New Opioids Reduce Pain – and Addiction Risk

A new generation of opioid drugs are on the horizon, possibly offering the much maligned class of drugs a second chance to make a good impression. After years of opioids like oxycodone and fentanyl driving up drug addiction rates nationwide, a second subset of once odious opioids is being introduced, touting all the painkilling power of its conventional counterpart – less the dangerous and deadly side effects.

A Different Approach

While pharmaceutical companies continue to crank out new prescription formulations geared toward treating the side effects of opioid drug use and addiction rather than eliminating the painkillers, researchers are seeking a new path to both help patients – and repair the reputation of opioids. To combat ever-rising opioid addiction rates and overdose deaths, researchers are working with three (new) compounds:

• Oliceridine 
  Created by Trevena, this drug has been given preferential regulatory treatment by the FDA.
• Mitragynine Pseudoindoxyl
  Derived from leaves of the Southeast Asian kratom plant, this compound has demonstrated a decreased addiction risk in mice.
• Compound PZM21
  Early testing has produced results that, according to researchers, are unlike those seen from other potential painkiller compounds.

Mitigating Risks

Working like morphine to bind to proteins in the brain, spinal cord, and other organs, this new family of opioid drugs activates a different signaling pathway than their predecessors, using a route through which information flows from one molecule to another. These essential differences are hoped to decrease the risk of addiction, as well as the leading cause of overdose death – respiratory depression – the elimination of which has been deemed an essential goal.

Ensuring Optimal Outcomes

To combat the high economic and human/personal costs of opioid abuse, dependence, and overdose, as well as to ensure a post-injury recovery process that yields maximum results and quality of life, ANS Solutions has developed Pharmacotherapy Review. This unique and industry-leading approach far surpasses run-of-the-mill drug utilization programs, providing comprehensive care and an attention to detail that protects injured workers and workers’ compensation payers alike against the concurrent risks and costs of unnecessary treatment regimens, including the over-prescription of opioids, through…

• Exceptionally credentialed Legal Nurse experts, Doctors of Pharmacy, and staff.
• Face-to-face collaboration.
• Consolidation/coordination of drug therapies between all prescribers.
• Identification of excessive dosages.
• Weaning programs for over-prescribed narcotics.
• Consideration of evidence-backed treatment alternatives.

Set off on a new path to injury and disability treatment. Uncover the benefits of Pharmacotherapy Review from http://www.ans-solutions.com today.

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