http://www.medpagetoday.com/Psychiatry/Addictions/53999
10/8/2015, Opioid Epidemic Is Driven by Prescribers
Jeannie Sperry, PhD, a clinical psychologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. who specializes in chronic pain care, offered ideas for alternative types of strategies that physicians and patients could learn. “We need to teach [patients] mindfulness-based practices such as meditation, yoga, and tai chi. We need to teach them to gradually increase physical activity and cognitive techniques to self-manage their pain.”
Mayo Clinic offers a 3-week pain management program in which patients are gradually tapered off their opioid medications. “We teach them to use skills, not pills,” she said. “There are other programs like ours, but not nearly enough.” …
My comment:
“One thing that has to be considered [during patient care] is a history of addiction and a family history of addiction,” he added. “That needs to be taken really seriously and screened for at every visit.”
This is just another barrier to adequate pain management, treating everyone as a potential drug addict. I took the most frequently used test for addiction and it labeled me as having a high potential for addiction. And yet, after I was abandoned by my doctor and forced into a cold-turkey detox (after 8 years on prescription medications), I haven’t sought out or taken any prescription drugs. It’s been three years, but according to the psychiatric industry (that uses research which can’t be replicated), I’m a drug addict. The addiction industry wishes to thank Dr. Seppala for furthering its financial potential.
I’ve read posts from pain patients about the Mayo Clinic’s 3-week pain management program, but they were mostly complaints. If the Mayo Clinic is having success with non-drug treatments, let’s see the results proven in valid research. Let’s see if these non-drug pain management programs can show as much “success” as addiction treatment centers that rely on abstinence. Just like the failure of Project ECHO in New Mexico (and the similarity with Dr. Katzman’s addiction clinic disguised as a pain clinic), I have a feeling that the Mayo Clinic’s success rate is very limited.
All Things Chronic 
This is just more of the behavioral health industry shoving cheap ass substance abuse treatment down our throats. These people are not really psychiatrists, many of them are barely able to do anything but run asinine groups that are little more than seminars on the power of positive thinking.
Unbridled capitalism has destroyed the ethical foundations of medicine in general. Most of the people who practice in HMO’s are little more than shills for profit.
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