I had to beg my 80 year old mother to take Vicodin after her knee replacement surgery. She was so afraid of becoming addicted that she would shake from pain rather than take a pill. After I talked her into it her PT went quickly and she recovered well. She quit the drug in about ten days.
Many practices here now refer all their chronic pain patients to pain management specialists so that addicts can’t get multiple scripts. My daughter is thrilled with the fact that her walk in clinic has signs on the doors stating that they do not prescribe narcotics; she dealt with too many drug seekers at her last job
I have chronic pain from several spine problems and cannot tolerate narcotics (had a private duty nurse at the hospital after my first c-section til I detoxed from the Demerol). I dread the time it gets worse. Medical marijuana will soon be legal here so maybe that will help.
It does seem reckless to prescribe that much when the typical use would be 0-1 days worth for that particular application. Greater risk of someone getting addicted, and more leftovers that could find their way to addicts.
For all who commented, yes I still think he over prescribed. He not only prescribed the hydrocodone(17 pills), it came with 2 refills. I believe prescription strength Ibuprofen wouldve been sufficient, and it was, because I didnt get the other filled.
I have been given scripts for opioids on several occasions , most of which were not necessary IMO. The first time was when a crappy chiropractor was crunching the heck out of my back without seeing what was wrong in the first place, causing me pain.
I ended up in the ER and they gave me oxycodone and sent me home after X-rays and a referral to a back specialist. Well, I trusted the drs assessment and gladly took the pain pills ,which left me in a hazy stupor .
It took a few months to get to the bottom of the pain after seeing several specialists.
Then a year later, I needed my gall bladder out and they sent me home with some potent pain killers again…I think it was straight up oxycontin…I slept it off and had enough painkillers to take for the weekend , but again, just made me sleepy and not able to function. The pain and recovery wasn’t a problem , but when I decided that I shouldn’t take drugs I don’t need, my body didn’t agree and I can honestly say that I felt like I was on the verge of possibly becoming addicted…scared the heck out of me what my body was doing so I took a benadryl to stop the feeling of intense itch that made me want to claw off all of my flesh. I didn’t even tell my husband or anyone…I just stopped and carried on with life. I can tell you with 100% certainty, I did NOT need a narcotic to deal with the discomfort of this procedure.
The next time was a root canal…the periodontist sent me home with vicodin. Isn’t the entire point of having a root canal is taking out the nerve that causes the pain ? Once it’s out…pain is gone so I chose to take motrin for the minot discomfort from the novacain wearing off.
That being said , my medicine cabinet held bottles of meds that I chose not to take with no regrets
Many parents go through similar procedures we deal with at our ages and many teenagers surf their parents medicine cabinets for recreational highs , which is a source of why many young people are becoming addicted to opioids, and ultimately turning into heroin abusers.
If you haven’t seen the HBO documentary I posted upthread, I urge you to do so. This discussion resulted in my almost 19 year old daughter and I watching it together. There is a part where a group of parents of the heroin addicts are in a support meeting…one of the moms looked vaguely familiar and I looked her up and realized that she was a classmate of mine from middle school.
Of course I’m not researching or doing my own cocktails. This is with doctors.
I have Lupus and RA which are both pretty poorly understood and manifest differently in each patient. I have been in chronic, severe pain for a while and I can only get pain relief (so far) if I take pain meds which make me vomit. I choose the pain over the vomiting.
Plus, many of the typical pain meds I can’t take anymore because they interact with my other meds.
I am lucky that I am not predisposed to addiction but I can’t say the same about my family members including a handful addicted to pills and an uncle who died from drug and alcohol addiction.
My next step is medical Marijuana because I’ve exhausted most other options. I just hate that it’s harder for me to get pot than opiates. It’s a ridiculous system is all.
I have to fill out paperwork and get it certified by my doctor- or a doctor that is willing to certify it. Technically neither of my conditions are listed as qualifying conditions but they fall under “severe and chronic pain.” Then I send in the form to the government along with a check for 100-some dollars and they get to decide whether or not I’ll get a MM license. Then I have to find a dispensary or carrgiver because I have no interest in growing myself or smoking/vaping.
Yet to get my hydrocodone (for example) I went to cvs and got it in 20 minutes.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to go on a tangent. I just hate the fact that the system is set up like this. It’s too easy to get opiods (or can be) and too hard to get other things. Both aspects of the pharmaceutical industry need major reforms.
Tangent very well deserved Romani. Without crossing the line into the forbidden political posts, I will say that I believe the pharmaceutical industry has too much power with lobbyists , which I believe has contributed to the opioid epidemic afflicting our population. Medical marijuana has taken a bite out of illegal drug sales , so the cartels move on to other drugs to sell illegally.
As a side note, have you ever tried juicing , using anti-inflammatory fruits, veggies and roots ? It’s not a substitute for meds , but some things like ginger , cherries and other things can help with joint pain…I know some things can interfere with meds , but I know a relatively young woman who uses this as a natural way to deal with her RA and another autoimmune disease she was recently diagnosed with ( the name escapes me )
lje, I’m currently trying tart cherry juice and pineapple. I’m on prednisone (and something else which escapes me right now) for the inflammation. I’m open to trying other foods, too, if you’d like to pm me any ideas. (To avoid further off topic lol)
@romanigypsyeyes, my H’s niece developed RA in HS. The poor kid also has a life-threatening peanut allergy, and is allergic to various animals, so clearly there is something going on with her immune system. Anyway, she was seeing someone who may be the only pediatric arthritis specialist in Michigan, associated with one of the state universities, who suggested that she try a gluten-free diet to minimize inflammation.
