Ohio Doctors to Discuss Alternatives to Opioids for Patients` Pain Treatment

Aug. 24—An organization of physicians dedicated to treating patients' pain is coming together to discuss ways to help stem Ohio's opioid crisis.

The Ohio Society of Interventional Pain Physicians holds its first annual meeting in Cincinnati from Friday to Sunday. Among subjects to be addressed are alternatives to opioids, ways to help people who become addicted and use of marijuana as a possible treatment for pain.

"The biggest thing is how to treat people appropriately, correctly," said Dr. Ricardo Buenaventura, the society's president. "It's easy to give somebody a pain pill, but we realize that's not good for the long term for a significant portion of people."

Some alternatives to opioids are non-opioid medications, injections, physical therapy and psychological counseling. Chiropractic treatment, massage, spinal-cord stimulation and surgery are also often used, he said.

The cost of insurance premiums or co-pays, however, often dissuade people from participating in such treatment, Buenaventura said. It's also challenging when patients expect to be cured from conditions such as arthritis, for which there is no cure.

On the one hand, some doctors are criticized for not helping a patient when they don't prescribe opioids, said Michelle Byers, event organizer. On the other, doctors are also criticized for contributing to the opioid problem when they do prescribe the medications.

"The physician is in a can't-win situation," Byers said. "It's a really, really tough situation."

Speakers include Dr. Amol Soin, president of the State Medical Board; Dr. Kent Harshbarger, Montgomery County coroner; and, journalist Sam Quinones, who wrote about the opioid crisis in his book "Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic."

Army veteran Justin Minyard will also tell the story of his active-duty injury, addiction to opioids and overcoming addiction with alternative forms of pain therapies.

"We think we can do a lot of education and physician outreach to help with prescribing patterns and to help recognize problems with pain medications, addiction and over-prescribing, also pitfalls for physicians to avoid," said Soin, who is CEO of the society.

Opioids first received a lot of publicity about 20 years ago, amid a culture that believed pain should be treated more aggressively and physicians being told the drugs weren't addictive. As a consequence, doctors prescribed them liberally.

Often the prescriptions led to addictions. At times, young people found them in medicine cabinets. Many addicts who lost access to pills turned to heroin and the far more potent fentanyl and carfentanil, synthetic opioids.

The addictions have led to an unprecedented drug epidemic. Last year in the United States, 52,000 people died of drug overdoses; almost two-thirds of those deaths were from prescription or illegal opioids.

The number of drug-abuse deaths rivals the number of U.S. troops killed in the Vietnam War, Buenaventura said.

"We certainly are in the midst of a crisis," he said. "Yet people aren't up in arms about this as much, so it needs to be brought to people's awareness."

The annual meeting will be held at the Westin Hotel on Fountain Square at 21 E. 5th St. in Cincinnati. Registration is available on site. For more information or to register in advance, email MichelleHByers@gmail.com or visit https://www.regonline.com/registration/Checkin.aspx?EventID=1967722.

The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio