Purdue Pharma recently ran a full-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post asserting that the company, which manufactures prescription opioids, wants to limit the use of prescription opioids. While this ad may have left some readers confused, one point rang true: “we believe the country needs a new approach to prescribing opioids.”
In its approach to addressing the opioid crisis, Purdue Pharma is encouraging limiting patient access to various treatment options, including limiting exposure to opioids. The ad stated that Purdue Pharma will no longer promote opioids as an option for pain treatment to prescribers. Instead, the company calls for access to multi-modal and non-pharmacologic options — which are two treatment options that the American Academy of Pain Medicine supports as solutions to addressing this widespread issue.
As the professional society representing the nation’s doctors, nurses, researchers, and other clinicians who are tasked with treating pain, we could not agree more with Purdue Pharma’s statement that we need a new approach to prescribing opioids. To achieve a new approach, however, will require the society to rectify the misconception that treating pain equals prescribing opioids. In fact, there are many treatment modalities in pain management, including non-pharmacological (physical, behavioral, cognitive), pharmacological (non-opioid and opioids), interventional (nerve blocks, ablations, and modulations), surgical, and complementary and alternative treatment. This approach to pain is termed multimodal pain care. In cases where patients have failed to respond to non-opioid therapy but responded well to opioid medications with improved quality of life and better functions, opioid therapy may be appropriate and necessary.
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