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Evidence shows that chronic opioid therapy is usually not beneficial; weaning patients off opioids many times results in less pain and better function, and opioid-induced hyperalgesia is real and frequent. Further evidence suggests that surgical outcomes are better if patients are weaned off opioids before surgery, and that the chronic use of opioids may adversely alter the assessment of maximum medical improvement (MMI).
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Talmage et al. (2021) studied this question.
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