This article is fairly wordy. There is a hyperlink below where you can pull it up and read it. However, the chart below is pretty telling
Key Points
Question How does the risk of overdose change with the number of days with concurrent opioid and benzodiazepine use?
Findings In this cohort study of US Medicare data, the overdose risk associated with concurrent benzodiazepine use changed over time. Concurrent benzodiazepine use was associated with a 5-fold increase in the risk of opioid-related overdose during the initial 90 days and an increase of 1.87 times on days 91 to 180.
Meaning Policy interventions should focus on preventing concurrent opioid and benzodiazepine use in the first place instead of reducing the length of concurrent use. Patients using both medications should be closely monitored, particularly during the first days of concurrent use.
Association Between Concurrent Prescription Opioid and Benzodiazepine Use and Risk of Opioid-Related Overdose
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2685628
Filed under: General Problems
well,this certainly isnt new news….my doc and I discussed it LONG ago.combining any prescription medicines must always be treated cautiously.The two mentioned BOTH cause drowsiness,so its only common sense to know one’s own limits.Be careful.you’ll have no problem.Thankz for the article
4-5 insurance companies and the PBM’s they own, are your basic monopoly – controlling 80%-90% of the entire Rx market place. They have such “deep pockets” that no member of Congress can refuse their request$ to let them do what they have always have done.When the PBM industry came around – 1970 – some 90%+ Rxs were brand name and the average price was $4-$5/each. We had no prior authorizations, no mandatory generic substitution, no step therapy, no days supply limits, no therapeutic substitutions. Today, the average Rx price is in the $70 range. While “they” do not directly charge the final payer (employer) for a PA, they do estimate the cost of handling a PA and starts at $11.00 and may go up into the 40.00 range, and those “estimated costs for PA” is incorporated into their administration costs that is pass along to the final payer the next year in the premiums they charge. 90% of PA are approved. The question is.. are PAs required just to add administrated costs to pad the PBM’s bottom line? Without the PBMs being in our system, and our Rx medication distribution left alone, it is estimated that the average Rx price would be in the $40 range. Considering no PBM involved and 80%-90% of Rxs being generic, average Rx price would be in the $25-$35 range. Why are we paying about DOUBLE for our Rxs and the only major change in our Rx distribution system since 1969 is the PBM industry that controls 85%-90% of all Rxs filled. Has the PBM industry provided any added value to our Rx distribution system, improved QOL of pts taking Rx meds? Community pharmacies fill abt 5 BILLION Rxs per year and a estimated 4.5 billion are controlled by the PBM industry. We may be paying the Insurance/PBM industry abt 157 BILLION for their theoretical “value added services”, or we could be letting the Insurance/PBM industry just ripping us off. Pharmacies are closing because the insurance/pbm industry is paying pharmacies “pennies” while they divert millions of dollars into their coffers.
Thank you for all that you publish. I find it very informative and important to those of us who wish to read it. I just enlarged the print and had no problem reading it. Thank you again for the time you take to keep us informed. Much appreciated!
Can you explain what this means and why, exactly, you chose to publish it?
Also, why is the right side cut off? It only adds to the mystery of why you felt it was important.
Thank You!
Because some insurance and some doctors are told that there is a interaction between the two meds, which may be the case when you are talking about a pt who is naive to the two meds. Whereas, a pt that has been taking those two meds for > 271 months the statistics indicate that there is little/no risk of OD or other such problems. I reduced the graphic so it all shows on the screen, but I will probably now get complaints that the text is so small that people can’t read it.