All posts tagged: Opioids

Tiger Woods pleads not guilty to DUI following car crash where ‘lethargic’ golfer was discovered with highly addictive opioids

Tiger Woods pleads not guilty to DUI following car crash where ‘lethargic’ golfer was discovered with highly addictive opioids

Published by Daniella Wilson

Tiger Woods has pleaded not guilty to the DUI charges he faces following his car crash in Jupiter Island, Florida, on March 27. The pro golfer reportedly clipped a pickup truck with a trailer, which caused his Land Rover to flip onto its driver’s side.vTiger was able to escape from the car, and when authorities arrived on the scene, they reported that his eyes were “bloodshot and glassy” and that his behavior was “lethargic and slow”. According to the affidavit released by the Martin County Sheriff’s Department, police allegedly found two white pills in Tiger’s pockets upon searching him, which were identified as hydrocodone – a strong painkiller and highly addictive opioid used to treat severe chronic pain. When asked if he was taking any prescription medication, he replied: “I take a few.” The 50-year-old cleared his breathalyzer test, yet allegedly refused to submit to a urine test. Tiger told authorities that he was  looking down at his phone while changing the music in his car when the truck ahead of him slowed. © Getty …

Opioid addiction almost destroyed me – then I became a top marathon runner | Opioids

Opioid addiction almost destroyed me – then I became a top marathon runner | Opioids

Published by Sam Flores

It started in 1998, with a pain in Ken Rideout’s ankle. A podiatrist gave him a prescription for seven Percocet, a drug containing the opioid oxycodone. Rideout was a high-flying commodity trader in New York, outwardly successful but racked with impostor syndrome. The Percocet dulled his foot pain – and also his anxiety. Rideout was used to alcohol and cocaine, but this was different. He felt happy, confident and optimistic. He returned to the podiatrist for more pills. Then more. Soon he was altering the prescriptions manually, changing a seven into a two and adding a zero, before targeting smaller pharmacies that wouldn’t run verification checks. A year after starting the pills, Rideout moved to London for work. This was an opportunity, he thought, for a clean break. But within a week he was suffering extreme withdrawal: depression, delirium from days of lost sleep, overwhelming flu-like symptoms. He called his younger brother and asked him to FedEx a batch of a new drug he had read about called OxyContin, which, depending on the dose, can …

Gabapentin for Chronic Pain, a Safe Alternative to Opioids?

Gabapentin for Chronic Pain, a Safe Alternative to Opioids?

Published by Jenni Sidey

Gabapentin is an anticonvulsant medication that is FDA approved for the treatment of seizure disorders and postherpetic neuralgia—a chronic, often debilitating, nerve pain syndrome often linked to shingles. It is classified as an anticonvulsant and a GABA analogue, meaning it mimics the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which normally reduces nerve excitability. An extended-release version (gabapentin enacarbil) is approved for restless legs syndrome. Gabapentin works by calming overactive nerve activity in the brain and nervous system, primarily through interactions with calcium channels. However, it is also frequently prescribed off label for a variety of chronic pain conditions and generally viewed as a safer alternative to opioids. As a result, over the last 15 years, prescriptions for gabapentin have increased dramatically. This coincides with burgeoning awareness of and concern about the opioid epidemic that began around this time, and subsequent to the significant relaxing of opioid prescribing standards to include chronic pain conditions. A September 2025 report by CDC researchers in Annals of Internal Medicine documented gabapentin’s rapid rise in the U.S. Prescriptions for gabapentin per 1,000 …