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By Kanak Panigrahi
I believe in opioids.
This perspective doesn’t come naturally. While opioids have had a devastating impact on millions of people, I have learned to appreciate their benefits.
For my family, that shift in perspective came both suddenly and painfully. Around a month ago, my 12-year-old brother was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, or GBS.
This rare phenomenon is essentially a neurological disorder in which the immune system attacks the nerves.
It typically starts with numbness in the lower half of the body near the knees, and slowly works its way up, paralyzing everything in its path. It holds the power to reach the lungs and shut down breathing, and the pain is unimaginable.
Imagine seeing your brother screaming at the top of his lungs and writhing in pain, asking over and over to be put to death.”
This rare phenomenon is essentially a neurological disorder in which the immune system attacks the nerves. It typically starts with numbness in the lower half of the body near the knees, and slowly works its way up, paralyzing everything in its path. It holds the power to reach the lungs and shut down breathing, and the pain is unimaginable.
GBS doesn’t just disable; it hurts like never before. Imagine hot lava running through your veins, and you can’t do anything about it but scream.
My brother wasn’t just hurting. He was in pure agony. He felt like he was dying. At his lowest points, during his worst bouts of pain, he begged to be killed, saying death would hurt less than the pain he was going through.
Imagine seeing your brother screaming at the top of his lungs and writhing in pain, asking over and over to be put to death.
The doctors then placed him on carefully controlled doses of a strong opioid — namely morphine — to manage the intense nerve pain. Without them, he wouldn’t have been able to tolerate the most basic steps of recovery, such as physical therapy, sleep, even just breathing calmly.
These medications didn’t make him high. They made him stable. They allowed his body to relax and take the time to heal.
The other side of the story
Opioids are among the most powerful tools in medicine, if and when used wisely. Sedatives and opioids go hand in hand, but the most common opioids used as sedatives are morphine and, believe it or not, fentanyl.
Fentanyl, when mixed with heroin, is the drug most associated with overdose deaths. The illicit version of this drug is usually unregulated and therefore deadly. In a hospital, when doses are strictly measured and monitored by professionals, opioids become powerful, life-saving tools. These medications bind to pain receptors in the brain and spinal cord and shut them off temporarily, providing relief when no other medication can.
There is no denying that the opioid epidemic has devastated not only the US, but also the whole world. It is real and tragic and deserves to be spoken about, as it was driven by overprescription, misinformation, and a pharmaceutical industry that is entirely profit-driven. According to cdc.gov, around 750,000 people died solely due to opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2021. Over 75% (approximately 82,000) of the nearly 108,000 drug overdose deaths in 2022 involved opioids. And these numbers are horrifying.
But these statistics don’t illustrate the whole story. They don’t hold the power to override the medically legitimate uses of opioids in carefully monitored, controlled environments to save lives – particularly when it comes to severe, acute pain, surgery, cancer, and even rare disorders like GBS itself.
The negative stigma around opioids has become so intensely severe that even doctors hesitate to prescribe opioids until a last resort. Patients with chronic illnesses are almost cut off from their lifelines on a very abrupt note. Post-op patients are told to endure the pain and “toughen up” rather than being prescribed medication to ease the pain. This generalized, one-size-fits-all approach harms the very people medicine is supposed to help.
What’s the point?
I’m not here to defend or advocate for addiction. I’m not saying that opioids are without certain side effects, even in a medical environment. I’m here to say that opioids require responsible and informed usage.
The stereotype surrounding them has become so concretely black-and-white that there is limited opportunity to look into using them towards good. Either you’re against opioids, or you’re promoting addiction. There should be room for the gray within this black-and-white space, allowing room for growth, development, and saving lives.
For people like my brother, opioids aren’t just a treatment. They are a bridge, a bridge between unbearable pain and survival itself. The pain he was in was traumatic to even witness, and I have no idea how such a small, vulnerable 12-year-old body was able to endure so much pain.
He’s slowly recovering now and doesn’t need to rely on opioids to survive. Little by little, though very slowly, he’s regaining his strength, his function, his range of movement.
At this moment, I’m writing this article from beside his hospital bed.
This sweet and pure 12-year-old boy has been living in the hospital for almost a month now. It’s hard to imagine what these first few weeks would be like without those “dangerous” drugs. In all honesty? It might have been impossible.
Opioids as building blocks
It’s easy to make decisions and judge situations without experiencing pain first-hand. Nerve pain is invisible and unpredictable. It can’t be measured with in-depth scans, blood readings, or anything else of the sort.
Humanity shouldn’t dismiss someone’s suffering because a medication has been misused elsewhere. Instead, it should offer empathy.
Opioids, in the right hands, give humans what they really need: peace in the face of danger. A chance to sleep, a chance to heal, a chance to recover without enduring torture.
The next time you think of opioids, do think about loss and addiction. Also, however, leave room for thoughts about recovery. Recovery, relief, and the lives that have been saved from grueling discomfort because their pain was treated.
In the right hands, opioids don’t destroy lives. They help rebuild them, block by block.
This article was written as part of a program to educate youth and others about Alameda County’s opioid crisis, prevention and treatment options. The program is funded by the Alameda County Behavioral Health Department and the grant is administered by Three Valleys Community Foundation.
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