Pain and addiction

Pain is the most common reason people visit the doctor, but the over-prescribing of painkillers like OxyContin, Percocet, and Vicodin has led to an opioid epidemic across the country. Every day 40 Americans die from overdosing on prescription painkillers and 1.9 million struggle with addiction.  In response to the growing crisis, the CDC recently released guidelines advising physicians not to prescribe opiates for chronic pain. This hour, we talk with two physicians about treating pain while rates of opioid addiction continue to rise. We’ll look at what pain is and what alternatives doctors have to address it. Guest host Mary Cummings-Jordan talks with MICHAEL ASHBURN, director of the Penn Pain Medicine Center at the University of Pennsylvania and JEANMARIE PERRONE, professor of emergency medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.