Finding alternatives to prescription pain drugs
"As a nation we are pill-poppers, and that worries me a lot," says Josephine P. Briggs, MD. In this HealthMakers series, she explains the importance of research on mental strategies and complementary health practices to help with pain management.
Transcript
And so pain and figuring out ways in which we can have some tools and alternatives to pharmacology for pain, it's become very central.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Americans take a lot of pills. As a nation, we are pill poppers,
and that worries me a lot. This country is in the middle of an epidemic of prescription
drug abuse. Opioids are essential for pain management in a variety of settings, but they don't truly
always empower people to feel that they can control the pain. So the work around mental strategies
to help with pain management I just view as incredibly important. Something between a third and 40% of Americans
use some form of complementary health practice in their lives. And that includes the use of dietary supplements. It includes the use of yoga, meditation,
going to a chiropractor, going to a massage therapist. People turn to these practices for pain management.
And so pain and figuring out ways in which we can have some tools and alternatives
to pharmacology for pain. It's become very central in the work that we're supporting.
One of the things that will be testable soon is how do the pain circuits get modified by practices like yoga
or mindfulness meditation? And it's a pretty intriguing business
because the potential to modify pain circuitry, the plasticity
of the brain, is such that we're increasingly understanding that we may be able to really see
changes in circuitry. I suspect 100 years from now, our understanding will still seem very simplistic.
What we look at with these methods that I enthuse about the work is proceeding at just at breathtaking speed.
And it's very exciting to watch it. [AUDIO LOGO]
alternative medicine
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