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Don't worry...the only doctor I really have is the endocrinologist who treats my thyroid, and I can't envision a situation wherein I'd say, "Hey guess what doc, ten years ago I ripped a stump out of the ground with the help of a cancer-patient friend's Percocets."
I work in healthcare... I have met some sanctimonious doctors and nurses over the years. Judging a person who took a percocet that her mom had given her after a fall and ibuprofen was not helping much.
One guy who is a devout Mormon was concerned that a patient had a glass of wine every night... the rest of us in the meeting were all Catholic and Episcopalian... everyone else was like "and ...so what?" He has never had alcohol so different thinking on a little wine is good for the soul
They're too hard to get for short term, too easy to get long term.
Narcotic pain relievers honestly do nothing for me, so.. I never use them unless absolutely necessary.. But, there are people who need them.. But if they need them for more than a week or two.. Something else needs to happen. Other pain management needs to come into play or the root cause of the need should be addressed.
After a root canal, dentist wanted to give me Lortab.. No thanks. When I had a TMJ issue.. Muscle relaxers were used and actually did help a little bit.. Thankfully, I didn't need them for too long.
The people who wind up on never ending prescriptions of Oxy or whatever.. You just can't do that. From an addiction and health standpoint.
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But if they need them for more than a week or two.. Something else needs to happen. Other pain management needs to come into play or the root cause of the need should be addressed.
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The people who wind up on never ending prescriptions of Oxy or whatever.. You just can't do that. From an addiction and health standpoint.
There are three problems with your statements:
1) Some problems simply can't be remedied and will result in pain for the rest of the patient's life.
2) There are nearly no negative health effects for the vast majority of people who do use medical-grade opiates over the long term. Sure, there are a few possible problems for some people, but it's a very small minority of people, certainly not enough to suggest a blanket prohibition of use for all people who endure long-term pain. Long-term street heroin users have issues primarily due to contaminants. Overdose risk is also low for people who use a steady, known dosage over the long term - again, the risk with street opiates is unknown strength and mixing drugs that shouldn't be mixed, neither of which are a common problem with long-term use of medical grade narcotics as long as the patient is well-cautioned about no mixing in other drugs without medical supervision. Overdose with prescription narcotics is usually with people just starting their regiment, people mixing drugs that they've been told not to mix, people using meds that aren't their own, or people committing suicide.
3) If someone does have an uncurable cause of pain and pain meds help them function, dependency on pain meds is only a social concern, not a medical concern. In other words, the primary reason it's "bad" is because of people like you who label it as bad. Medically it is not an issue as I said in item 2) above. And if someone does need to stop using narcotic pain meds, they can taper down and avoid most of the issues with ceasing use that physical dependence creates. Some percentage could see psychological addiction triggered, but even short-term use can trigger psychological addiction - the length of use actually has very little correlation with that risk.
Recall that herorin was made to get people off of opium. Cocaine was a cure-all, it was in baby teething drops and even coca-cola. If you recall when oxycontin first came out it was thought to be better because it was less addictive.
There has been a crack-down on pills... increase in heroin; crack-down on cocaine increase in crystal meth( pun intended)
A physician once told me I needed to go to a pain management clinic, so I called to make an appointment. They mailed me a packet to fill out and bring with me to the appointment. As I read what was sent I learned I had to sign a contract agreeing to cease taking any medicine they prescribed at a time they said stop. The instructions made it sound like whatever they gave me to take would be highly addictive, but would alieviate my pain.
After thinking about it I decided a pain clinic wasn't for me. Why become addicted to something when I didn't need to?
I would say most people do not need narcotic pain relief. I have never needed it and I have had some very serious injuries, surgeries and given child birth twice without pain meds. I was induced with pitocin with my first child and still didn't need pain meds or an epidural.
Ibuprofen works for me without that loopy feeling that the narcotics cause.
Good for you that Ibuprofen works for you. It doesn't work for many people or for many things. Ibuprofen never touched major headaches I used to get. I was even given prescriptions for Ibuprofen and it did nothing.
Many women have given child birth without pain meds. Doesn't make them a hero. Good for you that were able to do it without them not everyone can nor should they.
I had serious oral surgery last summer. I made my oral surgeon's top 10 list of most difficult to remove wisdom teeth and this man has been an oral surgeon for almost 40 years.
I had a section of my mandible (jawbone) removed to get the wisdom tooth out. Looking at my numerous x-rays her originally thought he could be able to break it into 4 pieces to remove it. He wasn't able to. He had to remove more bone than he wanted to and he had to crush the tooth.
My wisdom tooth was 100% horizontal and pushing against my 2 rear molars. Those molars were twisting from the pushing by the wisdom tooth. There was also a hole in the bone in between my last molar and the wisdom tooth. The wisdom tooth was completely surrounded by mandible.
This oral surgeon was the third doctor to look at it. The first was a dentist who insisted she could "chisel it out of my jaw just using Novocain." I asked her if she was on crack and never saw her again. I found a new dentist that has a brain and he wouldn't even consider sedating me to remove it. He said no one in the practice would touch it and it needed an oral surgeon so off to the oral surgeon I went. Both dentist #2 and the oral surgeon were appalled that anyone thought they could chisel it out of my jaw.
Here I am 8 months later and almost all the bone has grown back. There are dips in my mandible now. They may or may not continue to grow.
Yes, I was put on Vicodin and Ibuprofen. I was given enough Vicodin for 10 days. I think there were 30 pills. I took them for a couple days. I still have 21 pills left. I stopped taking them when I thought the Ibuprofen alone would be enough. That's what the oral surgeon suggested I do. He said I would not be able to get a refill so don't ask. I was never planning on asking.
I have had people ask me if they can have my pills or buy them. NO! I'm not Walgreens. Go get your own meds. I'm waiting for our local police department to have a drug collection day. I don't want to throw them away in case some weird goes through the trash. And you're not supposed to flush meds down the toilet.
I also broke a bone in my back many years ago and was never offered narcotics. I couldn't sit, stand, or lay down without being severe pain and agony. The kind of pain where tears pour down your face. It was wonderful! That doctor would only give me a script for Ibuprofen and that did absolutely nothing for my pain. I had torn muscles and bruised tissue as well. It was a wonderful 18 months.
Are narcotics easy to get? If you have serious surgery, maybe. If you have a serious injury, maybe. It all depends on your doctor and your area. Are they necessary? For some people yes. Would I have ever had my oral surgery without Vicodin? Heck, no! Not unless you could have kept me unconscious for 3 or 4 days. And that's the only time in my life I've been given a narcotic and holy crap the side effects make for some great Facebook posts a few days later!
I am not a likely candidate for drug abuse. I am older and pretty mainstream. And I'm not wealthy. Recently I was treated for a dental infection and ended up having 2 teeth extracted. By the time I was treated for the infection and had the teeth removed I had already been in pain for a couple weeks. Miserable really. After the extraction, I asked for pain meds and they refused. Really? 3 vicodin or something similar makes me an addict? I just wanted a little rest and relief.
The infection was real and visible. They could see it and knew I wasn't lying. It was also visible on x-rays. My jaw was swollen and I looked like a chipmunk. The extraction was difficult and I ended up black, blue, and yellow. And yet they couldn't see their way clear to give me a couple pain pills. Ridiculous! And wrong. I would have recovered much faster without the pain.
The dental practice asked me to review them so I wrote a scathing little piece that centered around their refusal of appropriate pain meds. I even included a picture of my bruised face. No surprise it never showed up on their site. Whenever I know someone who is going to have a medical procedure of some kind I urge them to discuss pain relief before the work is done. If what they offer is inadequate, walk away. There are great pain meds available and there is no reason we should suffer.
This is why I, and many others, keep every decent pain med I have ever been prescribed.
I was in a bad motorcycle accident when I was 18 that required 3 separate surgeries. I was prescribed some oxycodone 30mgs and actually needed them for a few months. After I no longer needed them for the pain, I didn't want to stop as they made me super energetic, euphoric, talkative and I was more productive at work than ever. Luckily for my 18 year old drug addicted self, this all happened in Florida circa 2006, the height of the pill mill epidemic there.
After my scripts from my legitimate orthopedic surgeon ran out, I made an appointment at one of the local "pill mills". $300 cash and a few questions later, I walked out of the office with 240 30mg oxycodones a month, enough to put most terminal cancer patients at ease and then some. I was in opiate addict heaven. Of course after a few months, the 240 pills would only last 2-3 weeks max and I had to obtain more from various shady people to get me through till the next refill.
After a year or so I finally realized I had a serious problem. I couldn't continue to take opiates for the rest of my life and decided to quit. Only I couldn't. The withdrawals made it impossible for me to function at my good (at the time) job and school, so I continued. After several failed attempts, I had to ultimately check into a detox center for a week and tapered off using suboxone. Then after I left, the worst month of my life ensued. I was in so much pain, hot/cold sweats, tremors, and generally was just a miserable human being. The withdrawals seared into my brain how much of a complete dumba** I was. I haven't touched them since and never will again unless I'm have some painful terminal condition in a hospital.
So from my experiences 10 years ago, they were far too easy to get. However, I don't blame the doctors or pharmacists for my addiction at the time, only myself.
Pain is subjective so if people really need them, they should be able to access them without having to be made to feel like a drug seeker. Unfortunately for people that are in legitimate pain, the high abuse rate of them makes this harder to accomplish. I do believe that if you are in legitimate pain, that you shouldn't have too much trouble getting your hands on narcotics.
Recall that herorin was made to get people off of opium.
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Heroin wasn't designed to get people off opium, it was thought it was less addictive than morphine.
Cocaine in oral formulations is really nothing like crack. And powdered cocaine still has a place in medical science, particularly topically for surgery.
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Originally Posted by 6.7traveler
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$300 cash and a few questions later, I walked out of the office with 240 30mg oxycodones a month, enough to put most terminal cancer patients at ease and then some. I was in opiate addict heaven. Of course after a few months, the 240 pills would only last 2-3 weeks max and I had to obtain more from various shady people to get me through till the next refill.
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Those "shady characters" exist regardless of ease of access. They just get even shadier when things are hard to get.
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