In 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) set opioid-prescribing guidelines for physicians. The idea was to offer doctors the best ways to protect people from an over-prescription of pain pills which had fueled the misuse of opioids and amplified cascading overdose deaths in the United States. While the goal was to protect patients, the impact was not all positive.
Following a backlash of complaints from pain patients, along with years of apparent misinterpretation among physicians and new evidence from studies that have been done since the 2016 guidelines went into effect, the CDC has drafted an updated proposal. The draft is in a public comment period that ends April 11.
In an article published by Cincinnati.com, Christine Wilder, MD, of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at the UC College of Medicine and the director of UC Health Addiction Sciences, was one of the experts quoted on the guideline changes, which she says she welcomes.
"I think (the original set) was adopted as 'the rules' by a lot of physicians, states, medical boards … who then required things such as explanations for any more than a seven-day prescription of medication. These are partly a response to that," she said.
Wilder told Cincinnati.com that after the 2016 guidelines came out, she saw an uptick in chronic pain patients asking for methadone treatment at the UC opioid treatment program - because their pain medication had been abruptly stopped or they had one negative drug screen.
"Physically they feel terrible," Wilder said. But some of the patients could not be treated with methadone at the clinic. "Legally for methadone, you can't admit someone to the clinic unless someone had opioid use disorder." That's not what they had. They were experiencing withdrawal because of their physical dependence on the medication, not addiction.
Lead photo of Christine Wilder, MD/Colleen Kelley/UC Creative + Brand
