Proposed 2022 CDC Clinical Practice Guideline for Prescribing Opioids

I guess the Biden Administration is all bent on drugging up people that want to be drugged up. Is this the first step to legalizing crazy stuff to screw up you minds. Not sure where all this will lead too. Any comments on this?

Prescribing Opioids—United States, 2022 (the clinical practice guideline). The clinical practice guideline updates and expands the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain—United States, 2016, and provides evidence-based recommendations for clinicians who provide pain care, including those prescribing opioids, for outpatients age 18 years and older with acute pain (duration less than 1 month), subacute pain (duration of 1-3 months), or chronic pain (duration of 3 months or more), not including sickle cell disease-related pain management, cancer pain treatment, palliative care, and end-of-life care.

www.federalregister.gov...

a reply to: musicismagic
I've been seeing people getting clogged up on opioids for thirty years.

Once the CIA got caught creating the coc aine epidemic they had to pass their black market funds through a legal market place to appear to not be a bunch of criminals

Your linked page doesn't say what the purpose changes will be and I haven't been able to find the document that lists the proposals.
It would be interesting to know if the proposed legislation are for stricter or less government control of opioids.

Your link has a link to a PDF.
www.govinfo.gov...

This clinical practice guideline is
voluntary; it provides recommendations
and does not require mandatory
compliance. It is intended to be flexible
to support, not supplant, clinical
judgment and individualized, patientcentered decision-making. This clinical
practice guideline is not intended to be
applied as inflexible standards of care
across patient populations by healthcare
professionals, health systems, thirdparty payers, organizations, or
governmental jurisdictions. The clinical
practice guideline is intended to achieve
the following: Improved communication
between clinicians and patients about
the risks and benefits of pain treatment,
including opioid therapy for pain;
improved safety and effectiveness for
pain treatment, resulting in improved
function and quality of life for patients
experiencing pain; and a reduction in
the risks associated with long-term
opioid therapy, including opioid use
disorder, overdose, and death.

edit on 600000099America/Chicago281 by nugget1 because: eta

a reply to: musicismagic

This isn't as bad as you are making it out to be. Clinical judgment is being returned to the physician for individualized, patient-centered decision-making. In other words, it gives the matter back to the physician. Untreated chronic pain patients are more prone to seeking their medications on the street, which is now more risky than ever, and making it harder for those who really need an opioid to get a prescription has considerably fueled the demand for illicit opioids.

Teens misusing pharmaceutical opioids that were not prescribed to them is the primary problem. Approximately 85% of heroin users admit to doing so.

originally posted by: nugget1
Your linked page doesn't say what the purpose changes will be and I haven't been able to find the document that lists the proposals.
It would be interesting to know if the proposed legislation are for stricter or less government control of opioids.

comments might be of interest

www.regulations.gov...

a reply to: nugget1

Your linked page doesn't say what the purpose changes will be and I haven't been able to find the document that lists the proposals.

Look at the links on the right hand side in the green box labeled "enhanced content".

a reply to: tamusan

No really, they can go and get a fix in one of the democrat's rat holes heroin clinics, no problems, they will be in la la land of oblivion for life.

No matter what been on drugs is never good and accomplish nothing but a life of addictions regardless of circumstances.

a reply to: marg6043

No matter what been on drugs is never good and accomplish nothing but a life of addictions regardless of circumstances.

You must not have experienced real chronic pain in your life. The majority of the people who do are already on disability due to their chronic pain.

a reply to: tamusan

And been doped makes their life better, they are disable for life, regardless soo been oblivious is much better, I guess.

Is plenty of treatments out there that do not require been doped for life.

a reply to: marg6043

By chronic pain, I mean debilitating. People with true chronic pain are unable to do anything but sit or lie down and suffer. Treating their pain gives them some of their life back. We can tell when a person is not really experiencing chronic pain and is just seeking drugs. Yes, unfortunately, there are unscrupulous doctors who will run a pill mill. Those are the ones that need to be dealt with. 

originally posted by: marg6043
a reply to: tamusan

No really, they can go and get a fix in one of the democrat's rat holes heroin clinics, no problems, they will be in la la land of oblivion for life.

No matter what been on drugs is never good and accomplish nothing but a life of addictions regardless of circumstances.

What are you talking about? You don't think people should be able to get pain medication from Doctors?

Even if a 'heroin clinic' was a logical alternative, where are they? Seriously, I have never in my life seen one. Are you saying that if I want pain medication, I should have to go on a long road trip to find some?


