Prescription Pain Killers Becomming Major Killers Themselves

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Prescription Pain Killers Becoming Major Killer
March 30th, 2006 @ 10:00pm

John Hollenhorst Reporting

If something you can buy at the store suddenly started killing 250 Utahns a year, you'd think there'd be a huge public outcry. You'd think, but there's been no public outcry at all. That's a real body count, with a trend that's getting drastically worse.
The killer is prescription pain-medicine. The victims are not drug abusers on the street, but average Utahns under the care of a doctor. Legally prescribed pain-killers came out of nowhere in the last six years to become a leading cause of death.
It's the miracle in a bottle and a potential death trap for people like Kay Brown. He suffered from chronic back pain so severe he says it was like nothing else in the world mattered. Then he got relief from Morphine, Methadone, Oxycodone.
Dr. M. Kay Brown, Pain Victim: "They don't really solve it. They ameliorate it. I can bear it. I can stand it. I can function both in my family and in my profession."
But Utah's Medical Examiner Todd Grey has noticed a severe side-effect, death, in growing numbers.
Dr. Todd Grey, Utah Medical Examiner: 'What I consider spectacular numbers now. Spectacularly bad."
Epidemiologist Christy Porucznik has been giving presentations on the rising death toll to pain doctors.
Christy Porucznik, Epidemiologist, Utah Dept. of Health: "I can just see their faces get white because they know they're prescribing these drugs pretty commonly."
Through the 1990's, a couple of dozen Utahns a year died from legally-prescribed pain-killers. In 1999 it turned steeply upward; 249 last year, who knows how many in 2006.
Dr. Todd Grey: "Quite frankly, I think it's an epidemic."
The deaths are thought not to be suicides. It's mostly accidental overdoses by people who are not chronic abusers.
Dr. Robert Finnegan, Univ. of Utah Pain Clinic: "We're talking about average folds, white collar workers, blue collar folks."
Pain doctors used to steer away from narcotics because of worries about addiction and abuse.
Dr. Robert Finnegan: "We didn't want to give much."
But the medical culture shifted as the benefit to pain patients like Kay Brown became clear.
Christy Prucznik: "Pain is managed much more aggressively, which is a good thing because we don't want people to be in pain. But at the same time, I think the pendulum might have swung a little bit too far."
Some pain victims simply use too much; they get relief and want more. Doctors sometimes prescribe multiple drugs that interact in poorly understood ways.
Christy Prucznik: "And so there's not going to be one easy solution."
Kay Brown worries that if the pendulum swings too far the other way, he'd be pushed back into his own personal Hell.
Dr. Kay Brown: "That's where I'd be, I'd be locked in that little dark room with no escape."
The same trend is beginning to get noticed in other states. Experts predict it will trigger serious re-thinking about the best way to control severe pain.