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Their view: ‘Born-Alive’ bill’s failure represents a sad fate for living, breathing infants

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State Route 315 reopens after vehicle crash

<p>A basic characteristic of living things seems to be avoiding becoming damaged.</p><p>Pain may have evolved as a mechanism to &#8220;teach&#8221; organisms like us to stay away from situations, things and other beings that could hurt us. Another notion is that pain warns us that something is wrong with our bodies and signals that we should look into it before the leads to serious impairment.</p><p>However once pain has done its job of letting us know that something&#8217;s wrong, continuing to hurt, that is chronic pain, is just plain mean. Taking pain medication can certainly provide temporary relief, especially for sudden, short term painful problems. Their use is perfectly reasonable and safe, but overdoing it with drugs unnecessarily strong, or for too long or for minor degrees of distress leads to real trouble.</p><p>There are many types of pain medicines and choosing among them and advising about their use is one of the most important skills today&#8217;s medical professionals need. Powerful narcotic drugs, opioids, are in many ways a blessing to people in severe pain who require our most powerful tools to obtain relief, but opioids are dangerous, complex agents that deserve great respect.</p><p>In addition to their potentially serious side effects like sleepiness, inhibition of breathing and interactions with other medicines, they&#8217;re not effective in the long run. Eventually it takes more and more to get less and less relief, all the while complications and side effects pile up. They interfere with the way the body resolves pain naturally and in general, they can do a real number on your body.</p><p>And now there&#8217;s even more evidence that opioids can wreak havoc on your cardiovascular system. According to a recent study reported by the American Heart Association, opioid use may increase the risk of atrial fibrillation, a rapid heart-rhythm disorder and a leading cause of strokes.</p><p>In this study, researchers analyzed the medical records of more than 850,000 young and middle-aged military veterans, and preliminary findings showed people taking opioids, even for a short period, were 34 percent more likely to develop atrial fibrillation. Although the exact mechanism of this effect is still obscure, the researchers supposed that perhaps the drugs&#8217; known effects on breathing, sleep disturbances and worsening sleep apnea, might be to blame.</p><p>The damage doesn&#8217;t stop there.</p><p>According to Geisinger researchers, opioid use is also associated with depression, problems with the pituitary gland and hypothalamus, and of course dependence and addiction. Patients using opioids for chronic pain management also fall more often, get infections, break bones and suffer cognitive impairment out of proportion to peers who don&#8217;t take narcotics. Seems pretty obvious, but easy to overlook in deciding if, what with and for how long to medicate pain.</p><p>Opioid overuse is a public health crisis that continues to harm and kill Americans every day. Most clinicians now agree that opioids should only be prescribed as a last resort, in minimally effective doses, for as short a period as possible and supplemented with other treatments. For those struggling with chronic pain, talk with your doctor about these alternative therapies.</p><p>Physical therapy, anti-inflammatory drugs or injections, external electrical stimulators that provide tiny buzzing sensations through the skin, yoga, acupuncture, exercise and many more strategies are available to limit dependence on medicines and lower the risk of trouble while modulating if not eliminating discomfort.</p><p>The use of opioids during pregnancy is especially worrisome, and it can result in an awful situation for the newborn child called neonatal abstinence syndrome or neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome. These babies are more likely to have low birthweight and respiratory complications and spend their first few hours and days out of the womb detoxifying from the effects of mom&#8217;s drug use.</p><p>In Luzerne County alone, 13 of every 1,000 maternal hospital stays involved opioid use in 2016 and 2017, according to the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council. For moms-to-be looking for a compassionate approach to living opiate-free, please call the Free2Bmom program in Luzerne County at 570-214-2159. This innovative program aims to provide support, help and guidance in a non-judgmental setting to allow moms-to-be to bring their babies into the world healthy and free of the effects of maternal drug use. </p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Alfred Casale</p><p>To Your Health</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Dr. Alfred Casale, a cardiothoracic surgeon, is associate chief medical officer for Geisinger and chair of the Geisinger Heart Institute. Readers may write to him via ae@www.timesleader.com.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Heart failure: Some opioid drug issues