TYLER — Opioid abuse rates are spiking throughout the United States. In 2016 alone, more than 40,000 people died from an opioid overdose.
In 2017, President Donald Trump called the opioid crisis a national health emergency and proposed a plan to decrease the prescription of pain killers.
East Texas is not immune to the problem. In Gregg County alone, there are more opioid prescriptions than there are people.
Several doctors in East Texas said it’s not enough to treat those who are already hooked on the drugs. They believe the only way to stop the cycle is to avoid prescribing narcotics and find alternative pain management methods.
“You have the whole spectrum there from stretching and exercising to surgical intervention,” said Dr. Janet Keais-Goss, a physical management rehab physician at Christus Trinity Mother Frances.
She said, when it comes to treating pain, there are many options one can try before turning to pain killers.
“Yoga includes more than just stretching first of all, in yoga there’s a lot of good stretching, there’s a lot of good core strength especially for lower back pain, yoga there is something that can be very beneficial and clinical studies have shown benefits of yoga on back pain,” said Dr. Keais-Goss.
Chronic back pain has been linked to the prescription and eventually addiction to opioids, that's why Dr. Keais-Goss recommends alternative pain management methods.
“Just walking in general can be helpful for pain. The action of walking is almost like a massage to the spine,” said Dr. Keais-Goss.
Acupuncture is a more complex method that was invented by the Chinese more than 2,000 years ago. It’s the practice of inserting small thin needles into problem areas. For some, it’s an approach that has proved to ease pain in many ways.
“It’s been shown to cause the release of endorphins from the body, which endorphins are the body’s natural pain killers," said Dr. Keais-Goss. "So, it releases endorphins at the site and then naturally from your brain.”
Doctor Kevin Pauza is a regenerative medicine expert. He also specializes in the treatment of chronic back pain. More than a decade ago, he invited a procedure called Disc Seel.
“This approach make sense, to seal the disk with fibrin, allow it to heal and regrow so the patient can begin the healing that week and begin stopping their pain medicines,” said Dr. Kevin Pauza.
It’s a onetime procedure that heals damaged spinal discs with stem cells.
"It’s a 30 minute recovery and the success rate has been very high,” said Dr. Pauza.
He went on to say many of his patients come to him because they’ve already had multiple surgeries and are prescribed high dosage pain killers that put a band-aid on their pain but don’t fix the problem.
“The majority of the patients that come to me come from throughout the united states and the world and they’re already in pain medication before seeing me and that’s unfortunate because I think that we could have prevented that in the first place," said Dr. Pauza.