


Addiction After Injury: How Painkillers are Causing Heroin Addiction
It’s no secret that there’s a heroin epidemic raging across the US. Addiction statistics are off the charts when it comes to heroin use, and it’s affecting practically every demographic there is. Those most at risk? Quite often it’s those who have suffered an injury who run the greatest possibility of becoming someone who’s hooked on heroin. How Can Painkillers Prescribed for an Injury Lead to Heroin Use? It all stem from the prescription pain medication prescribed after someone’s suffered an injury. This means that many who get hurt (from teen athletes injured in sports to someone who slipped and broke their ankle) are given painkillers to take until their symptoms improve. The thing is, most of these prescription pain pills hold high potential for addiction–and this addiction is what often leads to heroin use. Heroin offers similar effects to prescription meds. It feeds addiction almost exactly the same way as painkillers do, and does so at a fraction of the cost. Painkillers can be expensive (and difficult to attain) on the black market, and heroin’s something that’s cheap. Not only that, but it’s readily available pretty much everywhere. So, once the addiction sets in, many search for more pain medications. After being addicted to pain medication addicts seek a cheaper solution, which often leads to heroin use. Prescription Medication Causes Dependency Prescription painkillers are also known as opioids. They work by reducing the amount of pain signals that reach the brain while influencing certain areas in the brain that control emotion. And while they certainly do provide pain relief (and sometimes feeling of euphoria), they are also causing the biggest opioid epidemic...