The Mount Sinai journal of medicine, New York
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Patients with opioid dependency experience trauma, acute medical illness and chronic diseases, and may have to undergo surgery to the same extent as other individuals. They need to be treated for relief of symptoms, including pain. ⋯ The guiding principles governing treatment of these patients are to maintain the methadone treatment and to use short-acting narcotics administered at higher doses, and to do so as often as necessary, preferably on a fixed schedule, to relieve the pain. Supplemental analgesic medication may also be employed, except that opiate antagonists must be avoided.