Pain and Opioids On Uncertainty

The opioid crisis is destroying livelihoods and communities across the United States. How did we get here and what can we do about it? To help us think through this question, we talk with Professor Travis Rieder, a Philosopher and Bioethicist at the Berman Institute of Bioethics, about his memoir In Pain. In this deeply personal memoir he talks about his experience in dealing with pain and opioids after a motorcycle accident while also detailing the historical foundations of the opioid crisis. In part 1 of 2 of our conversation, Professor Travis Rieder shows us how, historically, opioid use could be characterized as a swinging pendulum, conjugated with periods of liberal and conservative prescription of opioids, and how the present is a precarious time as opioids are being simultaneously overprescribed and underprescribed. We then talk about his own experience of being simultaneously overtreated and undertreated for pain, the subsequent medical mis-guidance he received in tapering off opioids, his resulting struggle with withdrawal, and much more. Join us next week for a philosophical discussion about the problem of pain!