JUPITER, Fla. — Even as Florida celebrates a 42% drop in opioid deaths, doctors and recovery specialists say the real fight is prevention — and one Jupiter surgeon is taking that fight into the operating room.
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For years, prescribing dozens of opioid pain pills after knee or hip replacement surgery was standard practice. Dr. Andrew Noble, an orthopedic surgeon at Jupiter Medical Center, is taking a different approach — one built on the idea that patients who never receive pills they don't need are never put at risk in the first place.
Noble uses the Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) protocol combined with his own proprietary method to help patients recover from joint replacement surgery without ever touching an opioid.
"Instead of chasing pain, it's a way of trying to stay ahead of pain, and have less pain afterwards with less need for opioids," Noble said.
The ERAS protocol combines robotics for minimally invasive surgery, targeted numbing, and a timed schedule of non-opioid medications taken before, during, and after surgery.
For patient April Stubbs, the approach worked.
"My husband had previously had Achilles surgery, and he had a friend who had mentioned, 'Don't take any of those drugs, they are highly addictive,' and that was definitely on my mind," Stubbs said.
Stubbs recovered from knee replacement surgery without opioids.
"I never had to touch the more serious pain medications. The opioids — never even had to take any," Stubbs said.
At Reprieve Recovery in Jupiter, Chief Marketing Officer Daniel Warren said patients are often unaware of the physical effects of opioid medications taken during surgical recovery.
"They'll take a substance for two weeks, and they'll feel uncomfortable, or they'll go through withdrawals, and they don't even know why, like they were never educated that you can withdraw from those medications," Warren said.
Warren knows those symptoms personally. He got sober at Reprieve Recovery eight years ago and has spent the last seven years working there to help others do the same.
"If a physician's able to provide recovery time or recovery medication regimen that exposes the patient to a lot less risk of developing a substance use disorder, then that's definitely a step in the right direction," Warren said.
Noble said the goal is straightforward.
"Our goal here, get patients through a surgery, better pain control, and having them with a quick recovery and satisfied results without the opioid exposure," Noble said.
Patients can ask their doctor if the ERAS protocol is an option for them. Go here for more info on the procedure.
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