EP 950B - Bioethicist’s Personal Struggle with Opioids

When Travis Rieder, PhD, was in a motorcycle accident in May 2015, he couldn't have imagined what would follow.

It was the most severe trauma he'd ever experienced. Having to endure half a dozen surgeries, in addition to the excruciating pain of the accident itself, he found opioids to be both miraculous and essential to his recovery. 

At the time, he didn't realize what the "cost" of those opioids would be. Rieder developed a great dependence on the drugs and suffered for weeks, what he calls "dope sick," upon getting off them. 

Rieder’s experience exposes a dark secret of American pain management: a healthcare system so conflicted about opioids, and so inept at managing them, that the crisis currently facing us is both unsurprising and inevitable.

Listen as Rieder joins Dr. Roizen to share his personal journey through opioid use, as well as why this is such a significant problem in our society today.

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