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Previous Volume 350:840-842 February 19, 2004 Number 8 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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To the Editor: Ballantyne and Mao's (Nov. 13 issue)¹ recommendations for prescribing doses of short-acting opioids for chronic recurrent pain may put patients at increased risk both for undertreatment of their pain episodes and for drug tolerance. In treating occasional or recurrent pain, patients may be best advised to treat episodes early and aggressively with doses of opioids, or of nonopioids that are large enough to suppress their pain completely and for long intervals. Infrequent use of large doses of opioids is not a model for the development of drug tolerance, whereas the administration of smaller, repeated doses is.²

The . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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