Chronic Pain Management: Prescription Painkillers Fall Short

What do you do about chronic pain management when prescription drugs fall short? Right now there are about five to eight million people in the U.S. that use prescription drugs to manage chronic pain. And yet there is insufficient evidence to show that long-term use of opioid therapy is effective at improving chronic pain, function or quality of life. In fact a new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine tells us that prescription painkillers may not be the most effective treatment for chronic pain. Meanwhile the rate of abuse is dramatically increasing.