Military Doctors Prescribing Too Many Narcotic Painkillers
A military pain management specialist says military doctors are prescribing too many narcotic pain relievers for US troops, which could lead to prescription drug abuse and addiction. Prescriptions for narcotic pain relievers among injured troops have jumped from 30,000 a month to 50,000 a month since the Iraq war began, suggesting that military medical personnel are relying too heavily on narcotics rather than alternative treatments for pain management.
“You don’t have to throw narcotics at people to start managing pain,” said Army Col. Chester “Trip” Buckenmaier III, director of the Acute Pain Management Initiative at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. Buckenmaier has pioneered alternative approaches for treating pain experienced by wounded soldiers to help decrease the potential for abuse and addiction.
According to a 2005 survey, narcotic painkillers were the most abused drug in the military two years after the Iraq war started. Four percent of soldiers admitted abusing prescription narcotics in the last 30 days, and ten percent had abused them in the last 12 months.
Pain is the most common complaint of nearly 350,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans treated by the Department of Veterans Affairs, said Robert Kerns, national program director for pain management. A study of VA health records estimates that nearly half of those patients suffer from chronic pain. The majority of these people have orthopedic injuries from the wear and tear of long deployments.
The recent increase in suicides and drug-related deaths among soldiers has lead to new efforts to better control prescription drug addiction in the military. The chief of health policy for the Army Surgeon General, Col. Paul Cordts, says that this includes limiting prescriptions to a seven-day supply and closely monitoring drug use. Both the Army and Marine Corps are testing machines in the barracks that dispense medication, enabling them to track both the users and the amount of medication taken.
Treating chronic pain with narcotic pain relievers is one of the most common causes of drug dependence, and prescription drug addiction afflicts millions of Americans. If you or someone you know is abusing or addicted to prescription pain medication, contact your health provider immediately. There are numerous alternative approaches to pain management that don’t carry the risk of narcotic dependence.
