the top three procedures for children ages 0-11 account for 59% of opioids dispensed after surgery (tonsillectomies and adenoidectomies 50%, upper extremity fractures 5% and removal of deep implants 4%). Among those ages 12-21, the top three procedures account for about a third of post-surgery opioid prescriptions (tonsillectomies and adenoidectomies 13%, knee arthroscopies 13% and cesarean deliveries 8%).
For adults ages 18-44, C-sections account for the highest share of opioids dispensed post-surgery (19%), followed by hysterectomies (7%) and knee arthroscopies (6%). Among those ages 45-64, four of the top five procedures were orthopedic procedures, collectively accounting for 27% of total opioid prescriptions dispensed after surgery.
“Our findings suggest that surgical opioid prescribing is highly concentrated among a small group of procedures. Efforts to ensure safe and appropriate surgical opioid prescribing should focus on these procedures,” said Kao-Ping Chua, lead author of the study in Pediatrics, assistant professor at the U-M Medical School and School of Public Health, and co-director of the Research and Data Domain at the U-M Opioid Research Institute.
In addition to determining which procedures accounted for the highest shares of opioids, the researchers also examined the size of opioid prescriptions for each procedure. For many procedures, prescriptions were far larger than the amount patients typically need for a particular procedure.
That’s because pain sucks. And there’s a lot of pain that has no benefit. And we have a tool that can reduce suffering, and people have become hysterical because we’re shit at post-op care.
I wish on everyone who joins in this crusade against opioids to suffer with a chronic pain condition for which we have no cure. And deny them opioids.
Know what they’ll do? Suffer nobly for a few weeks, then start taking over-the-counter medications like Ibuprofen - which works great, BTW - at increasingly high doses. And maybe they’ll stop at the highest medical dose, but they’ll do that for a few years until they go into kidney failure - that’s now known to be a when, not an if, and then die in agony.
Or, they’ll go the alternate route, and just put a bullet in their head one day.
Chronic pain is easy to poo-poo when you don’t have to live with it every minute of every day of your life, and this hysteria has made the lives of chronic pain sufferers miserable, as it can outright deny them access to something that makes life bearable.
Don’t punish pain.
Don’t. Punish. Pain.
Don’t punish pain, you self-righteous pricks.