Well they kinda have to check their brakes. Malpractice lawsuits scare the crap outta them.
It’s behooves them to be careful. And maybe ultra-conservative.
Their practice may limit their ability to write too many scripts for narcotics.
My brother is a very intelligent addict. He also has struggled with mental illness, and his addiction is due in some part to self-medicating. He is exactly the kind of person to say, fuck doctors, I know better, and that’s one reason why he’s an addict.
Because you selectively quoted, and left off the qualifying part of his opinion (shown above in Italics)? Why would you do that? What were you thinking?
JACK.
My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn’t a dentist. It produces a false impression.
ALGERNON.
Well, that is exactly what dentists always do.
The topics you have raised here and this one especially seem like they would make a good thread on their own. I would read it with interest.
Read Eonwe’s response. They get it.
I never made that last statement, and I don’t believe it. I said that there may be, at best, a loose correlation between the circumstances of low intelligence and the circumstances of drug addiction. Please stop making shit up and then trying to pin it on me.
Conservative pain management is the standard of care and considerable research effort is currently being bent towards finding even more ways to reduce the need for opioid usage in patients of all types. It has nothing to do with disdain on the part of physicians and everything to do with the fact that opioids are fucking terrifying and should be treated like a live snake.
You start low and move up in increments until you find the least dangerous thing that is effective. Anything else is malpractice.
While some docs are undoubtedly concerned about addiction to alcohol, it’s pretty well established that even low amounts of alcohol may lead to health problems.
I’m right in the middle of a opioid crisis as we speak.
I go in tomorrow for a imbedded pain pump.
The amount I need to take is untenable.
Doc says the pump will massively reduce that amount. And will work so much better.
I dread the procedure, of course. I’m afraid of the pain after.
The last two weeks have been awful. I was tasked with reducing my oral and injected pain meds. It’s so the tests of the pump will be reliable after surgery.
When I get thru the procedure and recovery room I feel like my comfort level will be optimized and I won’t be so completely off kilter every dialysis day.
I just want to quit struggling with this pain thing. It’s so awful.
OTOH, I’ve never had a doctor worry too much about me being addicted. If anything they’ve over prescribed opioids.
Ivy says it’s because I look pitiable. She’s cuckoo.
They take one look at you and say, “This woman needs more drugs.”
So she says.
Everyone is different. But a close friend had two incredibly painful post surgical hospitalizations, one shortly before and the other shortly after the invention of the morphine pump. She says the pump was vastly better. She had much better pain management at much lower total drug intake. So good luck.
I wish you all the best, @Beckdawrek . Constant pain is a bitch, fortunately I only had to endure short phases when I was in pain, but I have family and friends who struggle with it. Never had to make the decision of taking opiates/opioids myself, so I hope all will work out well for you.
The worst for me was my first kidney stone. I was in non-stop pain for over a week. And I mean non-stop; it would get better or worse at times, but it never stopped. It constantly felt like a knife stuck in my back. I barely slept; it was like I might eventually fall unconscious because I had no energy left to stay awake, but I never got any rest.
The strongest thing I had then was oxycodone, and that stuff makes me sick (because I have a codeine intolerance) so I only used it when I was desperate. I freaking hate that medicine. I have taken it before and then wished I hadn’t, as the pain alone was easier to deal with.
I’ve had one experience with oxycodone that I recall, and that was after I rolled a pickup in my early twenties. Broke the tips of three fingers, and massive head bruising, but TBH, got off pretty light.
What was weird is that while I was awake, aware and functional with oxycodone, I was totally oblivious to how badly I was hurt. I had friends and family help me the first 2 days and then I went back to work. Literally everyone from my co-workers to customers suggested I take more time off but I was young, stupid, and we were chronically understaffed. And because I was worried about dependency (I’m more than a little bit of a control freak), at the third day I went cold turkey on prescription meds and started using Tylenol. Two days after that I was in freakish pain, or rather, I realized I was! I could barely sleep because my bruised head and face were agony against the pillow, my left hand (thankfully I’m a rightie) was more or less useless from pain, but (see above about young and stupid) I still kept working and it did slowly get better (young healing as well).
If you’re using it as prescribed (we have a thread on that right now), and are as aware as you can be, @Beckdawrek I think you’re doing as well as can be expected with your challenges, and hope it works out for you.
Many hugs to all reading this who are in chronic pain - I get why doctors are really conservative about it right now, and it’s on the whole probably better for a slim majority to avoid the risks, it doesn’t mean a substantial minority aren’t going through hell because of it.
Ugh. I’ve moved from “oh good you’re getting better” to “you’re doing as well as can be expected”
Yeah. It’s a milestone I could do with out.
But I appreciate it anyway.
But enough about me.
Move on to THINKING of something else.
I’ve been fortunate to not have to deal with long term or chronic pain, but when I broke my leg I was prescribed some type of opiate. As long as my leg was in a comfortable position, there was zero pain, and if I moved to a bad position, then the pain broke through the medication. After one day, I decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.
That’s always been my experience. Things either don’t hurt, or break through the pain meds. For a back problem last year I was prescribed gabapentin, and that was different. It was like I could feel that my back should be hurting when I moved certain ways, but it didn’t hurt. I did not like that at all, so I stopped.
Later my dog was prescribed gabapentin because she impaled her leg on a stick. She only needed it a few days, so now I have leftover human and dog gabapentin.
To somewhat stay on topic, the main result of the broken leg oxy was a big what was I thinking moment. I really enjoyed the Battleship movie. I got a big kick out of the scene where the old guy is calling out coordinates to lay down a grid of shots to find the enemy, and Rihanna has an amazing screen presence.
See kids? This is the danger of opiates.
My mother died from opiate use. The experimental radiation therapy they were giving her for her pancreatic cancer burned a hole in her stomach, causing irreparable damage. The doctors gave her regular painkillers, then cannabis, and finally oxycodone to deal with the ever-intensifying chronic pain, and as the doses went up her mind faded and her body broke down. It was… difficult to watch.
She fought pancreatic cancer heroically for almost 10 years, which is one for the record books, but the pain and the opiates she took to handle it were too much for her.