
Meditation reduced an opioid dose needed to ease chronic pain by 75% - hhs
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/11/11/743065892/meditation-reduced-the-opioid-dose-she-needs-to-ease-chronic-pain-by-75
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arkades
The linked JAMA study does not show the opioid reduction was 75%.

In fact, to quote, “ The findings suggest that MBTs are associated with
moderate improvements in pain and small reductions in opioid dose and may be
associated with therapeutic benefits for opioid-related problems, such as
opioid craving and misuse. Future studies should carefully quantify opioid
dosing variables to determine the association of mind-body therapies with
opioid-related outcomes.”

I will dig into this more this evening - chronic pain management is my area -
but on first glance, this is a bullshit clickbait headline.

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michaelmrose
The actual title is:

Meditation Reduced The Opioid Dose She Needs To Ease Chronic Pain By 75%.

It's the story of how one user was able to supplement a smaller dose of
opioids with other therapies and reduce her need for opioids. The title as is
makes an extraordinary claim never made by the article and as such is a lie.
It would be great if we didn't mislead our readers to get them to click a
link.

~~~
hhs
I agree, I submitted the title as written by the author. I assume it was
changed by the moderator and inadvertently got mis-titled.

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tim58
People that are surprised by this should consider investing more in their
meditation practices. Meditation has a way of making your emotional and
physical state data the mind considers instead of a force that drives the
mind.

~~~
agumonkey
There's something I find sad/distressing. If I can control/filter/ignore my
emotions.. who am I ?

I like meditation as a life saving mechanism to cope with emotional failures
in hard times though.

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shanemlk
Was laying in a park this weekend on a below freezing night with a friend
who's been doing TM. I meditate pretty regularly, but never tried a mantra.
Anyways, I feeling very cold and ready to go inside, but after a few minutes
of meditation, I felt warm again. Meditation definitely increases my tolerance
of uncomfortable conditions.

~~~
oski
While meditation in general tends to help one manage pain/discomfort, the Wim
Hof method deals specifically with coping with cold temperatures.

~~~
erentz
Wim Hof is not a normal human, it’s not clear that there is anything about his
“method” so much as that he has remarkable physiology.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D6EPuUdIC1E](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D6EPuUdIC1E)

~~~
vanderZwan
The very video you link to concludes that his method does in fact have real
effects on physiology.

~~~
erentz
Yikes. My memory is faulty then. I will have to rewatch it. (He’s still a bit
of a freak of nature though, that much I’m sure about. (At least I think I
am.))

~~~
DoreenMichele
Drying cold, wet sheets with body heat is a standard monk thing that even a
non meditator like me has heard of:

[https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2002/04/meditation-
ch...](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2002/04/meditation-changes-
temperatures/)

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pkaye
The other night I had my first real case of heartburn due to a poor choice of
meal. Unfortunately I had no medication on hand so I just tossed and turned on
the bed. I was trying my best to alleviate the pain so I could sleep. I tried
to focus away from the pain and for moments it felt like the pain dulled down.
I was pondering if this is something that those skilled at mediating can do by
reducing the pain just by the mind.

~~~
criddell
> I tried to focus away from the pain

I've done exactly the opposite and have had some success and some failures.

I've had headaches where I focus 100% on the pain and try to objectively think
about the sensation - where it is and exactly how it feels. I've found that
often the pain fades away because I can't really pin it down.

On the other hand, if I do the same things with a mildly upset stomach, I can
pretty much always make myself barf.

~~~
milankragujevic
I do the same thing when having a headache. Focusing on the pain and all the
details about it causes the pain to get weaker, I keep focusing on it,
"digging it out", untill it subsides. Thinking about anything other than pain
does not cause relief. Interesting. I have noticed some benefits of
motionlessly sitting, breathing slowly but deeply and replaying the day in the
evening to relax and improve my socialization. This is different to the usual
anxiety of ruminating on past thoughts, for me at least. In the end I am tired
but feel in control and decisive, self confident. It makes it super easy to
fall asleep!

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iamgopal
Amazing how and what Indians knew three four millennium ago.

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hinkley
I'd be curious if her pain can be managed with non-opiods now.

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alwaysanagenda
I read this as:

"The answer to the opioid epidemic is just some meditation and reducing your
dosage. Everything is OK, guys. Really."

Effectively, a native ad to prop up big pharma.

~~~
MFogleman
An ad to prop up big pharma by suggesting that people cut their opioid use by
75%?

Lets assume that this is an ad to prop up big pharma. Something between 1 of
the 2 following extremes happens.

1\. Every opioid user takes up meditation, and is able to reduce their opioid
use by 75%. This would generally be considered a very good thing, even though
it would cost big pharma 75% of their opioid profits.

2\. The woman in the article is the only person in the world with this
reported success, nothing changes.

Are you suggesting that forces at play are hoping that the second happens, yet
all the lawsuits and criminal investigations against opioid manufacturers and
distributors will go away, in part due to articles like this, despite the lack
of change in numbers?

~~~
hinkley
It's easier to coax people into a trap when they believe there's an escape.

It's a big part of pressure sales dark patterns, I believe.

------
fjabre
Meditation will never gain mass acceptance or practice no matter how many more
of these articles we see.

People seem to forget there is a huge percentage of the population that will
never meditate or can't meditate due to extenuating circumstances.

While this article is interesting it's not helpful for this subsection of the
population.

For them it is far more beneficial to seek alternative therapies like rTMS,
tDCS, tACS, and DBS tech, of which meditation is probably a self propelled
variant.

It is well known that these technologies have analgesic effects and modulate
brain state with desirable outcomes, just like meditation.

They have the added benefit of also being directly applicable to nerve branch
areas/PNS in the body itself and not just the brain. So they go beyond
meditation and what is possible with meditation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation)

~~~
claudiawerner
>People seem to forget there is a huge percentage of the population that will
never meditate or can't meditate due to extenuating circumstances.

This is just a restatement of what you said in your first line, but again it's
just an assertion: "they won't do it" \- well okay, why won't they? Is it
because they feel they don't have enough time? Then we must give them more
time. Is it because they have little regard for their mental health? Then tell
them the dangers of letting mental health go unchecked. Is it because they are
averse to it because they see it as a satanic ritual? Then we must educate
them.

~~~
notyourloops
Only a small amount of the population engages in any behavior that requires
active lifestyle modification. Exercise and diet are hardly adhered to despite
being relatively simple. Meditation has the added difficulty of being
solitary, and, for most, boring and difficult (compared to the instant-
feedback world surrounding them).

~~~
claudiawerner
I think that fits into the wider goal of educating people to care for their
health for their own good; clearly the methods we're using don't work, and
haven't adapted to the world in which you could be doing a million other
things. Besides, it doesn't have to be all or nothing, you can easily escalate
how much time you spend and plan accordingly. The answer isn't to give up on
them.

~~~
rabidrat
Most people won't live their lives intentionally no matter what you do. It's a
noble goal to increase the number from, say, 10% to 20%. But getting even a
majority of people are going to 'care for their health for their own good' is
demonstrably impossible. At best you can turn self-care into a game or
entertainment, but extrinsic motivation is kind of the exact opposite of the
practice of meditation.

