Prescription opioids are often prescribed because they are effective for relieving moderate to severe levels of pain. When taken as directed, the medication can manage pain for a short amount of time. When long-term use is needed, patients need to be screened and monitored to ensure a physical dependency doesn’t develop – as that can lead to opioid addiction.

When patients who have developed a physical dependency stop talking prescription opioids, they can go through withdrawal, which includes symptoms like restlessness, insomnia, muscles and bone pain, cold flashes, vomiting, and diarrhea. When taken improperly, like in large doses or with alcohol, an overdose can occur and result in death.

Addiction is a scary and serious thing that can ruin lives or end them. But most people got opioids from legal prescriptions. Without the proper education, they may have taken these drugs and not known about the high risk for developing a dependency. That’s progressed to people having an addiction to these drugs and needing to find more. If you’ve been harmed by opioid abuse, you may have grounds for a claim.

What Factors Led to the Crisis?

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), about 80 percent of heroin users misused prescription opioids before using heroin. Opioid drug overdoses kill about 116 people a day. With frightening numbers like these, one has to wonder how the problem got to this point.

There are many factors that have contributed to the country’s current opioid epidemic. Doctors prescribed opioid drugs more feely in the past to treat pain. But they didn’t have all the information about the risk of prescribing these highly addictive drugs. Patients developed addictions and had to seek to alternatives to feed their addiction when the prescription ran out.

Before taking any kind of prescription medications, it’s important to understand what it will do to your body, and how it might interact with any other medications you’re on. This is especially true when you are taking opioids. While your doctor may prescribe you multiple medications, it’s always best to verify how they will interact to avoid any danger or unplanned hospital visits.

Opioid Definition

In order to understand the consequences of mixing drugs with opioids, you first have to understand what an opioid is.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, opioids are a class of drug derived from the opium in poppy plants. Prescription opioids can be made from the plant directly; however, scientists can recreate the chemical structure in a lab setting.

The opioid epidemic has a hold on many people. It’s important to know the risks of taking prescription opioids and how they affect your body when you take them. Some may not know the strength of the drug or how they affect your biological functions as soon as you take them. Those who have taken prescribed opioids for a long time may also feel adverse effects.

If you or a loved one has been prescribed opioids and is struggling with addiction, you can seek legal aid. A West Virginia opioid litigation lawyer from DiPiero Simmons McGinley & Bastress, PLLC will fight for your rights and do everything to get you the compensation you need. We will look into opioid manufacturers and if your medical provider acted negligently when prescribing these drugs.

West Virginia has faced the brunt of the opioid epidemic with 261 tri-county overdoses in 2016, and the highest overdose rate in the nation. You may wonder why this particular state was struggling the most with opioid addiction and overdose problems. Recently, a congressional committee found that drug companies have shipped 20.8 million prescription painkillers to two pharmacies to a town in West Virginia with 2,900 people over the past ten years. The pharmacies are a mere four blocks apart.

Williamson in Mingo County received the mass amounts of hydrocodone and oxycodone, far exceeding the amount of people living there and the shipments were never flagged or scrutinized by the drug companies. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is looking at this shipment and past ones to see how many pills were coming in to West Virginia over the past decade. They’re also looking for any correlation to how drug companies may have played a role in the current opioid epidemic.

Recently, nine West Virginia drug treatment programs were set to get $20.8 million that will go to additional treatment beds. State lawmakers set aside this money from lawsuit settlements that stated drug companies influenced the opioid epidemic.

Places receiving funding include Living Free Ohio Valley, Mountaineer Behavioral Health, St. Joseph Recovery Center, Westbrook Health Services, Valley HealthCare System, West Virginia University Research Corp., Marshall University Physicians and Surgeons, WestCare West Virginia, and Southern West Virginia Treatment Through Recovery Continuum.