If you do long term opiate therapy for chronic pain and take your medicines as prescribed, is it still frowned upoin as a medically sound long term treatment?

The problem is not if it is frowned upon or not, the reason for the concern is that opiated cause addiction and the management of pain becomes very difficult after a while.Some patients(like cancer ones) definitely need opiates.The best is to consult a Pain Medicine group.They have resources to offer with knowledge the newest narcotics,other pain relieving methods and to monitor them correctly.

Folks who are candidates for chronic opioid therapies must be carefully screened and need to follow accepted protocols. As mentioned, tolerance causes increased dosing over time, and addiction can occur within a few weeks. Interactions with sedative/ tranquilizers can suppress central nervous system function causing apnea in sleep. (see Purdue pharmaceuticals as an example)