Pricey painkillers may be overprescribed: UBC researchers
Posted January 19, 2016 10:45 pm.
Last Updated January 20, 2016 9:13 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — If they work, great, but if not, it’s a waste of money to keep taking them. That is the message from University of British Columbia researchers who have found doctors may be over prescribing certain painkillers.
Dr. Tom Perry, with UBC’s pharmaceutical watchdog Therapeutics Initiative, says there could be as many as 100,000 people in BC taking gabapentin, pregabalin or duloxetine a year who are not finding any relief.
“If the drugs work for you well that’s fine but if they’re not working, well there’s no point taking them long-term or increasing the dose continuously because the truth is that these drugs work for a relatively small minority of people.”
Perry says the companies who sell these drugs are encouraging people to take them long term and don’t typically encourage doctors to try short trials first.
“There are two sensible things to do. One is, like any other drug taken for symptoms; if you’re not feeling better why would a sensible person keep putting it in their mouth. A second thing is to let the physician, or whoever has prescribed it, know that you didn’t find it helpful.”
Research suggests that in 2014, $52 million was spent on gabapentin, pregabalin, and duloxetine with PharmaCare covering $13 million.
