THE TRUTH BY SHELLEY FLANNERY Painkillers do a lot of good and a lot of harm. THE TRUTH ABOUT OPIOIDS Do these powerful painkillers have a place in modern medicine? 38 W IN TER 2017 Opioid analgesics are recommended for treating chronic pain. FALSE. Opioid analgesics don't cure pain; they instead increase a person's pain threshold and reduce the perception of that pain. They are highly effective at treating acute pain, which is temporary pain resulting from an injury or surgery. They are not recommended for chronic pain that persists well after a wound has healed or has no identifiable cause, as opioid use comes with a high risk of tolerance (needing to take more to get the same results). PHOTO BY GETTY/ TS PHOTOGRAPHY When your doctor writes you a prescription, you expect to find relief, not a new set of problems. But an increasing number of Americans are becoming addicted to opioid analgesics, often called painkillers. Prescription opioid use has skyrocketed over the past two decades, and overdoses have followed suit. Between 1999 and 2015, prescription opioid overdoses quadrupled, leaving more than 183,000 Americans dead. What can be done to curb the epidemic? It starts with awareness. TRUE OR FALSE: