Opioids - your thoughts.

[jaminhealth]

I can't speak for "why they didn't learn to manage"... people many of them get addicted to a lot of stuff in life...many have addictive personalities, genes whatever. Many come from families of addiction issues..I don't have a answers for others. Some from hard situations in life and turn to meds to help them survive and often they are destroying themselves. AA and NA are full of those working on recovery.

Those who need strong pain meds, are just that. And if that is the case, so be it. Not for me as I work with many other pain reducers. I just took 5g of MSM powder which I do 2 times daily, have been for many yrs.

[galaxyhi]

OP, I have degenerative disc disease, compression fractures, and a couple herniated discs, one in my neck was removed. And replaced with cadaver bone.

I have taken a dose of morphine and a codeine backer for about 12 years. I'm NOT addicted, but do NEED it. If the morphine helps, but I have "breakthrough pain", I take the codeine backer. Because low doses ceased to be effective, my Dr increased to the 10/325 mg dose, a high dose.

I also have gone to two different pain centers, one was,independent and got absorbed into the rival hospital to mine, and then I changed to my hospitals pain clinic.

I also have trigger point injections, deep epidural injections, and radio frequency ablation on the back nerves
I also have serious but not yet surgery fixable knee problems.

As my pain Dr and I have discussed for when they take off the market the meds I do use, what will I turn to????

It's definitely gone the WRONG way to eliminate ALL OPIODS for ALL people because a few misused it. You only hear about those who OD on them or turn to heroine and die from that, but not the hundreds of thousands of successful management people who take opiods.

I know I'm not addicted, as I can go days without it if I don't need to take it ( generally hot dry summer days), but i will experience mild discomforts if I stop for several days, but nothing that I'd go walking down dark alleys looking for a dealer I can spot a $100/ to to get a dose of heroine.

The first page of this thread points out the difference between addiction and usefulness. So I won't go into that. Some addicts could be given an aspirin and if they are told it's a drug, would get "high" anyway. Other would not, but find little to no relief.

Ok I guess if you do take one ibuprofen and one aspirin together, it can have a great pain relief effect. But things like that already exist. Such as extra strength excedrine, which is the same identical thing to Excedrin migraine, they just charge more for the name migraine, which is the same compound as an old controlled substance I used to take for migraines, called butalbital, but Excedrin doesn't have the barbiturates in it.

Pain management with things like pot exist, and a coworker with back problems says it helps, but it does get her high when she takes it. It's legal medically here in my state. But not covered by insurance. I don't want to be taking something that will get me high.

I will rue the day they take away my morphine and codeine backer .

But for now I have it. And I need it, but I'm not addicted to it.

Oh, and I won't be OD-ing on it either.

OP I wish you luck if you need to find something different. So probably will I.

[purehuman]

Originally Posted by reneeh63

Alcohol tends to kill more slowly and older people so it's not so dramatic as opioid overdoses - except of course for the car accidents alcohol causes.

News does seem to be less objective these days but even with fewer deaths than alcohol clearly we need to rethink how opioids are prescribed and used.

I don't agree.....We're clearly NOT rethinking how easy it is to get alcohol, or about the damage it has and is causing....most people don't even consider it a problem.
I see no need to rethink about a drug that harms less than half as much.
Rethinking is what has caused a lot of people in extreme pain to be denied the drugs that actually worked to alleviate that.
Wrapping the legitimate patient who NEEDS the opioids to stave off pain with the drug addict who seeks it to get high is very very unfair, and that seems to be what the "rethinking" has done.