Patient Seeking Pain Medications for Getting High

Patient Seeking Pain Medications for Getting High

Introduction

According to a study, emergency departments handling around 74,000 patients a year can expect a visit from 261 drug-seeking patients in a month. Differentiating among legitimate patients, who need medications for pain release, from drug seekers is possible in medical care setting; however, physicians regularly find themselves in an ethical dilemma, dual obligation of identifying drug seekers and providing medications to the actual patients. There are many pain reliving medications, such as opioids, which are used for controlling pain, but these medicines can also be used for recreational abuse. Hence, it is necessary that physicians can segregate rightful patient from addicts and manage the situation effectively. The research paper highlights the ethical dilemma faced by professionals in such circumstances and the behavior of addicts (Zednich & Hedges, 1996).

Medication Abuse

According to the Drug Abuse Task Force and the American Medical Association's Council of Scientific Affairs Panel on Alcoholism, substance abuse is the usage of psychoactive substance in a detrimental manner for individual, as well as, society, while not meeting drug or substance criteria. The description can be expanded to include usage of medicines, such as Opioids, for reasons other than controlling pain (recreational purpose). Influencing factors are depression, lack of social support, an unhealthy lifestyle, and chronic disease (such as chronic pain). Certain behaviors of drug addicts includes insistence on a particular drug, claiming allergy from other drugs, or asserting that other prescriptions do not work (Parran, 1997).

An obsession with opioids during the appointment also tends to be related with misuse. Drug abusers show behavior such as engaging in scams (faking kidney stones) to get narcotics. Most of the abusers are younger people. According to a study, patients aged 18 to 40 are 10 times more likely of abusing than patients aged over 65. According to a study consisting of drug seeking patients, the mean age of drug seekers was 34 years. The average number of visits by these patients was 12/5 a year, using around average 2.1 different aliases (Streltzer, 2000).

Problem with Opioids

Opioids are extensively used in the medical field for treating pain. The medication has its psychosocial and physiological limitations. Opioids have some analgesic properties, which produce psychological effects. These effects are more prominent particularly in mu-receptor agonists. Opioids produce a reaction typically described as decreased drowsiness, anxiety, sense of tranquility and change in mood, when consumed by normal patients. Such medications produce reaction of detachment and “freedom from worries of the world”. Patients feel “dull general distress”. Some volunteers of a research study reported elevation in self-esteem and mood after taking such medications. Few volunteers also reported feeling of rush to sexual orgasm, when taken intravenously.

Additionally, these medications are intrinsically reinforcing, apart from generating euphoria or pleasant sensations. When patients use these drugs along with other stimuli or actions, these produce entrenched conditioning or learning. Continuous usage of drug may result in permanent alterations in tegmental area of the ...