Call for an Urgent Action on Forced Opioid Tapering
Synopsis
Opioid tapering guidelines were created, in part, to decrease harm to patients resulting from high-dose opioid therapy for chronic pain. However, countless “legacy patients” with chronic pain who were progressively escalated to high opioid doses, often over many years, now face additional and very serious risks resulting from rapid tapering or related policies that mandate extreme dose reductions that are aggressive and unrealistic.
Key Points
There are major concerns:
rapid, forced opioid tapering among outpatients;
mandated opioid tapers that require aggressive opioid dose reductions over a defined period, even when that period is an extended one.
Research papers
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