Navigating Opioid Risks: Questions to Ask Before Accepting a Prescription

In 2023, the opioid crisis claimed over 81,000 lives -- a staggering number, yet many of these deaths could have been prevented. While prescription opioids can be essential for managing pain, they come with significant risks that are often overlooked. In this episode, we dive deep into the hidden dangers of opioid prescriptions and explore the crucial questions you should ask before accepting these medications. Ellen Eaton, MD, a leading expert in opioid treatment from the University of Alabama Birmingham, joins us to discuss the real risks of misuse, the warning signs to watch for, and the steps you can take to protect yourself and your loved ones. From understanding the potential side effects, to navigating the road to recovery, this conversation sheds light on the opioid epidemic and the urgent need for prevention and education.

UAB Medicine Addiction Recovery Services

Transcript

Neha Pathak, MD, FACP, DipABLM: Welcome to the WebMD Health Discovered Podcast. I'm Dr Neha Pathak, WebMD's, Chief Physician Editor for Health and Lifestyle Medicine. Many of us have talked to our children and loved ones about how to respond if they're offered an opioid or some other unknown substance, even if it's candy at a party, fearing the dangers of opioids and overdose.

But how many of us think about the risks in these situations? Our child is injured playing sports and we're given a 14-day prescription for an opioid containing medication. We're at the dentist's office and we're given a prescription for an opioid for a short course after a procedure. New data shows that there were over 81,000 opioid deaths in 2023.

So, what can we do to keep our loved ones safe? Today we'll talk about the best strategies to prevent opioid misuse and abuse in the first place. Even if it starts with a prescription from our doctor's office. The journey to addiction and to recovery and what we need to know about preventing opioid deaths.  

But first, let me introduce my guest, Dr Ellen Eaton. Dr Eaton is an associate professor at the Department of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She's the director of the office based opioid treatment clinic at the UAB 1917 clinic, and a member of the leadership team of the UAB Center for Addiction and Pain Prevention and Intervention.

Welcome to the WebMD Health Discovered podcast, Dr Eaton.

Ellen Eaton, MD: Thank you so much for having me.

Pathak: I'd love to just start by asking you about your own personal health discovery. So, what was your aha moment that led you to the work that you're doing with opioid treatment, management, and addiction and pain prevention interventions?

Eaton: Yeah, I have an interesting story as an infectious diseases physician who is primarily working on substance use treatment and prevention. I had the honor of being a fellow with the National Academy of Medicine, really a health policy fellowship. And as an infectious disease physician, I was invited to a working group around infectious consequences of the opioid epidemic.

And that was in 2017. It was a tremendous opportunity to go to D.C. and work with thought leaders in the field, other physician scientists, infectious diseases doctors, and those experiences and treatment models that I was hearing about in D.C. were not happening in my home institution at UAB. There were addiction medicine physicians, but we hadn't integrated care.

We were not doing syndemic care where you're treating the infection, preventing Hep C, and you're treating their substance use disorder. So that opportunity in 2017 inspired me to come home to UAB, create a clinic here that is for our patients living with HIV who have opioid use disorder, and from there, we've really expanded services broadly for substance use and infectious diseases.

So really grateful for the National Academy and that opportunity. That really was a launch pad for my career.

Pathak: I would love to talk about what you've seen as the entry point for a lot of people when it comes to opioids and that progression to addiction, potentially overdose. What does that look like for many of the people that you see?

Eaton: Because of the care I provide, I am seeing patients who are living with substance use disorder, but I always start when I meet them with really open-ended questions like tell me about your first exposure to opioids. Tell me when you began using them for medical reasons or recreationally. And what I hear over and over again is that many of our patients are starting to experiment or use from a prescriber for a medical condition in their teens or early twenties. And that is often a trusted medical provider. It may be an urgent care physician for a musculoskeletal injury, for a teenager on the athletic field who was injured. It may be a woman who just delivered a baby, a very healthy, common touch point, where there may have been a tear or maybe some residual pain.  

Another common touch point is a dentist treating you for a dental infection. And so, I hear these types of anecdotes over and over from my patients, and often it is a trusted physician, so they don't feel like this is a scary medication. They may be given a 14-day supply of opioids, not realizing that can lead to physical dependency and opioid misuse in the future.

