Chronic Pain - Can Buprenorphine Help

Dear Patient,

In this episode I continue to talk about Buprenorphine, but rather then talk about it from the side of opioid use disorder I hope to educate you about how this medication can be used to treat chronic pain. While opioids are generally poor for chronic pain, may people find themselves taking long term opioids in attempts to treat this pain. If you are currently using and opioids and you have concerns about your use I am here to give you the knowledge to inform yourself. You are a part of your health care team, and if you are considering switching to buprenorphine as a treatment, remember, the medical community is here for you. YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

Dr. John Keenan Fanning

P.S. I need to thank Dr. Landon Berger for his contributions to this podcast. Without his amazing guidance and suggestions this podcast would not have been possible!

 

Here are a couple links that describe how good Buprenorphine is as a painkiller!

Buprenorphine is a full opioid agonist:

Citation from NIH: Raffa RB, Haidery M, Huang HM, Kalladeen K, Lockstein DE, Ono H, Shope MJ, Sowunmi OA, Tran JK, Pergolizzi JV Jr. The clinical analgesic efficacy of buprenorphine. J Clin Pharm Ther. 2014 Dec;39(6):577-83. doi: 10.1111/jcpt.12196. Epub 2014 Jul 29. PMID: 25070601. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25070601/

Buprenorphine better then traditional full opioid:

Citation from NIH: Daitch J, Frey ME, Silver D, Mitnick C, Daitch D, Pergolizzi J Jr. Conversion of chronic pain patients from full-opioid agonists to sublingual buprenorphine. Pain Physician. 2012 Jul;15(3 Suppl):ES59-66. PMID: 22786462. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22786462/

*These are medical papers, and as such they may take some time to read through. If you are struggling to understand any of the content I would encourage you to talk with your doctor for help interpreting them. We are here to help!