Fibromyalgia and Zohydro: the Perfect Storm

A powerful new opioid painkiller called Zohydro is about to be unleashed on a willing, yet misguided population.

Opioids are a class of drugs that are commonly prescribed for pain-killing affect. They include morphine, codeine, oxycodone, and methadone. Opioids may be more easily recognized by drug names such as Kadian, Avinza, OxyContin, Percodan, Darvon, Demerol, Vicodin, Percocet, and Lomotil.

Prescriptions for painkillers in the United States have nearly tripled in the past two decades and fatal overdoses reached epidemic levels, exceeding those from heroin and cocaine combined, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The perfect storm is brewing. Combine desperate patients who’ve tried drug after drug only to continue to suffer years of chronic pain, poor sleep, depression, fatigue, and sheer mental exhaustion with well meaning, but totally short sided, and often frustrated, “drug only” physicians and you have a tsunami of such magnitude, there are no categories to place it in.

The long term and residual damage this drug will cause to the fibromyalgia community and their families, is cause for real alarm.

Experts report – Zohydro’s easily crushed capsules will contain up to 50 milligrams of pure hydrocodone; that’s 10 times more hydrocodone than a regular Vicodin. One capsule will pack enough hydrocodone to kill a child. An adult lacking a tolerance to opioids could overdose from taking just two capsules.

Zohydro is the atomic bomb of pain pills. Do we really need another, stronger, yet potentially more deadly narcotic?

Sadly for many fibro patients reading this, their initial response is-“yes, give me a stronger pain pill, the stronger the better.”

And while I understand that years of unrelenting pain can cause even the most stoic patient to look for any relief, no matter the risk, pain meds, at least long term, only lead to more problems.

Now before I get a flood of email from patients defending their pain pills, let me go on record as I have before – I’m not anti-drug and I’m not totally against pain meds. They can be a welcomed relief, a blessing for those in chronic pain. However, pain meds weren’t ever meant to be used long term. These drugs were supposed to be used for end stage cancer patients.

The problem with these drugs is that patients develop a tolerance for them over time and eventually they must more and more and stronger and stronger meds.

I realize this isn’t the case for everyone, but it is true for the majority of patients who go down this road. The road can be long and treacherous as these drugs take their toll on a person’s mental and physical health.

The scary thing about these meds is that more and more are being prescribed each year, over 92 million prescriptions last year alone.

My fear is that those with fibro, who have failed to respond to the mostly worthless “fibro drugs,” will be prescribed this drug too soon and too often, by traditional doctors who treat symptoms, not causes, and as such are doomed to failure. There will be, no doubt, an army of drug reps calling on doctors with samples and trinkets-pads, pens, coffee cups, free dinners, and trips, all to promote the SAFETY and effectiveness of Zohydro. The brainwashing will be intense.

Pain is a symptom. In the case of fibromyalgia the cause can be usually traced to allodynia or a low pain threshold brought on by poor sleep, low serotonin and other stress coping chemicals. The only way to reverse the symptoms of fibromyalgia is to treat the cause-poor health. Getting healthy from the inside out, finding the causes and then correcting the cause(s), is the only way to beat fibro.

If caught early enough, fibro can be reversed and without life robbing drugs.

Please read my book https://essentialtherastore.com/collections/books or listen to some of my patients testimonials, it can be beat.

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According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), overdoses of prescription painkillers have more than tripled in the past 20 years, killing more than 15,500 people in the United States in 2009. In fact, more people die from prescription opioid painkillers than from heroin and cocaine combined (45 deaths each day).

Emergency-room visits for prescription painkiller abuse or misuse have doubled in the past five years, to nearly half a million. About 12 million Americans reported using prescription painkillers for nonmedical reasons or simply to get high. And nonmedical use of prescription painkillers costs more than $72.5 billion each year in direct healthcare costs.

The FDA approved Zohydro despite the strong objection of an FDA advisory committee, which voted 11-to-2 against it. This may be the first time in history that the FDA will allow a drug to be released despite a landslide vote to keep it off the market.

A letter signed by more than 40 organizations was sent to FDA Commissioner Hamburg, urging her to keep Zohydro off the market. The organizations include some of the most prominent addiction-treatment agencies in the country, including Hazelden, Caron, and Phoenix House. Other co-signers include CASAColumbia, the American Society of Addiction Medicine, Blue Cross Blue Shield, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, and dozens of community-based addiction-prevention organizations.

I know from specializing in treating and beating fibromyalgia for the last 17 years, I will get hate mail from patients defending their pain meds, I understand. I’m a realist, I know there is a time and a place for pain meds, for all meds.

However, once again I must do what is right for my fibro patients and community at large that reads my blogs, listens to my conferences or reads my books-and what is right is warning that while failed back surgeries, chronic pain from past traumas, or end stage cancer warrant long term opioid treatment, AND I KNOW there exceptions, but the overwhelming majority of fibro patients don’t.

If you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired why not try something different? 90% of my practice is phone consults. If needed I order blood work and lab tests that they patient does in their hometown. Everything can be done by phone.

Call the clinic 205-879-2383 and set up a phone or in clinic consult.

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