Joseph K. Vaughan, Jr., M.D.
Fort Worth, TX
903-714-9044
Transcript: The use of narcotic medications
In general, I often don’t employ narcotic medications in managing facial pain syndromes in my practice. With the newer medications, we’re able to achieve success in pain prevention very quickly, quicker than in the older preparations of medications so oftentimes we don’t have to rely on those medications in order to get quick pain relief.
The side effect profile of these medications in addition to the drug – drug interactions that these medicines often present suggest that we would be best to avoid them if at all possible. Sometimes this is unavoidable and we have to use them in very short term, very limited situations to achieve pain control. Then we would rely on preventative medications to keep the pain from recurring. Particularly since there are neurosurgical options, we are able to prevent people from being on long term narcotics for these facial pain syndromes and this is quite advantageous as well.