080- Opioid Epidemic: FDA Recommends Chiropractic

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Hello and welcome to the Evidence Based Chiropractor. I AM your host, Dr. Jeff Langmeh. This week we are talking about the new FDA guidelines that got everybody hot and heavy this week. The FDA guidelines, they recently came out with some updated information that recommended chiropractic care and or acupuncture before opioids. And we all know prescription medication you use, overuse and abuse has become an epidemic issue within the United States and afar. And really the endorsement of natural health choices such as chiropractic care is certainly a big right step in the correct direction for the health of our country, certainly now and also in the future. So that's what we'll be talking about today. This is an episode you do not want want to miss. But before we get started, I will say a few words as we do each and every week about Rock Tape. You gotta check it out. Rock Stock 2017 is coming up September 22nd and 23rd in beautiful Huntington Beach, California. It is Peace, Love and Movement, the fifth annual Movement Summit. I will be there interviewing all the docs, getting a bunch of footage. Number one, you should be there because Rock Tape, the scout schedule, the teachers, the entertainment, the fun is absolutely at 10 out of 10. But if you needed one more inkling of an idea on why you should go, I will be there interviewing chiropractors and the like all weekend long. So if you'd like to hang out, chat, talk shop and get some promotion for you and your practice, be sure to find me at Rock Stock. I will be there September 22nd and 23rd in Huntington Beach, California. I should say we are at June 11th. I'm recording this on Sunday. You will be hearing it at the earliest on June 12th. And early bird pricing ends June 15th. Don't miss out, save your money, get your tickets now and I will see you out there very very shortly. So as I talked about, this week is all about opioids. They have been a topic of hot discussion in the United States and afar for a long time. And truthfully, in the last little while, meaning the last few years, it's become a big time issue. If we look between 1991 and 2011, prescriptions of painkillers in the United States grew from 76 million. 76 million in 1991 is already astronomical. As far as I'm concerned, something like 350 million people in the United States, maybe less than that. They grew from 76 million prescriptions in 1991 to 219 million prescriptions per year by 2011. If that's not staggering enough, let's go through a few more stats. These stats are not, they're not good, they're not going to make you happy to listen to, but they are exceptionally, exceptionally important to understand. In 2015, there were 52,000American deaths, all from drug overdoses. When we think of that, we might think of heroin, recreational drugs, cocaine, et cetera. Well, think again. Two thirds of them, 33,000 deaths, were from opioids in 2015. And that's compared to 16,000 deaths in 2010 and 4,000 deaths in 1999. 1999. I don't know if this makes me sound old or young, but in 1999 I was in my freshman year of college. 4,000 people died from opioids. 4,000 people, that's quite 352 days in a year. So that is multiple people every single year. Again, to put that in perspective, in 2015, 52,000 people from drug overdose death, 33,000 people in 2015 died from opioids. And here's the challenge is that as chiropractors, we are seeing patients each and every day in our practice that have been prescribed opioids. And that's just the facts. Now, all guidelines, the American College of Physicians, the American Pain Society, a vast array of professional organizations have come out and told their doctors, their MDs, their ADOs, their members, pump the brakes because it is epidemic and the pendulum's gonna swing the other way and it's not gonna be pretty for a lot of these docs that, you know, there's a certain percentage out there that are just kind of the classic pill mills, if we just call it as it is. That's not a lot of docs out there, but there's a certain percentage of that. But then there's other docs that due to habit, due to myth, due to conjecture, just being out of touch, et cetera, are still prescribing these medications for non terminal pain, non cancer type pain, basically for spine related complaints. And that is very, very, very heavily swayed against, they should not be doing that in this day and age. There is way too much risk. Forget about the risk of death. I mean, we're talking about 33,000 people dying in 2015 specifically, specifically due to opioids. And a majority of those prescription. So they weren't sold or pushed on the street. They picked it up thinking it was going to help them, thinking their doctor gave them the right thing to move forward and get well. And they ended up dying. 33,000 people in 2015 alone. That's staggering. That takes my breath away. But think of how many people of that have suffered a life of addiction, have suffered a life of other consequences as a result of the staggering addiction to these dangerous, dangerous, dangerous medications. In 2014, almost 2 million Americans abused or were dependent on prescription opioids. About 300 million people in America, 2 million of those in 2014 were either abusing or dependent on specifically prescription opioids. Again, as many as one in four people who receive prescription opioids long term for non cancer pain struggled with addiction. A 25% chance if you get prescribed this that you're going to end up with some sort of addiction. And every day over 1,000 people are treated in emergency departments for misusing prescription opioids. Thankfully, not all of them suffer the ultimate