.

SOURCE: jama

The age of a patient also plays a significant role in the type of drug they have an adverse reaction to. For example, the antibiotic amoxicillin was the leading cause of medication harm for patients under the age of 14; while the anti-anxiety drug alprazolam (Xanax) was the leading cause of adverse events for patients aged 15 to 44.  Insulin ranked first for patients aged 45-64; while warfarin was first for patients aged 65 and older.

Analgesics, sedatives and antidepressants were the drugs most likely to be abused. About 63% of adverse events involving prescription opioids were cases of “non-therapeutic” abuse, while 89% of cases involving benzodiazepines were classified as abuse. The vast majority of cases involving blood thinners, insulin or antibiotics were for their intended therapeutic use.    

The role of opioids in ED visits has been falling for over a decade. A 2017 study showed a significant decline in the number of patients admitted to U.S. hospitals for abusing opioid medication. Hospital admissions for overdoses from opioid medication started falling in 2010, the same year that opioid prescriptions peaked in the U.S.

Most Sickle Cell Patients Face Stigma During ER Visits

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

Nearly two-thirds of people with sickle cell disease in the U.S. feel judged and stigmatized when they visit an emergency department due to a pain flare, according to a new survey by Health Union.

About 100,000 Americans live with sickle cell disease (SCD), a genetic disorder that mainly affects people of African or Hispanic descent. SCD causes red blood cells to form in a crescent or sickle shape, which can create blockages in blood vessels that cause intense pain.  It’s not uncommon for someone with SCD to visit an ER a few times each year due to pain or complications such as anemia, stroke, infection and organ failure.

Health Union surveyed 111 people living with SCD to share their experiences dealing with the disease and how they are perceived by healthcare professionals, coworkers, teachers, friends and family members. Most said they did not feel judged or stigmatized by others – except when dealing with ER staff.

Many felt ER staff were rude, ignorant or misinformed about sickle cell disease, didn’t take their pain seriously, and believed they were drug seekers. Nearly half of those surveyed (43%) said they avoided going to the ER because they worried that people would judge them.

“A doctor judged me during a hospitalization. He stated I wasn’t in that much pain to be using Dilaudid. He also stated I was drug seeking because a sickle cell crisis can be managed with Motrin. His statement is not true!” one participant told Health Union.

Sickle cell patients had an entirely different take on their pharmacists, hematologists and primary care providers. Over half (53%) trusted their providers and felt their primary care doctors were friendly, understanding, easy to talk to, and provided excellent care.

"Navigating the healthcare system can already be complex, but undergoing such wildly different experiences can make access to reliable, timely, effective care even more difficult for people with sickle cell disease," said Olivier Chateau, Health Union's co-founder and CEO.

The finding that many people are not happy with their pain treatment in hospitals is not unique to sickle cell patients.  A 2016 PNN survey of over 1,250 hospitalized pain patients found that most felt they were labeled as addicts or drug seekers. Over 80% believed hospital staff were not adequately trained in pain management and over half rated the quality of pain care in hospitals as poor or very poor.  

A report last year by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that sickle cell patients often face discrimination and stigma when navigating the healthcare system. The report found that SCD received little attention from the healthcare community compared to other chronic illnesses. To get proper treatment, many sickle cell patients have to educate themselves about their disease and become their own advocates.

The Health Union survey found that nearly three out of four sickle cell patients (73%) were currently using a prescription analgesic. Many others took prescription strength NSAIDs (35%), muscle relaxants (23%) or anti-anxiety/antidepressant drugs (16%). Only 5% said they experienced an issue with substance abuse.

Lessons Learned From the ER

By Victoria Reed, PNN Columnist

Many people have a need to use the emergency room at some point in their lives. As a person with degenerative disc disease, there are times when my chronic back pain is exacerbated by an acute pain event that causes my back to occasionally go out.

By “out” I mean my back seizes up, stiffens and excruciatingly hurts. It doesn’t seem to take much to trigger an onset of pain. One time it happened when I tried to get up from a seated position off the couch. Another time it occurred when I bent over slightly to get something out of a drawer. A third time was triggered by vomiting from a stomach bug, so not only was I sick, I could barely move. Unbelievably, a fourth episode was caused by a sneeze!

During these episodes, I can’t walk or move without significant pain and I need assistance from my family. I will usually be bedridden for the better part of a week or two. One time it was so bad that I had someone take me to the emergency room to try and get some relief.

At the time, I was receiving treatment with a mild prescription opioid for my other chronic pain conditions. However, the medication was not doing anything for the acute pain.

