Make Pain a Thing of the Past – drug screening – Physician Partners of America

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Dr. Rodolfo Gari Talks Taking Pain Medication: How Much Is Too Much?

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Cyndi: Many of have been there. We go to a doctor for whatever may be ailing us and we walk out with a prescription. Some of you may be taking a long list of medications right now, but how much is too much? Dr. Rudy Gari from Florida Pain Relief Group joins us now to help answer that question. Dr. Gari, great to have you back.

Dr. Gari: My pleasure.

Cyndi: So there are a lot of people right now who are on medications their doctor has prescribed, and they are taking some over-the-counter medications as well. How do they know what’s working?

Dr. Gari: Well, there are many times where they don’t know. And so, for example, there is something in medicine called hyperalgesia, and we see that a lot in pain management. And what that means is that sometimes pain medications in and of itself causes pain, because you’re taking way too much of a medication, your body gets used to it. There are different receptors, and once you have saturated those receptors so much, it becomes counterproductive. So that’s one of the things. We often have to do what’s called an opioid rotation, where we switch the medication from a certain type to a different medication, and a lot of times we can lower it in half and get better pain relief.

Cyndi: Well, is there a test that can be taken to see how effective medicines are for certain people, for certain ailments?

Dr. Gari: Absolutely, and it’s a test that we provide to all of our patients because we believe in that. And it’s called pharmacogenomics. Pharmacogenomics is a very exciting test. I believe that it’s the way of the future and I believe every physician’s office will be offering this. And what it does is that it looks at your unique genetic makeup and how your own body metabolizes those medications. And we’re all different. So that’s the first thing that we do is, you know, you might be taking medications that you had to take 10 times more than you will. And sometimes it’s the reverse. Your body can be very susceptible to medications. For example, codine. We know that the FDA issued a box label warning against hypermetabolizers of codine, because codine gets converted to morphine, and there were actually, like, five kids that died from tonsillectomies.

Cyndi: Taking codine?

Dr. Gari: Just regular codine, normal doses, but they overdosed because their genetic makeup was such that they ended up producing a lot more morphine from the codine than normally would happen.

Cyndi: Do some pills cancel each other out?

Dr. Gari: Yes, yes, absolutely. They do. So we have to look not only at your genetic makeup and how it metabolizes, we have to look at how the medications work on your body and how they interact with each other.

Cyndi: Is there a type of miracle pill out there that can help all pain?

Dr. Gari: I think in the future we’ll have one. Not today, though. No.

Cyndi: So for people who are taking a lot of different medications right now, first of all it’s not healthy, is it, to be mixing all different pills?

Dr. Gari: Well, it’s not good at all, Cyndi. I mean, there are side effects with each medication, and those side effects become exponential, so that if you’re taking three of those pills, the side effects may be like fivefold instead of threefold because they interact with each other, and they counteract each other and they make things worse. So one of the things a doctor has to do, especially if they’re coming in for whatever it may be, we have to look at all of the medications that you’re on and determine which ones you may no longer need, or substitute a different medication for one that you’re taking that works better for you.

Cyndi: So the goal of the Florida Pain Relief Group is to get you off as many of those medications as possible, right?

Dr. Gari: We want to get you to what you were before you started taking the pills, as much as possible.

Cyndi: That is music to a lot of people’s ears. Dr. Gari, thank you very much. You can visit their website,  to schedule your same-day appointment.  Give them a call today. We’ll be right back.

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Actionable Tips for Effective Drug Screening

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Effective Drug Screening

If you are an owner of a company, there are high chances that you would not want your employees to be under the influence of drugs while working or let them suffer from the after-effects of drugs while at work. This will result to making them less productive and worse, this may lead to an unsafe workplace.

Although drug testing is readily available, especially in today’s time when it has become almost a requirement for all companies and agencies to have their employees undergo the testing, it can be expensive. It might also be difficult for some employers to spend their money on such. However, there are ways that can help employers minimize the cost while still making sure that the workplace is safe and drug-free. One of them is to conduct an effective drug testing.

Below are some of the tips that will help employers conduct an efficient drug testing while creating a productive workplace without breaking the bank.

Be smart and sure about which drugs you test

You should answer this very important question to help your company conduct an Effective Drug Screening: Do you do prior research before choosing the drugs that you are going to test for? You would definitely not want to be tested for all drugs as this would only contribute to a greater deal of expense as far as the procedure is concerned. What needs to be done is to make sure that you are only testing for the drugs that have the highest tendencies to be used in the area where your employees are.

For example, if most of the employees are under the age thirty, research about the most common types of drugs that people of this age would likely use. On the other hand, twenty-year-olds are more inclined to do drugs than those in their thirties. Therefore, it is important to make a distinction when you decide for the drug to test.

Moreover, you should also research on the types of drugs that are available in your area. This is an important factor as the popular drugs may signify that they are available and are likely to be used by people. Doing your research in advance will make the drug testing more effective and will help you save a decent amount of money.

When opting for a urine test, be sure that the time frame is short enough for it to be effective

Passing a drug test can be easy- you just have to wait for one to two days for the drugs to pass out of the system. If you want to make the urine test effective, you need to require your employees to undergo the test in one day. But make sure that you check the laws present in your area and that you are within the set guidelines.

Consider a saliva test for on-site collection of samples

Lastly, if you are going to collect a sample for an on-site random drug test, it is important to go with a saliva test instead of a urine test. A urine test might be uncomfortable for people to take while in the workplace. However, since a saliva test would only involve a small, lollipop-shaped stick and put it in the mouth, it is unlikely to cause any discomfort on the employees. At the same time, saliva testing is not easy to fake, thus providing more accurate results and a more effective drug screening.

Today, technology has provided significant improvements in drug testing methodologies and different industries are catching up. Since drug testing is important in making sure that the company is safe and employees are productive, maximizing the benefits of these technologies will undoubtedly yield positive results.

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