"Painkiller withdrawal symptoms 'similar to heroin'"

revz

www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/painkiller-withdrawal-symptoms-similar-to-heroin-213702.html

I've just seen this article posted on the Irish Examiner website. I'm just wondering are things really that bad?
A few inaccuracies in the piece make me feel like it could just be scare tactics for the public.
They use vague terms such as "a 6% rise in the number of people seeking treatment for difficulties with pain medication in recent years" yet continue to refer to nurofen plus as if it is the sole problem (briefly mentioning Oxycontin once).
It also states "Nurofen Plus, like heroin, contains codeine". Unless I'm mistaking something here, surely this is wrong? Diamorphine is diamorphine, codeine is codeine. Yes they come from the same Poppy plant, but saying that one contains the other is misinformation is it not?

If people have seen first hand that this is as big a problem as the article states, and the quotes I highlighted are accurate then I'll concede, but to me this looks like a poorly written piece that could possibly lead to more bad than good (e.g. people not wanting to take codeine-containing products when prescribed due to thinking they'll become addicted to it exactly as they would heroin, and having to deal with the same withdrawal - as well as some people who could read this and think "codeine similar to heroin? Great!")
Last of all, surely if it is this much a problem they should just make codeine containing products prescription only, no?

Edit: Also I missed a glaring point....are the withdrawals of each drug (heroin and codeine) actually comparable? I would've thought due to their relative potencies the withdrawal of heroin would be far, far worse.

AtomicHorror

Health science reporting in the popular press, and indeed science reporting in general, is of very poor quality. This article seems very woolly on the details and the main focus- ignoring the sensational headline- actually seems to relate to the rates of addiction to OTC/prescription drugs relative to total drug addiction rates. The total rate itself isn't referred to at all, which makes these numbers meaningless. The overall rate of drug addiction could actually have fallen, which could in turn mean the total number of OTC addicts has even dropped. It's impossible to know from the information given. In short, this is a less than useless article.

I would guess this was written off the back of a press release from the charity running the Rutland Centre, there certainly seems to be no study or primary paper cited as a source.

Odysseus

I have worked in a Meth clinic since 96, about 12 years ago I stated seeing people for the type of OTC codiene based pain killer we all know. At that time I would have been more aware of people who took very high doses of codine, say 500mg+, so with the amount of codiene that in these products I did have a difficultly seeing it as an addiction.

However, I tend to look for reasons to work with a person rather than not work with them. Often you find you are dealing with middle aged women in these cases. Over the years my view has chaged it really is a strong addiction, people suffer withdrawals like with an opiate, not as severe as with stronger opiates, but it is uncomfortable enough for people to do things that they thought they would never do, in order to get a bit more.

I don't think a lot of the article, but I generally don't think a lot about most articles on addiction I see in the media.

In general I would see 10-15 people a year for this, I lost one client a few years ago due to complications from N+, IIRC she had lost a significant amount of her stomach from long term use. I have seen people take up 40+ of these a day.

echo beach

Odysseus wrote: »

I don't think a lot of the article, but I generally don't think a lot about most articles on addiction I see in the media.

Have to agree with you there. If you have some knowledge of a subject you realise how inaccurate the media treatment of that subject is. You then have to suspect that it is equally inaccurate on other subjects that you don't have the knowledge to judge.
For that reason I don't pay a lot of attention to what appears in the media but many people treat it as undeniable proof. 'I read it in the paper' or 'I saw it on the news' is said as if no other evidence is needed.