At the ER, the staff was generally compassionate and treated my pain. I was sent home with a small amount of a stronger pain medication to use for a few days. After a while, the back started to calm down and I went back to my normal daily pain level.

VICTORIA REED

Subsequently, I had a follow up visit with my pain management doctor. I didn’t like the look on his face when he walked into the room. This doctor had always been reluctant to treat my back pain with anything other than spinal injections, which were no longer effective. He confronted me about the ER visit and was worked up into a lather about it! He implied that I was drug seeking. Wait, what? No, I was not seeking anything other than pain relief.

I explained that my trip to the ER happened on a weekend, so I wasn’t able to call his office. Regardless, there was no convincing him otherwise. He refused to renew my opioid prescription, but didn’t discharge me from the practice. I walked out of the office shocked, hurt and angry because in my mind, I had done nothing wrong.

I thought it was a basic human right to seek treatment for excruciating pain. I still believe that. But that incident made me realize that some doctors just don’t see it that way and think everyone is drug seeking.

Back then, I was younger and inexperienced with the specialty of pain management. I was unaware that I should get prior approval before receiving any opioids from anywhere else. There had been no contract signed, nor any discussion of what the procedure was.

Ultimately, that trip to the ER for an acute episode of back pain caused me to lose my regular pain medication. Needless to say, I never want to go through that experience again! 

Fortunately, I have since been accepted for treatment by a wonderful, compassionate pain management doctor and have been 100% compliant with the procedures and the pain contract that I signed.

On another occasion, I went to the ER during an acute flare of my rheumatoid arthritis, which caused extreme pain and swelling in many joints. The low dose steroid that I took daily just wasn’t doing much and my stomach doesn’t tolerate higher doses very well. My intent in going to the ER was to obtain a higher dose steroid through an IV that would bypass the stomach.

The first question I was asked as I was being triaged was, “Isn’t RA a chronic illness?” Already, I could see where this was going.  I replied, “Yes, but I’m having an acute flare.” That got an eyeball roll from the ER provider, but once I made it clear that I was not seeking any opioid medication, they were willing to treat me with the high dose IV steroids that I had requested.

I felt that if I didn’t say everything the right away, they would have labeled me as a drug seeker and turned me away altogether.

There is opioid hysteria going on that changes the way pain patients are treated and viewed. How do we use the ER without fear of being labeled as drug seekers? Acute, uncontrolled pain needs to be treated, regardless of whether we are already under care for treatment of chronic pain. All patients deserve to be treated with compassion and fairness.

I would definitely think twice (actually 3 or 4 times) before I go to another emergency room for treatment. We should not be afraid to go for fear of being labeled a drug seeker, nor should we have to be afraid of losing our doctors and medication. The negative stigma associated with prescription opioids is real and ultimately hurts an already vulnerable population of patients.

Victoria Reed lives in Cleveland, Ohio. She suffers from endometriosis, fibromyalgia, degenerative disc disease and rheumatoid arthritis. PNN invites other readers to share their stories with us. Send them to editor@painnewsnetwork.org.

Acetaminophen Better Than NSAIDs for Acute Trauma Pain

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

Acetaminophen (Tylenol) is superior to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in treating acute pain in patients recovering from arm and leg trauma, according to new research published in the journal Academic Emergency Medicine. It’s the latest in a string of studies that recommend the use of non-opioid pain relievers for acute pain after discharge from a hospital.

The research is based on a study of 1,500 adults in the North African nation of Tunisia, nearly half of whom had bone fractures. Upon discharge from a hospital emergency department, the patients received either acetaminophen, a high-dose NSAID, or a combination of the two. Acetaminophen is commonly called paracetamol outside the United States.

After seven days, researchers found that nearly two-thirds (61.8%) of patients receiving paracetamol alone were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their pain relief. Only 11.4% required another oral pain reliever. The other two groups had similar satisfaction scores, but had lower rates of medication adherence. Side-effects such as vomiting and gastrointestinal pain were also more common in patients who received NSAIDs.  

“This study found that the combination of a high‐dose NSAID with paracetamol does not increase the analgesic effect compared to paracetamol alone. We also found that paracetamol alone is superior to high‐dose NSAID alone for post-traumatic extremity pain,” wrote lead author Mohamed Amine Msolli, MD, an emergency room physician at Fattouma Bourguiba University Hospital in Tunisia.

“Taking into account its superior efficacy and tolerability, paracetamol appears to be the most suitable first‐line therapy for managing mild to moderate posttraumatic extremity pain after discharge from the ED.”

