The nation’s top public health agency is proposing changing — and in some instances, softening — guidelines for doctors prescribing opioid painkillers.
The nation's top public health agency on Thursday proposed changing — and in some instances, softening — guidelines for U.S. doctors prescribing oxycodone and other opioid painkillers.
The general intent is to foster individualized patient care, Jones said. It also offers more options for treating the kind of short-term, acute pain that follows surgeries or injuries.Close-up of an opened prescription bottle, labelled as containing the opioid hydrocodone, as a number of its pills lie on a white surface, March 14, 2017.
"That's disastrous for patients in pain," said Mukkamala, chairman of the American Medical Association board of trustees.Opioids can be an important tool in treating severe pain from cancer, surgery and serious injuries. But they also can be addictive — even when used under doctors’ orders. The CDC's 2016 prescribing guidelines said opioids should not be the first treatment for chronic pain. Doctors were urged to first try other medications or nondrug options, limit opioid prescriptions for short-term pain to three days, and to prescribe the lowest effective dose possible.
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