It is difficult to imagine your grandfather or grandmother addicted to pain medications, but it is becoming a disturbing trend in this country, as more and more people struggle with prescription pain medication abuse.
Susan Schubert, now 70, became addicted to oxycodone after a 2002 back surgery. Schubert was taking up to seven oxycodone pills every day, just to get through the day without pain. For the next eight years, Schubert was unable to function on a daily basis without using opioid painkillers. Her dependence to the prescription drugs quickly grew, despite her knowing how addictive the drugs were.
The day after Christmas last year, Schubert collapsed on the kitchen floor of her townhouse. Luckily, her son found her, nearly comatose, and rushed her to the hospital. Schubert’s lungs had not received enough oxygen because of the drugs and as a result, were filled with carbon dioxide. Schubert spent several days detoxifying, miserable and ready to, in her words, "crawl up the walls." Her accidental overdose almost marked another name on Florida’s list of 1, 183 deaths from oxycodone last year.
"I would have been dead. I have no doubt about that," said Schubert.
The country’s addiction to prescription drugs is growing at an alarming rate, especially among the baby boomer generation. Almost half of American children, teen and adults take at least one prescription medication. Thirty seven person of people age 60 and older take five or more prescription drugs each month, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
Prescription drugs can be especially dangerous for senior citizens, because of the physiological changes in the aging body and an increased tolerance to a drug that can ultimately alter its desired effect.
"When you age, certain processes in your body don’t happen as fast. You don’t clear the drug as fast as you used to, or the drug can actually build up," said Glen Whelan, an associate professor at the University of South Florida’s College of Pharmacy. "Not only are you getting more drug in the system, you can also be more sensitive to the effects of that drug as you age."
Older adults experience more chronic pain, like arthritis, bursitis and back pain. Physiological changes in the body such as reduced water retention, thickening arteries and a decrease in oxygen production by the lungs, can all contribute to how their body processes a narcotic. Drugs that affect your state of alertness can affect focus, balance and cognitive abilities in a different way in an older person. For all these reasons, it is not surprising that more older Americans are struggling with addictions to prescription pain medications.