And often don't ask questions about what to look for, warning signs, and certainly as young people, I haven't ever heard that their caregiver expressed concerns. I think more often the patient has a prolonged course seeking opioids for various conditions, becomes dependent, is seeking them more and more, and often caregivers or family members don't get involved until they are pretty far down the continuum of opioid use disorder.

So, those are the stories I hear when I meet patients and ask about their journey.

Pathak: What are some of the questions we should ask before we even accept that prescription?

Eaton: This is a really important question at that prevention touch point, that we often miss. I think asking your provider do you really need oxycodone. Could you start with something like an NSAID or a Tylenol. Asking your provider to be very explicit. When my pain hits a seven out of 10, when my pain hits an eight or nine out of 10, when do I need to take this opioid as opposed to some other opioids sparing pain modulators?

And then number of days. So not just at what point today, but also tomorrow, the next day, what pain should I expect, and I think setting the expectation you will have some pain.

This is a challenge that many of us that see patients in a primary care setting have to remind patients, you will have some pain. That is normal. That is healthy. That means your nerves are telling you they're giving you feedback on what's going on after your leg fracture. And I think unfortunately opioids have been normalized as safe, in many cases they can be, but in many cases they are not.  

I also see amongst families where an individual will tell me, “Oh, well, I got a Tramadol from grandma, or I had some opioids leftover from that time that I had a surgery and so I took that for some other condition,” comparing them to medications like chemotherapy, which also have risks. You would never hear a patient self-medicating, sharing with friends and loved ones. But I think because opioids became so ubiquitous, in past decades, entire families, kind of normalize them. They feel comfortable sharing them, taking others. And that type of culture leads to a culture where young people feel comfortable experimenting. They take pills at parties, they take pills from friends and, they purchase them off social media, like TikTok for example, because they do not appreciate the adverse outcomes that can be associated with these types of medications.

Pathak: So, tell us about this slippery slope. What is it that happens to us when we take these medications unnecessarily?

Eaton: Often one of the biggest teaching points that I make with trainees in my clinic, when is someone experimenting and when does it become a use disorder? And in my clinic, it's usually pretty clear and that includes negative consequences. So, taking opioids and falling asleep, nodding out, overdosing, right? Those patients have gone from opioid misuse to use disorder. So having negative consequences, becoming physically dependent. We do see that needing to take more and more to prevent withdrawals, which with opioids, unlike some other substances, you can pretty quickly become physically dependent.

And then you need to continue to opioids just to not feel sick, to not have the flu-like symptoms. So, becoming physically dependent, having to take more and more, increasing your dose to get the same desired effect. Those are the things that I see most commonly in clinic. With opioids and certainly the very potent non-medical opioids we're seeing now, heroin, fentanyl, we don't see people who just dabble here and there at a party, at a wedding.  

Now the other substances that I see pretty routinely used in my clinic with or without opioid use disorder, stimulant use disorder, marijuana use disorder. Alcohol use. I do have to ask more questions and certainly there are validated screening tools out there that physicians and clinicians can use to determine very objectively. Did they just drink too much at that wedding two months ago and it was a problem because they got in a fight or had a DUI? Or is this a pattern of use that meets criteria for alcohol use disorder?  

So, it is important to ask those questions and know, but I would say really the negative consequences, the physical dependency, escalating use, those are things to look for in your patients. As a caregiver or a parent, those are things to look for as well because we are really in a position to identify these before our loved ones have escalated their use.

Pathak: And then what do you do? So, you notice some of these types of red flags. What is the intervention that you should make as a parent or a loved one or a caregiver?

Eaton: I think starting with a primary care provider is always the best step. And most of us do use these objective screening tools. There are several you can find. My clinic uses an assist. These are validated tools that have been tested on many patients, not physicians, not PhD scientists, that have been tested on patients to make sure that they are asking the right questions to get to the true use behaviors and patterns. And I would go from there with your primary care provider.  

I think if you as a parent or loved one are even asking yourself, is it time to go? It's time to go. I think too many of us wait until there are very obvious motor vehicle accidents, overdoses. And I think most parents that I encounter in a clinical setting knew there were issues much longer before they sought help.  

