The stuff that works for the pain has effects I do not like is what I mean. Not that the drugs are illegal.
Because it’s NERVE pain, the drugs that work on that make my brain stop working, too. I’d rather feel the pain and have my brain still work, thanks.
Oh I see. Well hydrocodone isn’t technically illegal but something has happened to make doctors terrified of prescribing it. So I’ve had to turn to CBD oil, which is annoying.
If I take pain meds at bedtime along with a muscle relaxer that’s usually sufficient and I can still be alert the next day. Probably more alert since I got better rest than if I slept in pain.
friend’s brother (60 yrs old) recently died self medicating his chronic back pain. was buying street oxy. they suspect it was just fentanyl (pressed into oxy shape) and mixed too strong in that pill.
This is the fault of … I’m not sure. AMA? Congress? FDA???
Who has made doctors terrified of prescribing narcotics? They have your friend’s brother’s blood on their hands IMO.
legalize all drugs!!!
it is the fault of…whoever made the fake pill masquerading as oxy and the 60yr old guy who preferred to self-treat and remain outside the system (increasing his exposure to risk).
it may relate back to the makers of oxy who defrauded and abused the system to make bank while underselling the known risks. the risks - if properly known - would have helped limit unnecessarily broad take up and prevalence.
i offered the anecdote w your line quoted bc i don’t think anyone should be taking fentanyl outside of a setting where the dr and medical staff are present. it is amazing (according to practistioners I have spoken to) but too dangerous in the wrong hands.
really depends on your level of discomfort.
I had some really uncomfortable symptoms for over 3 years (still happens from time to time) and no doctor could figure out why. And the only way I was able to alleviate the discomfort was taking xanax. Of course, the xanax was not prescribed, since that is not a legitimate use of the medicine, but for whatever reason, that’s the only thing that worked.
Long story short, I took xanax almost everyday for 2 years, which caused significant issues for me physically (I could at times barely breathe). So I manually weaned myself off it.
If it was opioids I was on, probably wouldn’t be so pleasant.
Pain and discomfort are really difficult things to describe to medical professionals. And now we’ve created an environment where they probably are inclined to believe that you don’t have as much pain and discomfort as you claim, and that you may only be claiming so because you’re addicted. It’s quite the dilemma.
Of course not. But when people can’t get the pain relief they need, options are limited. Which is asinine… it shouldn’t be so difficult to treat pain in the 21st century.
problem is pain cannot be objectively measured, so the doctor needs to take your word for it.
Either you 1. make the bar real high so people can’t just lie their way to their drugs, or 2. make the bar real low so you don’t care if people become dependent on it.
Worth noting that people rarely OD from legal drugs. Most of the opiods ODs are because the dosages of the illegal drugs are inconsistent.
Yes, well my doctor, who has been my doctor for a bunch of years now, and is aware of my medical history, should be allowed to exercise judgment and take my word for it.
My wife has lived with chronic pain since a car accident over 20 years ago.
Her first pain management doctor, the one that got her over the hump, attracted the worst-of-the-worst cases for chronic pain, partly because he was willing to try unorthodox combinations when nothing orthodox would work, and partly because there is a shortage of pain specialists in the state. There weren’t too many alternatives.
Unfortunately, a local news outlet, fired up with the “pill mill” news at the time, started poking around and published the statistic that this one doctor wrote more opioid prescriptions than a major hospital. It was a sensational headline…but the statistic does kind of make sense given the circumstances.
State regulators got involved, and his license was pulled for a couple of reasons, including sloppiness arising from the excessive case load, a couple of patients having died from overdoses (I knew one of them; she was a person whose condition was literally “your pain levels will increase, and your other capabilities will decrease, until there is nothing but you sitting in your wheelchair, blind, deaf, and in agony…and then you’ll die”), and several instances of prescriptions being diverted to illicit uses (not surprising, given the financial difficulties faced by folks unable to work due to chronic health issues).
I think a neighbor kid breaking into our house and stealing about two months’ worth of prescription fentanyl might also have played a role in that hearing.
Eventually, we did find another pain specialist who would work with Mrs. Sidekick. The fact that every appointment includes a pee test, a counting of the pills, and one to three surveys to monitor depression, pain, etc. is annoying…but I understand why that practice does those things. And even with those considerations, there are pharmacies that won’t accept prescriptions from that practice because of the number of opioid prescriptions they write.
Chronic pain, and the treatment of chronic pain, sucks.
Wow! I know someone whose doctor suspected she wasn’t taking her pain meds (because her slime-ball-husband-that-she-claims-she’s-divorcing-and-I-hope-this-time-she-really-means-it was selling them out from under her) and gave her a drug test which she failed because the narcotics were NOT in her system. But like the doc had reason to suspect her (her pain was too high for the meds she was supposedly on), so that made sense.
If they’re just routinely testing every patient that sucks. But maybe I need to get a pain management doc. I only recently learned that this was a specialty that existed. I’m getting nowhere with my PCP.
If you know what meds work for you, I’d just get it from Mexico.
Hydrocodone works, but I don’t know how to go about getting it from Mexico. Is it safe? Is it legal?
Amen to that. Best wishes to your wife. Jazz hands hug! 
Here’s what you can buy OTC in Mexico:
Most popular painkillers
If you have a prior prescription bottle that’s best to carry it back in with. Obviously depends on your own anxiety level if you get randomly searched. But Americans do it everyday.
Obviously it’s not legal. But it’s easy to claim dumb, and worst case scenario they just dump it out and you waste your money - which isn’t expensive to begin with.
“Oh I had some back pain and this is what they recommended”
Well the trip to Mexico would be expensive even if the drugs aren’t.
probably one of the cheapest international vacations you can get. and you’re on actuary money I don’t wanna hear it!
Record high today. Does anybody consider climate change in mortality improvement projections?