Question One: Are We Managing Pain or Fueling Addiction?

This first question of managing pain or fueling addiction concerns what can happen when people are over-medicated or put on a medication that can be a problem for them.  One of my former patients, Jason, is a perfect example of what happens when addiction issues are not factored in to pain management. 

Jason first came to me for pre-marital therapy where he and his soon to be wife accomplished all of our treatment goals and we successfully terminated therapy.  I next heard from Jason about a year later and he was in trouble.  You see Jason had been in recovery for alcohol and methamphetamine addiction for over 12 years.  About six months after we stopped working together Jason got injured in a skiing accident and at first he was very conservative and used only over the counter  medication and physical therapy. 

As his pain continued to get worse Jason accepted a prescription for Vicodin from his doctor.  At first he only took 3-4 tablets per day but in a few months he was taking 15-18 per day from two different doctors.  Fortunately, we worked together with a different doctor and got him off the Vicodin and onto more appropriate pain management modalities.  Jason’s addiction was re-ignited and fueled by the Vicodin.

Question Two: Are We Treating Addiction But Sabotaging Pain Management?

This second question addresses what happens to a lot of people who become addicted to their pain medication and as a result end up in an addiction treatment program. In most cases the addiction program only focuses on one third of the problem—the addiction—and the pain condition does not get adequately addressed. 

Another patient of mine named Sharon is a perfect example of pain management being sabotaged by a well meaning treatment program.  When I first met her, Sharon was a 43 year old married mother of three grown children.  Sharon had never used alcohol or any other drugs including nicotine until at age 42 she started developing periodic migraines.  She went to her primary care physician and was given opiates for the pain.

At first Sharon was experiencing 2-3 episodes per month but after about nine months she was experiencing migraines 3-4 times a week.  In addition, over that period of time the type, strength, and frequency of her medication also increased dramatically.  She went from 5-10 Vicodin tablets per month to taking 4-6 80mg OxyContin tablets per day plus 5-6 Vicodin tablets per day for “breakthrough” pain. 

Her doctor finally became alarmed and told her she was an addict and needed to go to an addiction treatment program.  The program he recommended said they treated prescription drug addicted pain patients—unfortunately, they really didn’t address Sharon’s pain management needs at all. In fact, when she experienced migraines while in treatment she was told she was drug seeking and needed to learn to live with it. 

Sharon was finally discharged and sent home to a family system that now saw her as “one of those addicts.” Sharon became very depressed and suicidal and actually attempted to kill herself and as a result was hospitalized and that’s when she was referred to me. I’ll tell you the rest of her story in the next question.

Question Three: Is it Addiction or Pseudoaddiction?

The third question is about the phenomenon of pseudoaddiction.  After Sharon’s suicide attempt she was treated in a psychiatric hospital and they referred her to my private practice.  As I worked with her and gathered information I determined that Sharon was misdiagnosed as an addict.  Sharon suffered from pseudoaddiction, which is really mistreated or undertreated chronic pain. 

In 2004 the American Academy of Pain Medicine, the American Pain Society, and the American Society of Addiction Medicine collaborated on defining misunderstood terms in chronic pain management. One term was pseudoaddiction and this is their definition: Behaviors that may occur when pain is under treated.  Patients with unrelieved pain may become focused on obtaining medications, may “clock watch,” and may otherwise seem inappropriately “drug seeking.”  Even behaviors such as illicit drug use and deception can occur in the patient’s efforts to obtain relief.

The main point to remember here is that while pseudoaddiction looks an awful lot like addiction it is caused by an under treated or mistreated chronic pain condition.  I do want to make one important point however; my treatment plan for pseudoaddiction and addiction is identical.  The major danger of pseudoaddiction is that if it is not adequately addressed it will turn into full blown addiction—sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly.

In Sharon’s case she never should have been prescribed opiates for her migraines.  The research is very clear that opiates can lead to rebound or transfer migraine episodes.  In other words it was the heavy opiate use that led her from going from 2-3 migraine episodes per month to 3 to 4 per week.  Once Sharon was placed on an appropriate migraine medication management plan along with cognitive behavioral therapy her quality of life improved dramatically and her migraine episodes lessened both in frequency and intensity.

To learn more about effective chronic pain management check out my article The Need for Multidisciplinary Chronic Pain Management that you can download for free on our Article page.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you or a loved one is undergoing chronic pain management, especially if you’re in recovery or believe you may have a medication or other mental health problem and you want to learn more effective chronic pain management tools, please go to our Publications page and check out my books; especially the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Recovery Guide: Managing Pain and Medication in Recovery. To purchase this book please Click Here.

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