Narcotic Meds for Back Pain Questioned

This caught my attention and has some practical application, for physicians treating back pain--they should engage in pretty tight follow-up of they are prescribing opiates on long term basis for back pain. What I found more interesting is that this figure of 24% matches previous "capture rate" data pretty closely.

While the pain may be relieved to some extent over the short-term (3 months), the risk of addiction and long-term effectiveness may override any temporary benefits.

Researchers from the Yale School of Medicine found use of opiods for short-term relief of chronic back pain lead to behaviors of opiod abuse in 24 percent of the cases reviewed.