I was recently interviewed by the Northwest News Network about safe alternatives to the opioid crisis when dealing with pain. Nonpharmacologic approaches including acupuncture, massage therapy, tai chi and yoga can help treat various types of pain.
Click here to read or listen to the full interview.
Excerpt from: Amidst Opioid Crisis, A Search For Alternatives
Author: Enrique Perez De La Rosa
Publisher: NW News Network
The opioid epidemic has torn through the United States in recent years. Washington state has not been spared. In 2016, more than 42,000 people died from opioid overdoses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Almost 700 of those deaths were in Washington, according to the state Department of Health.
This has spurred a movement in medicine to find alternatives. Many in the medical profession are more open to using non-opioid drugs that are safer.
“Now we’re starting to recognize that there is a role for the non-pharmacologic as well,” Dr. Tick said. “We don’t just need to substitute one drug for another, necessarily.”
Dr. Tick, a professor of anesthesiology and pain medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine, was the lead writer of a report released last month by The Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health that offers evidence for alternative pain management treatments.
She says treatments like conventional acupuncture, massage, tai chi and yoga can treat various types of post-surgical, acute, chronic and cancer pain.