And this gets to your question around stigma, shame that a lot of families do not want associated with their loved one or their family. And so, they wait until there are really negative consequences. Ideally, we'd be intervening much sooner.

Pathak: I'd love to talk a little bit and dig into what you just said about stigma and shame and some of the words we use when we talk about having a problem, quote unquote, with opioids, or becoming addicted or physically dependent. In that recovery phase, oftentimes we'll talk about someone becoming sober or sobriety from some of these medications.

Can you talk a little bit about the terms that you use and what best helps uplift your patients?

Eaton: This is a really nuanced area, and it does take some retraining of us as clinicians who have been in practice for a while. When I went through medical school, you were either 100 percent abstinent or not. We weren't taught that there was this whole middle ground of harm reduction, and I think as physicians, once we get some additional education on this, we realize that our words really matter. We can be much more supportive of our patients because this is a journey and much like diabetes or hypertension, your patient may have chapters where they aren't in care. Their chronic disease, substance use to chronic disease, is unmanaged.  

But unlike diabetes or hypertension, where we just counsel them and support them and bring them in maybe more frequently to check in, have them bring their spouse to help with the pill bottles and set their phone alarms so they don't forget. Unlike those medical conditions, this chronic brain disease of substance use, we treat patients unintentionally as if they have failed. They have failed our clinics. They have failed the treatment. We treat them with judgment and shame. And there are a lot of complex routes for that that I am not an expert in.

But what I tell my colleagues and my trainees is that we need to know and our patients need to know that they have not failed us. They are not a failure. They are living with a chronic disease, just like diabetes or hypertension. And just like diabetes or hypertension, if they fall out of care, if they stop taking their medications, we allow them to come back when they're ready to reengage. Just like my patients with HIV, right? So, using words are often the first interaction that we have with our patients. I even say when I get to meet them, “tell me about your journey. Have you ever been in recovery before?” rather than tell me about your addiction. “Have you ever been abstinent?”

Have you ever been sober? Did you fall off the wagon? These are all terms that have very negative connotations and really reinforce a lot of the stigma that our patients already feel. My patients come with a lot of stigma to clinic. I have to remind them not to use stigmatizing words to describe themselves.

They'll say things like, “I've really been an addict for 20 years.” And I have to say, “you've been a survivor for 20 years. You’ve been a survivor.” Or, you know, I'm the black sheep of my family. And I remind them. Actually, you have a chronic disease, and didn't you tell me your uncle has the same brain disease it runs in your family?

Just reminding them much like the diabetes example again, this is a chronic disease. Those are some of the strategies I use to be really person centered and inclusive. And I do use the survivor language a lot. If they're using opioids in 2024, they are a survivor because we know the substance is out there. I do try to use a lot of empowering language as well.

Pathak: I come at a lot of this from the primary care lens. I’m a primary care physician and prevention is the key for what we're always trying to do before we get to treatment and management. If we're talking about red flags or the types of questions we should be asking before we even prescribe these the first time, is it asking about family history?

Should our patients be thinking about that? Like, oh, you know, Uncle Jim has had a problem with opioids in the past. That's probably not a medication we want to start in our child. What are some of the other types of questions we can be asking before we even think about that very first prescription or letting your child know that this is something that you need to be thinking about if you're at a party and someone offers you something because this is our family history.

What are some of the other things you ask about?  

Eaton: Family history is really important. Past experience with opioids. And if you have a patient who is in recovery, many of them will say, I know I have to have my hip replaced. Please do everything you can. Give me blocks. They want to avoid opioids. So, asking about any experience with opioids, how that went.  

I would also ask about social support. You know, remind me where you're living these days. Oh, you're in an apartment with your niece. Do you have a safe place to store your medications? Tell me about that. Where do you store your medications? This comes up a lot with our unhoused population, that they are frequently having to move. Their medications are often stolen. That doesn't mean that they don't meet criteria for opioids. It may just mean you need to be more thoughtful. Do you need to go to a boarding care or shelter while we get through this period where you're recovering from your injury and you need opioids to be kept in a locked box?