Opioid analgesics are not widely available in Tunisia and most other Middle East countries, and were not included in the study. Nevertheless, the study findings are being cited as evidence that paracetamol is superior to both NSAIDs and opioids in treating acute trauma pain.

“The surprising efficacy of paracetamol over an NSAID, as shown by a 6.4% lower need for additional oral analgesics, may impact prescribing practices,” Andrew Chang, MD, a professor of emergency medicine at Albany Medical Center, said in a statement.

“Many ED patients who have a contraindication to NSAIDs but require analgesics upon ED discharge might be prescribed an opioid. Given the ongoing opioid epidemic, this study lends evidence to support the use of acetaminophen alone in such patients."

But the risk of long-term opioid use after an emergency room visit is actually quite low. A large 2017 study by the Mayo Clinic found that only about one percent of emergency room patients given an opioid prescription progressed to long term use.

Acetaminophen also has risks that are not acknowledged in the Tunisia study. Excessive use of acetaminophen can lead to liver, kidney, heart and blood pressure problems. Acetaminophen overdoses are involved in about 500 deaths and over 50,000 emergency room visits in the U.S. annually.

Over-the-Counter Pain Meds and Gabapentin Recommended for Trauma Patients

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

Over-the-counter pain medications and gabapentin are the best line of treatment for trauma patients suffering from acute short-term pain, according to new study at a Texas hospital that minimizes the use of opioids.

Researchers at the Red Duke Trauma Institute at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center in Houston assessed two different combinations of non-opioid pain relievers in over 1,500 patients being treated for acute trauma, such as bone fractures and head injuries.

The treatment protocol that was deemed superior included a combination of inexpensive over-the-counter drugs such as acetaminophen and naproxen, with the nerve medication gabapentin (Neurontin). Opioids such as tramadol and oxycodone were only prescribed for breakthrough pain.

"Narcotics are not the mainstay of therapy for acute pain," said lead author John Harvin, MD, a trauma surgeon at the hospital and an associate professor at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. "The research shows us that seriously injured people with acute pain can effectively be treated with an opioid-minimizing strategy."

The study findings, published in the Journal of American College of Surgeons, showed that a first-line pain regimen that used acetaminophen, ketorolac, naproxen, gabapentin or lidocaine patches reduced the use of opioids without a significant difference in pain scores. Only 62 percent of the patients were discharged with an opioid prescription.

"We used a generic pain regimen that is affordable at discharge. The discharge medications acetaminophen and naproxen can be bought over the counter. The only drug that requires a prescription is gabapentin and an as-needed opioid, if prescribed," Harvin explained.

The use of gabapentin as a treatment for acute pain is controversial, because recent studies show it has no significant analgesic effect and is increasingly being abused. In 2019, the Food and Drug Administration warned that serious breathing problems can occur in patients who take gabapentin with opioids or other drugs that depress the central nervous system.

But the use of gabapentin and over-the-counter pain relievers is now the standard treatment protocol for trauma patients at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, and physicians there are working to adapt it for the treatment of acute burn pain.

"The best way to decrease someone's risk for long-term (opioid) use is to minimize their exposure during hospitalization and at discharge, and we now know there are excellent non-opioid medications available that effectively treat pain,” said Harvin. “We know that culture change will take time and effort, but we're excited to be learning how to best leverage opioid-minimizing drugs to improve care, and to offer a new model that can be adopted by any trauma center."

The risk of long-term opioid use after an emergency room visit is actually quite low. A 2017 study by the Mayo Clinic found that only about one percent of emergency room patients given an opioid prescription progressed to long term use.

"Our paper lays to rest the notion that emergency physicians are handing out opioids like candy," said lead author Molly Moore Jeffery, PhD, a Mayo Clinic researcher. “Most opioid prescriptions written in the emergency department are for shorter duration, written for lower daily doses and less likely to be for long-acting formulations."

Severely Injured? Don’t Count on Getting Opioid Pain Medication

By Madora Pennington, PNN Columnist

When I went to Cedars-Sinai Urgent Care in Los Angeles recently, screaming and crying, my blood pressure dangerously high, my foot ballooning and turning blue from a household accident, the doctor wouldn’t give me opioid pain medication.

They x-rayed my foot. Two bones were broken. They gave me a shot of a NSAID that, they said, would wear off in a few hours. It did. They gave me crutches, a boot to immobilize my foot, suggested I see a surgeon and, in the meantime, take Advil. What?

