Pain Relief without Opioids

When Rob Buck had to have surgery on his colon in October of 2017, he also agreed to be part of a study to look at whether non-narcotic pain medication could help him manage any discomfort afterwards. The pain was to be expected with a procedure that required an incision in his abdomen.

With opioid addiction making headlines across the country, Buck knew he wanted to limit the amount of potentially addictive narcotics for pain following surgery. And that’s exactly what he did.

Rob’s surgery took place at OSF HealthCare Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Illinois, a Level I trauma center, one of 13 hospitals in the OSF HealthCare system. What started as a way to deal with a shortage of intravenous opioid medications has blossomed into a major effort by the health system to find other pain relieving options for patients.

Among the things OSF HealthCare is doing for hospitalized patients is to implement an automatic reassessment by doctors of any opioid pain medication a patient is taking within 48 hours of starting them to see if they can be switched to non-opioids or other pain alternatives. For outpatients or people being discharged from the hospital, the amount of opioid pain medication – pills – that a person is prescribed automatically through the electronic medical record system has been cut in half. The prescription is able to be refilled if necessary.

Another important part of the effort, according to Jerry Storm, Senior VP of Pharmacy for OSF HealthCare, is educating providers to change the way they prescribe opioids for pain control.

Rob Buck did understand the potential risk of opioid pain killers and wanted no part of them if possible. He thinks we’ve become too dependent on such strong medications that aren’t always necessary and encourages everyone to try non-narcotic pain relief first.

There are circumstances and illnesses in which pain control with opioids is beneficial such as for cancer patients or those in hospice care. Jerry Storm encourages anyone being prescribed an opioid to ask their provider if a non-narcotic medication or other approach could work just as well.