Tennessee is ranked among the top two states in painkiller prescription rates. Tennessee has made progress in fighting the opioid epidemic. The state has declared the massive problem the No. 1 public health crisis in the state and painkiller prescriptions have fallen from 8.5 million to 7.8 million over the past three years. Companies like BlueCross BlueShield Tennessee […]
There are more opioid prescriptions than people in Tennessee
Health care professionals in Tennessee last year wrote more than 7.8 million opioid prescriptions — or 1.18 for every man, woman and child — even as the state grapples with a scourge of painkiller addiction and abuse. The total places Tennessee second in the nation, behind only Alabama in prescriptions of the drugs, according to IMS Health data. Even though the […]
What Can We Do To Combat Opioid Addiction?
Opioid addiction is a growing problem in the United States and especially in Tennessee. According to the Tennessee Department of Health, there has been a 220 percent increase in drug overdose deaths from 1999 to 2012, and in 2012, prescription opioids passed alcohol for the first time as the primary substance of abuse. This problem […]
Dr. Manoj Jain: Doctors must play a role in curbing opioid addiction
Last week, thousands of my physician colleagues and I received a letter from the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy. He asked us to change our behavior in prescribing pain medicines. Around the same time, I was seeing a middle-aged man who had been admitted to the hospital for the fifth time in the same […]
Opioid Addiction: Why It’s An Epidemic
When people hear the word “epidemic,” they often think of smallpox or the flu. In reality, the word can apply to anything affecting a disproportionately large number of individuals within a population, community or region at the same time. With that in mind, let’s break down that definition and apply it to opioid addiction. There […]
Family and Friends Main Source for Opioids
Opioid abuse is a nationwide epidemic, and Tennessee is one of the top states for overdose deaths. Count It! Drop It! Lock It!™ (CLD) is focused on educating Tennesseans on what they can do to help stop abusers from having easy access to opioids. CLD encourages all Tennesseans to count their pills, store them in […]
Chronic Pain Can Be Managed Without Opioids
The headlines about the opioid epidemic are ubiquitous. Still, appropriate anger has been expressed by the public over the repetitive statement of the problem without viable solutions, especially for those with chronic pain. I recently did a TEDxNashville talk describing how we got into this opioid epidemic, and the evidence-based solution to get us out, […]