It wasn’t personal. This is Cedars-Sinai’s policy. In urgent care, they won’t give opioids to anyone for any reason.

I had gone to Cedars-Sinai because I have a complex medical history. There, my records are most complete. This makes the appointment easier for the doctor and me.

Also in my records is my long-term opioid use history. I was on Vicodin and morphine daily for about six years, to treat chronic pain from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that causes all the joints to be loose, or rather, permanently sprained.

When I started on daily opioids, an option no longer available, I had pain that I could not live with, no quality of life and was planning my suicide.

Those drugs gave me enough relief to endure. I became less of a burden to my caretaker. I could focus on trying to improve my health. If your day is spent fighting extreme pain, being productive is not possible.

Then I got very lucky.

In 2014, experimental treatment had improved the strength of my tendons and ligaments. My body hurt less. I went straight off the opioids and stayed off.

Withdrawal was a harrowing marathon of torture. For years after, I suffered from the physical damage opioids left behind. But I didn’t go back on them because I had never become addicted. Why? I had been warned at the start of my opioid treatment to take the drugs for physical pain only, not for emotional relief. This patient follows orders.

As a result of the war on opioids, many chronic pain patients are being denied adequate pain relief. Some forced to taper end up committing suicide from the agony of withdrawal plus untreated pain. This became such a problem, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued new recommendations in October, advising doctors to look at each case individually and not to put patients on rapid opioid tapers or abruptly discontinue them.

But I had never heard of someone with a severe, acute injury forced to suffer. Even I can’t be trusted? I have a proven record of responsible opioid use with no addiction.

The doctor treating my injured foot, clearly embarrassed, told me, “This is urgent care. If it’s something severe, the patient should be in the ER or at a pain doctor.”

But I had called before I came. “Would they see me for a possibly broken foot?”

The receptionist said to come in, they would x-ray me right away. She didn’t say I would not be given adequate pain medication.

Has the war on opioids gone too far? If doctors and hospitals are too afraid of lawsuits or prosecution to prescribe, then yes.

A Mayo Clinic study found that only about 1% of patients given opioids in emergency rooms went on to long term use. Another study found less than 1% of patients being treated with opioids for post-surgical pain developed dependence or abused opioids. Does that mean the other 99% of us should not get pain medication?

Not according to the CDC, which suggests three days of opioids for acute injuries like mine.

After I left urgent care that day, I took Vicodin which had expired a year before but I’d never gotten rid of. If it hadn’t worked, I would have had to call an ambulance and gone to the ER that night, just for pain treatment.

After surgery, the podiatrist told me, “One bone was in pieces. I bolted together what I could. Some bits were too small so I picked them out and threw them away.” Well, that explains the pain I’d been in.

I vowed never to leave things on the floor that someone might trip on. And I set up Google Home to process a command to make a phone call for help.

I also filed a complaint with the state against the doctor. Medical care is about the patient, not hospital bureaucrats.

Madora Pennington writes about Ehlers-Danlos and life after disability at LessFlexible.com. Her work has also been featured in the Los Angeles Times.

My Doctor Was Fired for Not Treating My Chronic Pain

By Chris Jolley, Guest Columnist

I was with my pain doctor for 20 years at the same clinic and on the same dosage until April 2017, when the medication that controlled my pain was stopped.  I had gone for a routine follow-up when a new doctor I had never seen walked into the exam room to tell me he was stopping all pain medication for each patient within one month.  

I have spina bifida, scoliosis, fibromyalgia, chronic kidney stones, and more. My worst pain is from migraines, including chronic cluster migraines, several ruptured discs from a back injury, and severe disc degeneration.  

Because of the migraines, my husband created a dark room and I spend most of my time in there.  My back pain makes me change positions every hour.  I do not get much sleep.  

Last year I had one of the worst cluster migraines. On its 5th day, I had a flare up from my disc rupture and my chronic kidney stones started dropping. I was in horrific pain.

I have a pain contract, so my son called the clinic to let them know he was taking me to the emergency room.  He was told he could take me, but under no circumstances could they give me any pain medication.

CHRIS JOLLEY

My son called 3 more times and on the third call was told we needed permission from the doctor, who had already left for the day. The next day, my son was told the same thing. The ER could not treat my pain.

No one should suffer horrific pain. But pain patients are being abandoned by doctors and profiled by pharmacists who refuse to fill our prescriptions, even for cancer.  A family pet would never be allowed to live in such pain.

