RALEIGH COUNTY, WV (WOAY) – The U.S. Pain Foundation is using this Pain Awareness Month to shed light on chronic pain and the challenges people with pain face.
“We’ve been through the opiate crisis, and from 1999 prescribed opioids until about 2015-2016, where we started to see a decline with the CDC guidelines that were released,” said Interventional Pain Physician Dr. Brian Yee. ” Certain limitations and restrictions should be considered when prescribing opiate medications for pain patients.”
That helped stem the overuse of opiates. Yee says at the West Virginia Pain Institute, they evaluate the patient, determine their anatomic problems, and what’s causing their pain.
“We try to come up with a comprehensive multimodal plan to help address the pain issues, whether it’s physical therapy, any kind of rehab options, cognitive or psychological therapies that can help, acupuncture or even just exercise, and including injection therapies that we do as well as small surgeries,” the doctor said.
As Southern West Virginia continues to be devastated by the opioid epidemic, the interventional pain physician’s alternative approaches to treating his chronic pain patients have never been more important.
In 2024-2025, the Mountain State saw a decrease in opioid-related overdose deaths, leading the nation in its rate of reduction. But health experts advise continued vigilance.
“We still have seven, eight, 900 people dying of opiate related deaths in our state per year,” Yee said, adding that’s a very high number. “It has transitioned, though, from inappropriate use of prescription medications to the synthetic opiates.”
The CDC’s 2022 update guidelines for long-term opiate therapy show no benefit compared to taking Tylenol and acetaminophen. In his generation of training, the doc says they had a pendulum swing from opiate therapy being standard to becoming nonstandard.
“That’s reassuring to let people know that not everybody needs to have a certain type of pain medication prescription to address their pain complaints,” Yee said. “We were relying more on other options, including interventions and smaller surgical and minimally invasive procedures to help alleviate pain.”
It feels great, the doctor says, because he has never been an opiate proponent.
“My reputation of the past 15 years in this community is that I’ll try to do the best to take care of you, but I’m not going to be a pill-pushing kind of guy for you,” said Yee.
The doc says in America, we want easy fixes.
“And people’s perception is that a pill, especially for pain, is an easy fix. That’s not the case, especially when it comes to opiates, and the risks of overdose or other complications are much higher,” Yee said. “So it’s having open, honest conversations with your patients, providers, and with your community.”
