Q: What would you say to a patient who is worried about becoming addicted to opioid painkillers?

A: These medications can occasionally cause people to become addicted to them. With an adult who has never had a problem of dependence on alcohol or drugs, the chance of that happening is low. By all means, we should take advantage of these medications, because of the problems with untreated pain. If the patient has a history of dependence, we will carefully monitor their use of the medication and limit the escalation of medicine. But even if the patient has a history of alcohol or drug dependence, these medications continue to be the best we have, so we have to work together to minimize problems.