In response to a recent article by the Los
Angeles Times focusing
on the popular opioid painkiller, OxyContin, Boston Magazine interviewed local doctors to get their thoughts on the drug.
The L.A. Times piece focused on how OxyContin stops being
effective after eight hours, and not after 12, which is what’s advertised.
According to Dr. Andrew Kowal, director of the Division of Pain Medicine at
Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, the information is not necessarily new to
doctors.
However, Dr. Kowal believes that they use of OxyContin may
be on the way out.
“I try to help patients lower their dose or get off opioids
completely,” he says. “Patients now want to get off the medications because
they read about all of this. In general, there’s a trend to go away from it,
and slowly but surely, that will probably happen.”
To read more, please visit Boston Magazine.