I think those are most of them. And then just appreciating that things like a history of trauma and social determinants of health are really going to put our patients at risk. And a lot of the young people that I see are 30 and 40 year olds who started experimenting with substances in their teens and 20s were in these multi-generational households where mom had substance use. Grandma had substance use. There were always pills around.  

So, if you are seeing a patient who has a lack of social structure, living with other people with substance use, without a lot of accountability boundaries, without close follow up with a physician, that may be someone you want to consider alternatives or, you know, give them a three-day supply post op and bring them back.

Right? Clinics are so full. We may not have that structure or care model in place, but that's ideal. Giving a short course. Reassess. Maybe it's time to transition something else.  

Pathak: Great. Can you help us understand what exactly an overdose is? What does it look like? And what are some of the strategies like naloxone that we should be aware of?

Eaton: Yeah. So right now, we're seeing the vast majority of overdoses have opioids as a contributing substance. So many of our decedents who pass away and have toxicology results have multiple substances, including stimulants. But currently, fentanyl is contaminating so many types of street drugs, whether they're a counterfeit, benzodiazepine, or a counterfeit Vicodin, or cocaine.  

So, the vast majority of overdoses we're seeing right now, are opioid related, and that usually involves people looking sedated, stuporous, failure to respond to verbal stimuli, tactile stimuli. And in the current setting where we're seeing so many overdoses, I think you should always think opioids first when you're seeing someone like that. It is important to approach them, call their name, shake them if they don't respond. That's when you're going to call 9-1-1 and be looking for naloxone.  

I have some in my backpack. I travel on airplanes with naloxone. And my kids who are elementary age know about naloxone. I haven't gotten to the point of educating them. But because these events are more common than cardiac arrest in many, many communities, we're training our Boy Scouts how to do CPR, but we're not necessarily training our Boy Scouts how to do naloxone for overdose reversal. But we should.  

These are happening in schools. If you have a young person in your home, if you have a teenager in your home, you should have naloxone, and your teenager should as well and be trained to use. It doesn't mean your teenager is using or experimenting. It just means the people in places that young person is around have a higher likelihood of overdose than a cardiac arrest in many settings.

Right? I know a lot of schools. My community schools are getting naloxone because they do appreciate that children are experiencing at school. They've had some adverse outcomes in my state on school property.  

I would encourage anyone who is living with young people or older people who have access to opioids, even prescription opioids, to have naloxone.

And then obviously if you know your loved one has opioid use disorder, you and they and anyone who is a caregiver for them should have naloxone on their person. Truly. So that's pretty much all of us, right? And whenever I talk to the rotary, I've talked to schools, I talked to clinicians. There are very few people who don't need to know about naloxone in the current day and age. And think of compared to something like an AED or CPR. You know, we're really good about these less stigmatized acute medical events, right?  

We feel very comfortable training our Boy Scouts on how to do this, and we feel very comfortable putting an AED on our walking trails and at our gyms. Because of the stigma around substance use, we do not have naloxone in many of those community spaces, and we have not trained our community to respond to overdose in the same way we have cardiac events.

Pathak: What would be part of your counseling in a Boy Scout troop or Girl Scout troop or at school to share that part of the information?

How do you use something like a naloxone? What are the signs that you're looking for?  

Eaton: I think this is a great topic for Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops and for health education courses for middle school. By talking about it, we're normalizing it. And based on the prevalence of substance use, we should all be aware of the signs or symptoms. So that is very appropriate. There are developmentally appropriate ways to talk about this, even to elementary students. I think sharing the statistics on youth who start experimenting, the average age, the prevalence in communities, the types of places where they may be exposed to opioids that are non-medical, the signs or symptoms of overdose, which we discussed, and the fact that there is a safe, over-the-counter reversal. Naloxone that they can and should carry as a good community citizen and community helper.  

I know this will be stigmatized in some areas, and some parents will not feel comfortable with that. But I think the more that we have partnerships between pediatricians, public health officers, and schools and coaches, these types of individuals should really feel comfortable talking about this. It is nothing to stigmatize or shame or your kids aren't going to come to you.  