Before April 2017, I was happy, able to work, involved in many craft projects, and saw my daughter and grandchildren often, even though they live 40 miles away.  

After months of appointments with the new doctor, I told him that I think about suicide every day and sometimes every hour because of the pain.  He did not even look at me and walked out the door.

This doctor was fired for what he did to me, and the doctor who replaced him put me back on pain medication. I was shocked by this.  

I took the new prescriptions to 3 large pharmacy chains and they refused to fill them, citing the 2016 CDC opioid guideline as law.  Fortunately, a few months later, I found a local pharmacy that had no problem filling the prescriptions. I am doing so much better now.

Chris Jolley lives in Utah.  

Pain News Network invites other readers to share their stories with us. Send them to editor@painnewsnetwork.org. 

The information in this column is for informational purposes only and represents the author’s opinions alone. It does not inherently express or reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of Pain News Network.

Study: Prescription Drug Databases Overestimate Opioid Misuse

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

Prescription drug monitoring has long been seen as the gold standard for tracking the opioid crisis. Patients who fill an opioid prescription for more than three months are considered long-term users with a higher risk of misuse, addiction and overdose. Many pharmacy chains assign a “risk score” to these patients and their doctors could even get a warning letter from the government.

But in a small study of emergency room patients, Canadian researchers found the risk of opioid misuse by long-term users is small and one out of five patients who fill opioid prescriptions don’t even use them. Their findings suggest that prescription databases alone are a poor way to measure opioid misuse.

“The rate of long‐term opioid use reported by filled prescription database studies should not be used as a surrogate for opioid misuse,” said lead author Raoul Daoust, MD, a professor and researcher in the Department of Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine at the University of Montreal.

Daoust and his colleagues surveyed 524 patients who were discharged from a hospital emergency department (ED) with an opioid prescription for acute pain. Instead of just relying on a database to track their prescriptions, the researchers asked the patients about their opioid use.

Three months after discharge, only 47 patients – about 9 percent – said they were still using opioids. Of those, 72% said they used opioids to treat their initial pain and 19% were using the drugs to treat a new pain condition.

The remaining four patients said they used opioids for another reason, suggesting possible misuse. That’s less than one percent (0.8%) of the original 524 patients.

“Within the limit of our study, our results suggest that the risk of long‐term opioid use for reasons other than pain is low for ED discharged patients with an opioid prescription treating an acute pain condition,” Daoust reported in the journal Academic Emergency Medicine.

Daoust’s findings are controversial because they throw into question the widely accepted theory that all opioid prescribing is risky, whether it’s for chronic or acute pain. The methodology used in his study was questioned by one critic.

"Emergency physicians should not be reassured by the authors' findings. The lack of a denominator, poor response rate (56%), and applied definition of misuse are significant limitations,” said Gail D'Onofrio, MD, a professor of emergency medicine and chair in the department of emergency medicine at Yale University.

D'Onofrio cites a 2017 CDC study, which found that the probability of long-term opioid use increases sharply after the first few days of treatment.

“Transitions from acute to long-term therapy can begin to occur quickly: the chances of chronic use begin to increase after the third day supplied and rise rapidly thereafter,” CDC researchers warned.

But that analysis is based solely on the number of opioid prescriptions – not actual opioid use. And Daoust found that studies like that are a poor way to measure risk.

“These studies used filled prescriptions databases that could overestimate opioid use since not all patients filling an opioid prescription consumed them. As a case in point, in this study, 21% of patients who filled their opioid prescription after the initial ED visit did not consume them,” Daoust reported.

What is the risk of long-term opioid use after an emergency room visit? In a large 2017 study by the Mayo Clinic, only about 1 percent of ER patients given an opioid prescription progressed to long term use – similar to what Daoust found.

"Our paper lays to rest the notion that emergency physicians are handing out opioids like candy," said lead author Molly Moore Jeffery, PhD, scientific director of the Mayo Clinic Division of Emergency Medicine Research. “Most opioid prescriptions written in the emergency department are for shorter duration, written for lower daily doses and less likely to be for long-acting formulations."

A 2018 study also questioned the value of prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) which have long been promoted as critical tools in the fight against opioid abuse. The study found little evidence that PDMPs are reducing overdoses and that they may lead to unintended consequences such as patients turning to street drugs for pain relief.

Chronic Fatigue Patients Often Feel Disbelieved in ERs

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

Patients suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) often feel disrespected and disbelieved in hospital emergency rooms, according to a new survey by researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center.

