Las Vegas Recovery Center offers treatment to those who are addicted to opioids. Las Vegas Recovery Center also provides innovative and proven opioid-free pain treatment to those who seek an alternative method for treating pain.

While we do not offer opioid pain treatment, we feel it is important to educate the public about this approach to pain treatment that leaves hundreds of thousands desperately seeking alternative pain treatment methods.

Opioids and combination drugs are the most prescribed medications available today for those in chronic pain. They have extremely effective analgesic or pain-relieving properties. They are the most powerful pain-relieving drugs and are the foundation in the treatment of severe acute and chronic pain. These drugs offer relief from chronic pain, and the use of opioids is on the rise. From 1997 to 2005, major opioid sales rose 90 percent, with over 200,000 pounds purchased. That's 300 milligrams of opioids to every American! The cost of drug marketing in 1997 was $11 billion; by 2005 that number had reached $30 billion. Those figures alone are quite sobering.

Medications that fall into the opiate class (see Table 4), in order of decreasing strength, include fentanyl (Actiq, Duragesic), morphine (Avinza, Kadian, MS Contin), methadone, meperidine (Demerol), hydromorphone (Dilaudid), buprenorphine (Subutex, Suboxone, Butrans), oxycodone (Oxycontin, Oxyfast, Percodan, Tylox), hydrocodone (Lorcet, Norco), codeine (Tylenol with Codeine), and propoxyphene (Darvon and Darvocet, which were recently removed from the market). Combination drugs include Lortab and Vicodin, both of which contain hydrocodone and acetaminophen; Percocet, which contains acetaminophen and oxycodone; and Darvocet and Tylenol 3 and 4, which contain acetaminophen and propoxyphene or codeine, respectively. Tramadol (Ultram, Ultracet) is not chemically an opiate; however, it works by the same mechanism as opiates and can cause similar effects and problems. The American Academy of Pain Medicine, the American Pain Society, and the World Health Organization have endorsed opiates, also called narcotic analgesics, where necessary, as an essential part of a pain management plan.