What we want is we want these kids looking out for their friends and their parents. We want this to be something we talk about, and we go to a trusted adult when we have concerns. And that's what it will take as we're speaking to prevention. It will take a village of informed adults, trusted individuals. Who our youth can go to early when someone is just starting to experiment. When your friend just brought pills to a party for the first time. Early intervention, right? So, I think the Boy Scout example is a perfect one, but thinking all the touch points for our young people, churches, the faith-based community. And we recently did a pop up with an AME church here in the deep South. Who wanted to have a pop up. It was myself and a community agency that I work with called the Addiction Prevention Coalition.

They do great work. I'm delighted that they’ve included me, and we passed out naloxone and we talked to these church members, many of whom were elderly. They were grandparents. They're worried about their grandkids. They're worried about what they're seeing in the news. They're worried that these kids are going out partying and they know that there are substances involved.

So, another great touch point, just thinking across the age continuum, all the people who are part of communities who can be on the prevention arm of substance use.

Pathak: That's really helpful and really interesting. So, we've talked a little bit about prevention, overdose prevention. We've talked about substance misuse and what that can look like. What does the process of achieving and maintaining recovery look like? When someone comes to your clinic, because that's really the goal of their treatment, how do you get started?

Eaton: So just thinking about the term recovery, we use to describe someone who has reached a point where they're not using any non-medical substances, but it's important that we have each patient define that for themselves. I have many patients who are in recovery from alcohol and opioids. They cannot give up cigarettes and they're not ready to, right?

I would never tell them you're not there yet. But I congratulate them on every step, and I remind them you've been in recovery from opioid use for 10 years. You've been in recovery from alcohol use for five years. You don't want to talk about tobacco today. That's fine. Look how far you've come.  

And that is part of just supporting them in their journey and encouraging them. There are some people who are going to return to use. I never say fall off the wagon. I never say, you know, other stigmatizing terms. Return to use. There are some of my patients, specifically with opioid use disorder, common triggers, a breakup, a job loss, housing loss, death in the family. I do see patients return to use.  

It's less common when they have been on a stable medication for opioid use disorder like buprenorphine and they are engaged in medical care. They have some counseling or group that they can go to for support and accountability, but it still happens. And then once we get them back into our clinic and we initiate the treatment again, and we follow them very, very closely in that very fragile time, you're back in care. Let's start you back on buprenorphine, for example. Let's check in with you in a week.

And I have a peer counselor in my clinic who has lived experience with substance use. She's the perfect person. She's been there. She sees them very frequently over that period until we can get them back into recovery. For opioid use disorder, it is pretty clear from their behaviors. It is so physically addictive. It is so disruptive to relationships that I have very few people who can dabble with opioids. Because usually once they return, they are back in active use, is the term we use.  

Pathak: And as we close out our episode, I'd love to invite you to share some bite sized action items to help create change in our lives if we are caring for a loved one, a child who may be experiencing some of the symptoms that you described.  

Eaton: Absolutely. I think thinking about their survival analogy can be very encouraging and not overwhelming. Just do the next step. I think many of us want to fix our loved one. We may want to fix our child, but what is the next step? The next step may just be getting your loved one to a doctor's appointment, and that's a win.

They showed up, right? Then the next step may be getting them to commit to like goals. It's not accomplishing the goals. It's just having them identify what matters to them. You know, so do these baby steps make recovery seem much less overwhelming if recovery is the goal? But I think just viewing caregiving and living with substance use as survival. And being kind to yourself, being kind to your loved ones who's living with this chronic medical condition and taking things one step at a time.

Pathak: Thank you so much for being with us today.

Eaton: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Pathak: We've talked with Dr Ellen Eaton today about prevention. How do you even prevent that first use of opioid if it's not necessary? And we've talked about the journey of addiction to recovery. To find out more information about Dr Eaton, we'll have information about her and her clinic in our show notes. But you can check out the Center for Addiction and Pain Prevention page. And again, we'll have that link in our show notes.

Thank you so much for listening. Please take a moment to follow, rate, and review this podcast on your favorite listening platform. If you'd like to send me an email about topics you're interested in or questions for future guests, please send me a note at webmdpodcast@webmd.net.  

This is Dr Neha Pathak for the WebMD Health Discovered podcast.