Painkiller Opana, new scourge of rural America
Back in high school in Houston, Texas, C.J. Coomer got good grades and played football. He was dark-haired and handsome, popular with his friends and doted on by his family.
But when his mother got divorced and moved to be near family in rural Scott County, Indiana, Coomer began running with a crowd there that abused prescription painkillers to get high. His weight dropped from 210 pounds to just 140 pounds (64 kg), he couldn’t work, and was constantly borrowing money.
One night last July, Coomer tried something new - Opana, a powerful opioid painkiller containing oxymorphone. He overdosed and died at the age of 24.
“It’s a nightmare every single day,” said his mother, Melissa Himmelheber, 43, who wiped away tears as she showed pictures of her lost son. “This is a family that was extremely close. Now we’re just picking up the shattered pieces.”
Prescription drug abuse is the new scourge of rural America. It now leads to more deaths in the United States than heroin and cocaine combined, and rural residents are nearly twice as likely to overdose on pills than people in big cities, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
What is Opana?
Opana (oxymorphone) is a opioid pain reliever. It is similar to morphine. An opioid is sometimes called a narcotic.
Opana is used to treat moderate to severe pain. The extended-release form of this medication is for around-the-clock treatment of pain.
Opana may also be used for purposes not listed in this medication guide.
While methamphetamine addiction has long been associated with small towns, prescription painkillers have overtaken meth as the most abused drugs in places such as southern Indiana, according to local authorities.
CONTRAINDICATIONS
OPANA® ER is contraindicated in patients with a known hypersensitivity to oxymorphone hydrochloride, morphine analogs such as codeine, or any of the other ingredients of OPANA ER; in patients with moderate or severe hepatic impairment or in any situation where opioids are contraindicated such as: patients with respiratory depression (in the absence of resuscitative equipment or in unmonitored settings), acute or severe bronchial asthma, hypercarbia, and in any patient who has or is suspected of having paralytic ileus.
OPANA ER is not indicated for pain in the immediate post-operative period or if the pain is mild, or not expected to persist for an extended period of time. OPANA ER is only indicated for post-operative use if the patient is already receiving the drug prior to surgery or if the post-operative pain is expected to be moderate or severe and persist for an extended period of time. Physicians should individualize treatment, moving from parenteral to oral analgesics as appropriate (see American Pain Society guidelines). OPANA ER is not indicated for pre-emptive analgesia (administration pre-operatively for the management of post-operative pain).
Opana is the hot new prescription drug of abuse, sometimes with tragic consequences.
At least nine people have died so far this year from prescription drug overdoses in Scott County, Indiana. Most of the fatalities involved Opana, according to county coroner Kevin Collins.
Before 2011, only about 20 percent of the cases referred to the coroner were overdose deaths, and most of those were suicides rather than accidents. Last year, prescription drug overdoses accounted for 19 deaths, or about half of all deaths referred to the coroner in this county of just 24,000 on the southern tip of Indiana, about 30 miles from Louisville, Kentucky.
“We’re seeing a lot of 25-year-olds who are dead for no apparent reason,” said Collins, who is so disheartened by the overdoses that it is one reason he won’t run for reelection in May.