What’s that mean? They can only issue a no-refills Rx (which has always been my experience) and just write a new one (also my experience?) And I didn’t see this in the guidelines. But DoJ seems to allow a new prescription. Eg, “A practitioner may provide individual patients with multiple prescriptions for the same schedule II controlled substance to be filled sequentially. The combined effect of these multiple prescriptions is to allow the patient to receive, over time, up to a 90-day supply of that controlled substance.”
Yes, they can write for up to 90 days. Not likely with a wisdom teeth procedure.
In my experience as a nurse, I’ve seen a BIG shift in the mindset about narcotics, and it’s not all good. I’ve witnessed a lot of passive aggressive behavior by nurses intended to affect delivery of narcotic pain relief. The purposely slow responses, the “Oops, I forgot, I’ll get them to you in a minute,” etc. are rampant because a lot of nurses flat out don’t believe their patients’ pain is what they say it is. They believe a high proportion of pain relief requests are simply drug seeking behavior.
On my nurses forum, this is a very controversial and MUCH discussed issue.
Also, I believe there is a misconception about how quickly and how often people actually become “addicted” to narcotics. Additionally, there is a lack of understanding about the differences between “addiction” and “dependence.”
I was told our PCP can only write a 30 day Rx and we must return for a visit before he can issue a new one.
@partyof5, I also itch when I take Percocet and other pain meds. My PCP said to take Benedryl with it, which also helps me sleep.
I can’t take NSAIDs or steroid meds, including cortisone injections, so my PCP gave me a Rx for a 30 day supply of pain meds to have on hand for when various medical issues become painful enough to disrupt sleep. Some years that one bottle lasts all year, while other times I need a second round. I hope he will still be able to do that.
Several family members have learned when hospitalized to tell the nurse (or responding aide) that their pain has hit a “10” in order to get the relief they need. They found that when they responded “8” or “9” that they didn’t get the medication in time or in sufficient amount to control the pain. Once their pain became really severe, then the pain meds didn’t help.
I had ACL (in addition to a fx ankle and tibia which had to heal before surgery) surgery about 10 years performed by the then team physician for the Houston Texans. He had actually switched from prescribing pain killers to using a continuous motion machine and an ice circulating thing and prescribing a sleeping pill like Soma so that you sleep through the first 2-3 days post surgery then you start PT very quickly. No opiates only Motrin and ice after the 5 days for Soma.
Gallbladder surgery this past December and I requested a nerve block to handle the immediate post option pain and then 3 Tylenol with codiene pills until I switched to a high dose of Motrin. Yes it was pretty uncomfortable for about 48 hours after the end of the pain killer. But certainly doable for a few days over putting myself at risk with opiates.
Whenever my kids have had serious athletic injuries I have limited their use of an serious pain killer to the first 48 hours. Then they use Motrin. The key is to keep on a schedule and to take the motrin/tylenol regularly and not to wait until the pain ratchet up and you can’t get it under control. My biggest fear is sending my kids off to college, they get hurt, some ER or urgent care MD prescribes an opiate pain killer and they start down a very slippery slope. Hope I have taught them enough about altetnative pain management
I think people today are afraid of pain, yes things hurt, they hurt ALOT, we all need to learn alternate methods of pain relief.
Unfortunately, Motrin is a NSAID and can’t be tolerated by some people. Tylenol by itself is often not effective for intense pain. I think fear of opioids is overblown. One of my kids required them for months during multiple surgeries and other serious health issues. I sometimes had to fight to get sufficient pain relief administered, particularly from a few young male residents who thought everyone should learn to just tough things out.
@Silpat, as I said earlier, people overestimate the addiction potential of narcotics, particularly prescriptions given that a)have no automatic refill potential and b) are intended to be used as a short term solution to a pain problem. Many people fear getting addicted or dependent within days to weeks, and that is really really rare.
Even many people with a chronic pain condition take narcotics safely with no addiction issues. Dependence, yes, but not addiction in the sense that most are talking about here.
To clarify from earlier, my wife still prescribes opioid pain meds, just not the old OxyContin. Her patients do have to meet a few criteria: no history of addiction or drug abuse, a plan to deal with the underlying cause of the pain, and a plan to get back off the opiates in the near future. She does have a few chronic pain patients who have been on the meds long term, have no other good options, and have a handle on what is happening.
A big drawback is the rebound pain associated with opiates. We build up a tolerance to the little aches that are a constant in our lives. Opiates numb everything and can damage the ability to ignore those small pains - bad elbow, creaky toe, the roughness of a t-shirt, blinking, the list goes on. What was once a medication for a specific pain is now a compulsion to deal with all of the pains. Even though the pain is the same, the perception of pain has gone out of whack. When this happens, life would have been better trying to tough it out with Aleve rather than a prescription for narcotics. Not having been through it, it’s hard to describe but ask an ex-addict about it.