A new study led by Virginia Tech researchers has found that people with opioid use disorder who also suffer from ongoing pain may have a harder time recovering.
The study shows that when pain is not treated properly during addiction treatment, it can lead to worse outcomes, including continued drug use, mental health problems, and a lower quality of life.
The research was led by Allison Tegge, a professor at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech.
She and her team looked at data from 602 patients in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia.
The patients were mostly men around 40 years old and were receiving treatment for opioid addiction using a drug called buprenorphine. This drug is often used to help people safely stop using opioids.
Tegge explained that although pain and opioid use are closely connected, doctors don’t always pay enough attention to pain during addiction treatment. Some people even develop opioid addiction because they were first using opioids to treat pain.
The study found that many patients experienced less pain over time while in treatment. However, those who continued to have moderate to severe pain were more likely to use opioids again, feel more depressed, have stronger cravings, and suffer worse withdrawal symptoms. They also reported having a poorer quality of life.
Interestingly, having pain did not make people more likely to quit treatment altogether, but it did make recovery more difficult.
It’s still unclear whether people go back to using opioids because they are in pain, or if the opioids change how they feel and react to pain. More research is needed to understand this better.
Still, Tegge and her colleagues believe that treatment programs should pay closer attention to pain. They suggest that tracking pain levels and offering alternative ways to treat pain—besides opioids—might help improve recovery rates.
Tegge said it’s important to listen to patients and understand their full experience. Personalized treatment that addresses pain could lead to better outcomes for people trying to overcome opioid addiction.
If you care about pain, please read studies about Chronic morphine use for cancer pain may increase bone loss and findings of Scientists find a new hope for chronic pain.
For more about pain, please read studies about What you need to know about diabetes and joint pain and findings of Understanding the connection between liver disease and joint pain.
The study is published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
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