consequence and pay the ultimate price. But over 1000 people every single day visiting emergency rooms as a direct result of opioid misuse that they were prescribed to, quote, unquote, get well. Well, perhaps the first inkling of the tide turning is starting to take place because that's all the negative news. But if we spin it to the positive, the FDA put out in May 2017, this is brand new, this is fresh, this they put out the education blueprint for healthcare providers involved in the management or support of patients with pain. And they kind of dive into acute versus chronic pain, neuropathic pain versus non neuropathic pain assessments, case history tools. I will link this PDF in the show notes. So if you want to check out a direct PDF from the fda, you can do so in the show notes. I'll be happy to share it with you. But really the interesting piece in what got me excited, what got you listening and what got us all excited this past week when I brought this out and we brought it out to the public and everybody started sharing, commenting and liking, was the fact that for perhaps for the first time, the FDA said, hey docs, you should be looking at and, or recommending acupuncture and or chiropractic care before writing that prescription for opioids. And this is a big step in the right direction. Again, we talked about the fact that the American Pain Society, that the American College of Physicians, that some of these groups and organizations have taken a step, saying that exact item saying before opioids try conservative care Such as chiropractic. Heck, just not too long ago we found out that the organizations were saying before you try any medications, which is really the way it should be, before you try any medications, NSAIDS included, you should be trying acupuncture and or chiropractic care. But for the Food and Drug Administration, for the fda, the organization that approves and recommends, not to get political here, but approves and or recommends the use of these medications and certainly in my opinion, probably benefits from the mass sale of these medications. For them to come out and say before providers, before you make the prescription, before you make the recommendation of opioids, you should be exploring and exhausting conservative care, including by name chiropractic care is a huge, huge step in the right direction for our profession. So that's something that I think all of us need to not only be aware of, and we need to be aware of some of these statistics as well. When we have patients coming in and you're asking them what medications they're on and they're listing a vast array of methadone, oxycodone, oxycontin, hydrocodone, Vicodin, common opioids, when they're listing these items, they need to be informed. And I'll be very, very frank. You know, we are not as chiropractors, we don't have the prescriptive rights to take people off of medications. Obviously prescriptive to prescribe medications in many cases where the antithesis to that. But it's important to be able to have an open dialogue and patients need to be aware. When you talk about 33,000 people dying in a year and 1,000 people every single day in ERS as a result of these medications, it's not because people want to be dying or want to be going to the er. It's that they're taking these on label as prescribed by a physician, thinking they are actually doing the right thing. A lot of them, there are certain ones that are again fall into the addictive category. 25% of those fall into the addictive category. That's a whole nother can of worms. But there's going to be a majority of these individuals that are suffering devastating consequences as a result of what doing what they think is actually the right thing to do. And it is imperative the onus is on us to step up to the plate, to engage, to inform and to share this information with our patients. I am actually going to go and repost the initial link that I had put on Facebook regarding this information and these articles. I'm going to repost it to facebook.com the evidencebasedchiropractor. I'm do that on Monday morning, tomorrow morning. And I would encourage you if you did not share it the first time to your practice page and your friends and family, I would really encourage you to do so. You have patients, probably a good percentage of them that are taking opioids. There are probably people in your family and friends are that as well. And for them to get some additional information, it truly, and I say this with levity and with gravity, it truly may save a life. And the fact that the cdc, the fact that the fda, the American College of Physicians is starting to get behind, stand behind and call chiropractic out by name as a better option or something that should in the very least be explored first is a huge, huge move. If you want to take this information, bring it to the next level and build relationships with other providers in your town. MDs, DCs, excuse me, MDs, DOs. You can also build relationships with DCs, but specifically MDs, DOs, PTs, midwives, doulas, any healthcare practitioner. We'll include DCs in there. You should know your friends and neighbors. You should be a member, in that case of the Evidence Based Chiropractor. We take research like this every each and every month. We create a full system in order to bridge the gap and build a relationship, referral relationship, that is to get more new patients into your office with, in my opinion, the greatest opportunity, which is relationships with other providers. And we do that better than anybody else, bar none. Check us out the evidencebasedchiropractor.com I hope you have a great week in practice and I will talk to you soon.

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