CFS is a complex and poorly understood disorder characterized by extreme fatigue, chronic pain, impaired memory and insomnia. Because many of the symptoms of CFS overlap with other conditions -- including fibromyalgia, depression, and inflammation – a correct diagnosis is often difficult.

In the first study of its kind, Georgetown researchers surveyed 282 CFS patients about their experiences in emergency departments. Two-thirds said they would not go to an ED because they believed they wouldn't be taken seriously or because they had a previous unsatisfactory experience. Only a third said they received appropriate treatment in the ED.

"The high proportion of patients who were basically told 'It is all in your head' by ED staff indicates that there is much misunderstanding and misgivings about the diagnosis of CFS,” said allergist and immunologist James Baraniuk, MD, senior investigator of the study published in the journal Open Access Emergency Medicine.

“These patients should feel they are respected and that they can receive thorough care when they feel sick enough to go to an ED."

The survey found that only 59 percent of the CFS patients had gone to an ED. In that group, 42 percent were dismissed as having psychosomatic complaints. Asked to collectively rate their ED caregivers' knowledge of chronic fatigue, patients gave them a score of 3.6 on a 10-point scale.

Baraniuk says more training is needed for ED staff and physicians to better understand the disorder.

"An already-available CFS Symptom Severity Questionnaire can be used in the ED to assist with the diagnosis of CFS, and to differentiate exacerbations of CFS symptoms from medical emergencies such as heart attacks or infections," Baraniuk says.

The number one reason for going to the ED was orthostatic intolerance, which occurs when a person feels faint when standing or sitting upright because not enough blood is reaching the brain and heart. The symptoms only improve when a person lies down.

"This condition is something that can be readily addressed by ED caregivers. There is a real need for physician education that will improve their efficiency in identifying and treating CFS and in distinguishing CFS symptoms from other diseases in the exam room," he said.

In 2015, an independent panel convened by the National Institutes of Health called for major changes in the way the healthcare system treats people suffering from chronic fatigue – which is also known as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS).

“Both society and the medical profession have contributed to ME/CFS patients feeling disrespected and rejected. They are often treated with skepticism, uncertainty, and apprehension and labeled as deconditioned or having a primary psychological disorder,” the panel reported in its final report.

About one million Americans suffer from chronic fatigue, most of them women. There are no pathogens linked to CFS, no diagnostic tests and no known cures.

CDC: Emergency Room Overdoses Up Sharply

By Pat Anson, Editor

Emergency room visits for opioid overdoses have soared by 30 percent in 16 states, according to a new Vital Signs report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC called the report a “wake-up call to the fast-moving opioid overdose epidemic.”

Between July 2016 and September 2017, there were over 142,000 suspected opioid overdoses treated in hospital emergency rooms in the 16 states. Overdoses increased for men and women in all age groups, in all regions of the country, and in rural and urban areas.

The new report does not specify how many patients died or if the overdoses involved prescription opioids or illegal opioids like heroin and illicit fentanyl. A previous report by the CDC indicated that over half the nation’s fatal overdoses are now linked to fentanyl, a synthetic opioid increasingly available on the black market.

“Long before we receive data from death certificates, emergency department data can point to alarming increases in opioid overdoses,” said CDC Acting Director Anne Schuchat, MD. “This fast-moving epidemic affects both men and women, and people of every age. It does not respect state or county lines and is still increasing in every region in the United States.”

Ten of the 16 states studied had significant increases in emergency room overdoses, with the number of overdoses in Wisconsin up by an alarming 109 percent.  Opioid overdoses in Delaware also doubled.

Midwestern states saw the biggest increase overall, with a 70% increase in overdoses, followed by the West (40%), Northeast (21%), Southwest (20%) and Southeast states (14%).

Overdoses declined by 15% in Kentucky, and by smaller amounts in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Schuchat said the decline could be related to the increased availability of drugs like naloxone, which can rapidly reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.

Failure of Opioid Guidelines Ignored  

The Vital Signs report did not examine the apparent failure of the CDC’s opioid prescribing guidelines to have any impact on the overdose rate. The agency's controversial guidelines were not even discussed during a 30-minute briefing Schuchat had with reporters today.

Since the CDC guidelines were released in March 2016, many pain patients say their opioid doses have been reduced or eliminated, and the quality of their pain care has deteriorated. Some patients abandoned by doctors are having trouble finding new ones willing to treat them.

A recent report from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health found that prescription opioids were involved in only about 15% of the fatal overdoses in 2017, while fentanyl was involved in 83 percent of the opioid deaths in that state.