Not all narcotics are equally addictive

Abuse of prescription narcotic (opioid) drugs is growing at an alarming rate and they are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths due to overdose every year. While all such drugs can cause addiction, there appears to be a difference among these drugs. A study recently published in The Journal of Pain suggests that a new opioid pain killer, tapentadol (Nucynta) is less likely to cause addiction than oxycodone (Percocet, Percodan, Endocet). The study was conducted by the manufacturer of Nucynta, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. The researchers looked at the risk of shopping behavior (going to more than one doctor to obtain prescriptions) in over 150,000 patients. People who were prescribed oxycodone were four times more likely to be doctor shoppers than those who were prescribed tapentadol. Also, 28% of those prescribed oxycodone were asking only for oxycodone, while only 0.6% of those prescribed tapentadole were asking for tapentadol. This means that of those prescribed tapentadol less than one percent were asking only for tapentadole and the rest asked for other narcotics. Tapentadol has another advantage in that it causes less nausea and constipation than other opioid drugs.

Abuse potential is also reduced by making the pill temper resistant. About two years ago Oxycontin, which is one of the most popular (and most abused) long-acting narcotic pain killers was reformulated to make it difficult to crush. Because Oxycontin is a long-acting drug and does not give a quick high, addicts usually crush the tablet and inject or snort it. The new formulation prevents it from being crushed and in the past two years the abuse (and the sales) of Oxycontin has dropped. The FDA recently denied permission to sell generic versions of Oxycontin because they did not have such temper-resistant properties.

Unlike with other types of pain, opioid drugs seem to be less effective in the treatment of migraine and other headaches. Headache patients often report little relief from these drugs, as well as side effects, such as nausea and sedation. Opioid analgesics, such as codeine, hydrocodone (Vicodin), oxycodone (Percocet), and other can actually make headache worse in some patients by causing rebound, or medication overuse headaches. However, there are exceptions to this rule and a very small number of our patients respond only to opioid drugs and a few are doing well with daily long-acting narcotics. To make sure these drugs are not being abused we carefully select and closely monitor such patients.

Photo credit: JulieMauskop.com