Opioid deaths seem to be fueling more by Chinese derived illicit fentanyl. However, massive efforts are made to lower opioid dose. One study was successful at getting opioid consumption down from 288 mg to 150 mg. They weren’t any better for it despite the theoretically “dangerous high levels” which would probably not be a problem if they avoided chinese imports. There was no effort to have a control group to see how many more deaths there were in the “dangerously high” group.
I have not had much luck tapering opioids and a recent analysis explains why. They claim opioids are integrated in mood, energy, motivation, social functioning and personality systems and withdrawing doses will effects all of it. Above study was successful because they started with 5% reductions in the first month and upped it to 10% every 2 weeks in the second month.
