This Sunday, the Boston Globe asked, “Has health care improved with reclassification of hydrocodone?”
Here’s the response of the dynamic Cindy Steinberg, policy chair for the Massachusetts Pain Initiative and national director of policy and advocacy for the US Pain Foundation:
No.
Severely restricting access to the most commonly used and highly effective pain medication is unjustly punishing the millions of law-abiding citizens who struggle to live with pain every day while doing little to solve the problem of abuse and addiction.
Hydrocodone combination products are effective for both acute and chronic pain and are useful and appropriate for a wide range of painful conditions and diseases. They have relatively few side effects and have been shown to have lower abuse potential than single entity opioids. In 2011, approximately 47 million Americans used hydrocodone analgesics for pain relief.
The number of Americans now living with pain is staggering. The Institute of Medicine has documented that there are more than 100 million living with chronic pain in this country. Ten million Americans live with chronic pain so severe that it has disabled them, and this number is expected to increase as the population ages.
When prescribed to individuals with pain severe enough to require these medications, the incidence of abuse and addiction is extremely low. For many with chronic pain, these medications mean the difference between a life worth living or not.
The new rules took effect Oct. 6. They require patients to obtain an original hard copy prescription for every 30 days of their medication — necessitating many more doctor visits — and then hand-delivering the script to their pharmacy. Doctors can no longer call in, fax, or electronically submit these prescriptions. Refills are prohibited.
According to Rebecca Fortelka, who suffers from cerebral palsy and several other chronic pain conditions writing in the Nov. 18 National Pain Report, hydrocodone combinations are one of the only pain medications she can tolerate. Soon after the new rules went into effect, she contacted her doctor’s office as she was running out of her medicine and needed a renewal. “My pain was spiraling out of control as I was rationing meds to prevent being out of them,” she wrote. It took her doctor’s office four weeks to get the hard copy prescription ready, leaving her to suffer.
Cutting off the supply of pain medication will not solve abuse and addiction. Those who are predisposed to the disease of addiction will turn to other medications or illicit substances, leaving those with the disease of chronic pain with fewer options. People with addiction disorders need better treatment for the disease of addiction, coordinated follow-up, and continuing support.
