Trends in the Concurrent Prescription of Opioids and Gabapentin in the US, 2006 to 2018
Two articles on PainSci cite Peet 2022: 1. The Complete Guide to Low Back Pain 2. Neuropathies Are Overdiagnosed
PainSci notes on Peet 2022:
There has been mighty 5x surge in gabapentin prescriptions, even as opioids fell (2006–2018), despite gabapentin’s dubious value for most kinds of pain. And that 5x increase was more with opioids than replacing them: overlapping prescriptions tripled. “Why not both?” like the meme says. Oh, I can think of a few reasons…
“Clinicians clearly are turning to gabapentin as a nonopioid option for pain management or adding it to opioid treatment to avoid escalating opioid doses. Clinicians should not view gabapentin as a panacea for chronic pain management and should be especially wary of coprescribing it with opioids.”
related content
- “Anticonvulsants in the treatment of low back pain and lumbar radicular pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis,” Enke et al, CMAJ, 2018.
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
- Cannabidiol (CBD) products for pain: ineffective, expensive, and with potential harms. Moore 2023 J Pain.
- Inciting events associated with lumbar disc herniation. Suri 2010 Spine J.
- Prediction of an extruded fragment in lumbar disc patients from clinical presentations. Pople 1994 Spine (Phila Pa 1976).
- Characteristics of patients with low back and leg pain seeking treatment in primary care: baseline results from the ATLAS cohort study. Konstantinou 2015 BMC Musculoskelet Disord.
- Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of universal school-based mindfulness training compared with normal school provision in reducing risk of mental health problems and promoting well-being in adolescence: the MYRIAD cluster randomised controlled trial. Kuyken 2022 Evid Based Ment Health.