Chronic Pain Medications: Benefits vs Risks

As we enter the second half of the Decade of Pain Control, we have seen tremendous gains in the awareness of pain and pain control, as well as some obstacles that few of us may have predicted. Recent unprecedented media coverage of issues related to pain management has emphasized not only the need for increased education on pain and its treatment, but also the staggering increase in prescription drug abuse and its collateral impact on pain care. These arti-cles and programs have called attention to the fact that although medicine has succeeded at curing diseases and extending life, it has not done as well at improving quality of life. A recent ABC News/USA TODAY/Stanford University poll found that chronic pain affects one in five Americans with the majority being older people.1 The results suggest that our “cure-focused” medical system is now at risk of creating victims of its own success