In my personal opinion, I think they should be sold over-the-counter.

originally posted by: tamusan

This isn't as bad as you are making it out to be. Clinical judgment is being returned to the physician for individualized, patient-centered decision-making. In other words, it gives the matter back to the physician. Untreated chronic pain patients are more prone to seeking their medications on the street, which is now more risky than ever, and making it harder for those who really need an opioid to get a prescription has considerably fueled the demand for illicit opioids.

That is actually completely logical. I hope you're right about that.

For the past several years, anytime you hear about the 'Opiod Crisis', it is about the high rates of overdoses and deaths, then they often talk about the Doctors over-prescribing the medication, but I don't think there really is an 'Opiod Crisis'. I think it is just a 'Fentanyl Crisis'.

Most people aren't going out looking for the strongest stuff they can possibly find. They just want some Vicodin, Lortab.(Hydrocodone.... the lower potency type opiod medications).

Many of the times when you hear about overdoses, it is often people who overdose on Fentanyl but didn't even know they were taking Fentanyl. Many of those overdoses never would have happened if they could have just gone to the store and bought some Vicodin.

originally posted by: tamusan
a reply to: marg6043

No matter what been on drugs is never good and accomplish nothing but a life of addictions regardless of circumstances.

You must not have experienced real chronic pain in your life. The majority of the people who do are already on disability due to their chronic pain.

You make a good point. My now deceased (old age) Aunt was in horrific spinal pain the last 10 years of her life. The only way she could not curl up in a ball in excruciating pain was to have a morphine pump. Every time the pump ran out accidentally before she could get her next appointment she ended up in ER in horrible pain (not addiction, but from the chronic pain she suffered from massive arthritis in her spine and all over her body - verified by x-rays and MRI). This was a woman who would not take a drink her entire life due to her religious convictions. But she would have curled up in a fetal position, and literally died because she could not move if it were not for her morphine drip.

Me? I have had quite a few surgeries the past few years and found opiate drugs to be worse than the pain for me. They make me feel like I have a bad case of the flu. I have to decide what is worse, the pain, or feeling like I have a bad case of the flu.

I found that motrin 800 every 4 hours followed by extra strength tylenol every 4 hours was, for me, better than an opiate at controlling pain without feeling like I had the flu. Surprisingly after my last procedure, I was "prescribed" motrin 800/tylenol extra strength - regimen by my MD, who had that on a handout he gave all his patients.

a reply to: musicismagic

i was in a really really nasty bike accident(bicycle) and i was hit by and older man when i was in the cross walk, he hit me at atleast 30mph the police said.

i still have more titanium than bone in parts of my hand.

this waws about 10-11 years ago and i had to have 5 operations and was put on a but load of painkillers and was on them for months, i was on a 100 mcg fentanyl patch and 30mg oxycodone 6 times a day as needed.

i needed them at the time but when i was getting weened off them i was having a really hard time adjusting and was still in alot of pain and i found out that someone i knew sold heroin and pills.

i became an IV drug user overnight, no hyperbole


it took me 7 years to kick the street drugs and now I'm on methadone and i look at it like taking a medicine like insulin, if i didn't take the medication i would slip into addiction again and I've been clean for almost 4 years.



pain killers have a necessity in medicine and doctors should treat pain and not worry about the government coming in and telling them how to care for their people.

don't get me wrong if there are doctors running pill mills that is clearly an issue but good doctors treating their patients pain should be able to use all tools available

and not everyone who takes opioids get addicted, obviously, but for some people like me it just threw the right switches in my brain and i got addicted without even knowing it until i was buying off the street.


no good answer for this situation, you cant not treat pain, but opioids need more education on the patient side.

before my spiral when i was getting my normal Rx's i refused to admit i had a problem it took a lot to get to that point, granted i was never arrested or stole to feed my habit or anything bad but i did have a few over doses towards the end of my addiction when they started putting fentanyl in the drugs,

a reply to: The2Billies

This was a woman who would not take a drink her entire life due to her religious convictions. But she would have curled up in a fetal position, and literally died because she could not move if it were not for her morphine drip.

There is a huge difference between someone who needs opiates and those who just want them. I'm sorry that your aunt had to spend her last days like this.

I have had quite a few surgeries the past few years and found opiate drugs to be worse than the pain for me. They make me feel like I have a bad case of the flu. I have to decide what is worse, the pain, or feeling like I have a bad case of the flu.

Personally, I do not completely understand people who abuse opioids. I get absolutely zero euphoric effect from them. In my early 20s, I had a retroperitoneal lymph node dissection and was on a morphine drip for several weeks. The doctor told me that the button would work every 5 minutes, and I was pressing it that often for the first day just to experiment. It didn't do anything really and I never pressed the button again. I had my gallbladder out and a lipoma removed in 2020. I was given some of the "good" opiates after both surgeries. I didn't even take them, but that's because I was also not feeling anything that I would consider pain.

