Beware of pain medication. Don’t let them harm you, avoid habit-forming! Get to know the applicability of CBD to a wide range of capabilities.
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In short, I would like to prompt your mind to make informed decisions about pain medication, its performance, and quality. This could help you to protect yourself from the harmful effects of opioids and approach towards a lifestyle led way to health and wellness.
Performance & Quality
Performance and Quality, quite a broad, subjective area that has always gained importance in all domains of the service Industry. But in order to simply understand the problem of quality and management of pain in this context, studies say that prevalence of postoperative pain has remained high over the past decade. Especially with reference to U.S. hospitals, pain management still remains inadequately managed for many patients.
For example, while dealing with pain medication it is extremely important to be completely aware of the causes, consequences of undertreating pain, administering high dosages of pain killers, improper or faulty pain assessments, history of pain, and a lot more based on case to case.
How familiar are you with Opioids?
According to NIH (National Institute on Drug Abuse), Opioids are a class of drugs that include illegal drug heroin, synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, and also includes pain relievers such as oxycodone (OxyContin®), hydrocodone (Vicodin®), codeine, morphine, and many others.
According to the data available from health systems, from the CDC (Centres for disease control and prevention) it estimates that 9.6–11.5 million adults, or approximately 3%–4% of the adult U.S. population, were prescribed long-term opioid therapy in 2005.
Some of the other important outcomes of this study are:
- In the United States alone, from the year 1999 to 2014, more than 165,000 persons died from overdose related to opioid pain medication.
- The data revealed that in the past decade, the death rate associated with opioid pain medication has increased markedly although the death rates of due to heart disease and cancer showed a substantial decrease.
- Sales of opioid pain medication showed an increase in parallel with opioid-related overdose deaths.
The Opioid Crisis
The opioid crisis is very real and continues to grip the United States, killing more than 100 people per day in 2016. Although Europe is much more regulated when it comes to prescribing opiates, Western Europe is starting to catch up to the United States to increase in rates of opioid prescribing.
Several EU countries allow over-the-counter sales of milder pain medication: codeine. Although it is less dangerous than heroin, codeine is turned into morphine in the liver and can still be toxic in high doses. Europe’s opioid problem has largely been restricted to heroin, although there are signs of prescription painkillers becoming a problem.
Be mindful about these 5 Prescription Medicines:
1. Painkillers
Prescription painkillers like Hydrocodone, Tramadol, and Oxycodone are among the most widely used pain medications in the United States.
2. Anti-Anxiety Medication
Prescription medications like Xanax and Valium are commonly prescribed for people who show symptoms of anxiety disorder, where they find it challenging to complete even everyday tasks. Hence these medications help them to find relief. But not without some dangerous side effects including cognitive decline, suicidal thoughts, addiction, and even death.
3. Stimulants
Medications such as Ritalin and Adderall are usually used in managing ADD/ADHD. However, these medications present various side effects like insomnia, nervousness, high blood pressure, headache, and upset stomach. These side effects can be severe and affect a sufferer’s life.
4. Antidepressants
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are commonly prescribed by doctors as medications for depression. SSRIs include fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Paxil, Pexeva), sertraline (Zoloft), citalopram (Celexa) and escitalopram (Lexapro).
Serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs). Examples of SNRI medications include duloxetine (Cymbalta), venlafaxine (Effexor XR), desvenlafaxine (Pristiq), and levomilnacipran (Fetzima).
Some more commonly prescribed antidepressants in this category include trazodone, mirtazapine (Remeron), vortioxetine (Trintellix), vilazodone (Viibryd) and bupropion (Wellbutrin SR, Wellbutrin XL, others). Bupropion is one of the few antidepressants not frequently associated with sexual side effects.
5. Sleep Aids
Sleep aids are prescribed for Insomnia, a common sleep problem that grips adults. The National Institutes of Health estimates that roughly 30 percent of the general population complains of sleep disruption, and approximately 10 percent have associated symptoms of daytime functional impairment consistent with the diagnosis of insomnia.
Bad food habits, unhealthy eating habits, a sedentary lifestyle, stress, anxiety, all these causes and aggravates sleep deprivation to Insomnia.
Most prescription drugs for Insomnia are recommended to be administered just before going to bed. Activities that involve concentration are not possible as it induces sleep and might increase the risk of accidents.
Some of the prescription medicines that are used for Insomnia
Antidepressant drugs like Trazodone HCL, are prescribed. The others include Benzodiazepines: or sleeping pills – temazepam (Restoril), triazolam (Halcion), Zolpidem (Ambien, Edluar, Intermezzo) Zaleplon, Sonata, etc.
Most of the over – the -counter sleeping pills are antihistamines that are much like the medicines for common cold or allergies. But too much intake of this might become dangerous.
This is to say, that these prescription drugs leave long-lasting side effects like addiction and dependence. Along with this, the risk of a black box warning against their use with opioids has to be taken into consideration because they directly affect respiration and increase your risk of overdose.
In the same vein, the FDA issued public warnings in 2007, to alert patients that these drugs could cause allergic reactions and complex sleep-related behaviors.
Likewise, treating skin conditions like eczema dermatologists may generally suggest Corticosteroids that control flare-up, and Calcineurin inhibitors that work on the immune system. The downside of these medications could have serious side effects.
An alternative approach
Talking about alternative approaches to health, Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), Traditional Medicine (TM) Chinese Medicine (CM) are some acronyms gaining popularity in the medical domain.
According to a report, Traditional medicine is a comprehensive term used to refer to Chinese medicine, Indian Ayurveda, and Arabic Unani and Indigenous medicines and is used when referring to Africa, Latin America, South-East Asia, and Western Pacific. And CAM is used when referring to Europe, North America, and Australia.
The U.S. National Institutes of Health has grouped CAM into five categories, under which vitamins and mineral supplements, natural products, herbals, etc. are included.
What could be the reasons for the growth of demand for alternative medicines?
Firstly, change in lifestyle, diet, work culture, stress are key drivers for the causation of several new diseases and secondly, there is an increase in the need for an integrated approach from CAM, TM and Allopathy medicines for the development of future health care strategies for a globalized world.
In conclusion, some of the recommendations of the study are, countries could devote additional resources to studying those CAM and TM approaches that appear to be the most promising.
It also emphasizes some priority areas that CAM and TM could be addressed with widely applicable research including studies of approaches to palliate chronic pain and suffering, relieve depression, help release the grip of addictive substances, and slow the progression of degenerative disorders such as arthritis and dementia.
Bright side
- The applicability of CBD to a wide range of capabilities is gaining popularity both in terms of awareness and research.
- Research indicates that phytocannabinoids have a therapeutic potential because of their capacity to interact with ECS.
- The increasing awareness of cannabis is creating more documented health benefits that can be of great relevance to the field of medicine.
- A 2009 study published for the journal of psychoactive drugs, conducted a survey study of 350 cannabis patients. They reported that they used it as a substitute for pharmaceuticals or prescription drugs and that it had less withdrawal potential than other medicines.
- The legalization of the medical and therapeutic use of cannabis is spreading hence there is scope for improved knowledge and evidence-based outcomes on cannabis.
- If traditional medicines interest you, read about how certain herbs have occupied a significant role in food and health.