I found that motrin 800 every 4 hours followed by extra strength tylenol every 4 hours was

I do similar. My neck has been really bothering me this year. I'll eat grunt candy (800 mg Motrin) in the morning and the Bayer Back and Body aspirin in the evening. I also put on a Salonpas patch. I find that this regimen works well enough for me, but I started getting some numbness in my arm and the side of my head. I got a prescription for muscle relaxers on Friday, but it hasn't been filled yet. I think that I should only need to take those for about a week or two. If that doesn't reset everything, I am going to try an anticonvulsant as a nerve block.

I'm fairly certain that it's my genes that lessen the effect of narcotics for me. I have all of the ones that are associated with psychopathy. Those same genes are linked to a negligible high from opioids and opiates. Those genes are also linked to a higher pain threshold. That's probably why I wasn't experiencing pain after my gallbladder surgery, which is a painful recovery for most people.

a reply to: BrokenCircles

You're right, it's the fentanyl and carfentanil that are the major driver in the huge increase in overdoses. But far fewer people would be getting their stuff from the black market if they were not cut off from getting a legitimate prescription.

SWIM lived a sad lonely life of self loathing and got hit by a drunk driver and broke SWIM’S thumbs when the airbag blew them back as SWIM braced. SWIM had been working counseling kids against bullying, teaching, translating, working for the Olympics, being a deeply faithful religious person and had always been the most empathetic and sensitive one around. The Vicodin prescribed for the broken bones, simply instructing take one every four hours, helped make the depression disappear and SWIM had no idea what Vicodin was. Took all hundred of em, lied and said they were lost to get another hundred, then pleaded with the doctor after years of trying depression meds please keep SWIM on Vicodin SWIM is telling you it has an off label use of curing depression. That’s when the doctor laughed and said of course it does its heroin basically. That totally unrealized abuse led to a month of buying pills from people which was so expensive it led to 12 years being an IV heroin addict. No criminal behavior in SWIM’S entire life and the experience of life without depression by mistakenly using euphoric opiates is the story of SWIM. People talk so poorly of opiate addicts and heroin addicts. They aren’t bad criminal people who should get good all the time. Sometimes they’re good loving people who just want to stop hurting from a disorder there is no cure yet for. Sometimes they take what the doctor orders without even being told about what’s on that Rx pad.

a reply to: The2Billies

Me? I have had quite a few surgeries the past few years and found opiate drugs to be worse than the pain for me. They make me feel like I have a bad case of the flu. I have to decide what is worse, the pain, or feeling like I have a bad case of the flu.

I didn't feel like I had the flu, but I too found opiates a worse alternative to my pain.

Chronic debilitating pain is a condition that I would not wish on anyone, and as a nurse, I have seen the whole range of possibilities associated with it. I don't believe anyone has the right to tell someone that they have to endure their pain if there is an agent of relief available.

I chose to suffer the pain rather than to suffer the effects of the opioids. I had the right to choose, and I would like the right to obtain relief if the pain ever got so bad I can no longer tolerate it. I have had moments in the past where the pain was so bad that I prayed for a sleep from which I would not awaken.

Unfortunately, my condition made any movement outside of shallow breathing so painful that even opioids were not successful in removing the pain. The only way I could get relief from the pain was to be sedated. I was bed bound for 3 months.

After my body had recovered enough for me to make the journey back to living a half way functional life, I started that journey cold turkey. My doctor was shocked to hear I had not taken any medications for over two weeks, when I went to my first outpatient doctor's visit.

He said it was a dangerous move and that I should have weaned myself off the medications if I had decided not to take them. What he did not understand was that the medications did not work, and there was nothing to wean myself off of. It wasn't like they subdued my pain, or that they even provided me with a sense of euphoria or distraction from the pain. They did absolutely nothing but made me sick, and made me feel worse.

I know what chronic debilitating is. Opioids did not work for me. If they work for someone else, I would hope they would be made available to them without hindrance. I honestly believe, if you get high of opioids, then it is very likely that you don't need them. If they reduce your pain to a level that allows improved function than I would think that they should be made available to you.

Big drawback though, is increased tolerance levels. I had a cancer patient once that wasn't as big as a minute, and barely weighed 90 pounds. She had a morphine pump and her dose rose to the point that it would have killed an elephant, and it did not phase her. So the downside one will have to understand, is that pain medication is not a cure. Chronic debilitating pain, will reach a point that your need for the drug will increase and your ability to function will decrease. That is why the usually save the heavy stuff to those that have short life expectations.

With or without the drugs, you are going to go through Hell. I think that people have the right to choose which Hell they want.