This thread scares me. I didn’t know there can be so much pain.
The same thing may have happened to my H. He’s been on blood thinners for years. He came off them to have two knee replacement surgeries with no problem. A few months ago, he went off them to get dental work. A few days after he went back on them, he threw a clot. It turned out that there is a reaction that can occur when a person goes off blood thinners for awhile and then goes back on. The same dose doesn’t get up to a therapeutic level so you can throw a clot. The difference in the three situations - when he went off to get his knees done, he was given Luvenox to administer to himself by injection on the days he didn’t take blood thinners; the dentist didn’t give him the same instructions. That might have been what happened to your H as well. H told our dentist about what happened and H now knows that he has to have Luvenox if he goes off the blood thinners for more than a day or two. Our dental practice says it will now advise people differently based on H’s experience.
My H was refusing to take the opioids after his first knee surgery because of a family history (not personal history) of substance abuse. He is not allowed to take OTC stuff, including aspirin, for other reasons. I finally convinced him to take half a dose about 20 minutes before PT - he had quit after 10 minutes because the pain was so bad so it was useless - and it worked so well that he agreed to take half a dose before bed time as well. He was able to sleep, which I think aided his overall recovery. He was in rehab two weeks each time and came off the pain meds entirely within a week or two of coming home. He was still in pain but he was able to tolerate it.
@Marian @Iglooo After knee surgery D was screaming in agony once the IV painkillers wore off a few hours after we got home, even with the max Vicodin the doc allowed. We called him to see if she could take more and he allowed another 1/2 pill, which didn’t seem to help at all. It was a rough first night post-op. Who knows how much worse it would’ve been without the drugs?
I remember doing PT for my frozen shoulder and it literally felt like the therapist was trying to rip my arm off like a chicken wing. I woud’ve been screaming too except it hurt so much I couldn’t actually make a sound. I seriously considered ransacking D’s room for her leftover Vicodin to ease my PT sessions, but ultimately decided that it probably wouldn’t help much with short intense pain like that. I started popping 4 Advil before those sessions but I don’t think they helped at all, except maybe with the post-PT swelling.
@techmom99 we were at M D Anderson for his 5 year check up - got a phone call from the onncologist 30 minutes after we left after his CT scan to say they found a new clot in his lungs. Went in next morning and good news was 5 years cancer free but bad news clot and was put back on lovenox (he was on it during his cancer treatments cause it is so much easier to deal with if a procedure is needed). The oncologist says he probably needs to transition to lovenox shortly before and for a short while after whenever he has to come off blood thinner for a procedure. The local oncologist (going to as a hematologist) does not even want him off lovenox for a day right now. Hoping this may change at appt this week - its been 3 months.
He’s hoping to come off lovenox except for transitions - local doc was trying to put him back on coumadin but he would rather go back on xeralto - may have to track back to Houston to see the hematologist there who finally diagnosed the reason for the clotting problem if local doc insists on coumadin.
I’m going to have to work on him about the painkillers. His pain is very debilitating right now.
Coincidentally, he has a broken tooth that needs to be extracted. Can’t do that right now either.
Sometimes if they don’t give you a big enough bolus of painkiller while you’re still in surgery or post-op, it’s hard to catch up with the pain later on. When my D had her blood clot, the procedure they used to break it up was excruciating and she didn’t get adequate pain control while she was under. She woke up in the ICU screaming in pain, and this is a kid with a high-normal pain tolerance. We learned from this episode that she also needs a lot of anesthesia.
@swimcatsmom , lovenox is awful (and expensive!). My D was on it for a month before her first rib surgery. Nobody likes that stuff. I hope your H can switch to a different blood thinner soon. D is now on Xarelto, which has its own issues (no antidote available in US until next year, I believe!), but is easier to take.
Your poor daughter - what a dreadful experience for her.
Lovenox is awful (though life saving) - his abdomen is black and blue with hard lumps from the shots. As for cost, ugh. We nicknamed it (unaffectionately) “Unicorn blood” as that is the only thing that seems to justify the cost. He is on medicare D and the first time he was prescribed it we were waiting to see the oncologist and my cell phone rang and it was M D Anderson pharmacy wanting to make sure I realized our share of the prescription they were preparing for us (that we didn’t even know about till then) was $2,100 
. next month it was over $3000. Once he got to the other side of the donut hole it was about $380 a month. It has a generic now so in donut hole was $600 and out is below $100. He’s really hoping to get off it and back on xeralto (the local onc is very fixated on coumadin being the standard treatment for antiphosphalipid syndrome even though one of the top hematologists in the country put him on xeralto. )
Opioid addictions are terrible. Pain is also terrible. I do not condone murder or violence. But minimizing the awfulness of pain won’t help resolve the addiction crisis. A few years ago, one of my teeth died, and while it was still alive but rotting, I had pain so bad I wanted to kill myself.
I have taken them and I can’t imagine what about them are addictive to people. My shoulder surgery was very intense and complex and the pain was off the charts worse than anything I’ve ever experienced. I would have not survived it if I didn’t have pain meds. I would wake up crying in pain, and there were days I spent thinking - if you told me I had to live like this the rest of my life I’d probably kill myself. The pain meds helped the pain, but only to a point and I could only handle one or two a day and then I’d get sick on them.
I hope to never experience that level of pain again. I’d also never want someone to have to live through that level of pain without prescription pain meds because other people get addicted.
@eyemamom I’m the same way. I just do not get high off of these meds. I don’t get high off of things like weed either though. I’ve come to the conclusion that some people do, some people don’t. I’m sure there’s a biological reason why different people react differently to different meds/drugs.
When I was in high school, I went to the ER several times for ovarian cyst-related agony. They would give me a pain injection followed by high strength pain killers for home.
Now I occasionally go to the ER when my pain gets so bad that I can barely move and they’re extremely hesitant to give strong pain meds- especially to someone like me who is young and will have chronic pain for the rest of my life. It doesn’t help that I have an extremely high tolerance to meds so I usually end up taking at least double whatever the recommended dose is.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- there is clearly a problem in this country with opiates, etc. My best friend from childhood is an addict and has been missing for months with scant signs of life. It hits home. By I don’t want their addiction and problems to leave others in agony out of fear of abuse.
There’s got to be a way to balance these two…but what that is is far above my pay grade 
This thread is a microcosm of what is going on in our country. @romanigypsyeyes is correct. There has to be a way to balance rather than swinging from one extreme to the other.
I am fortunate that the Luvenox was covered by our insurance. D is back on coumadin now. His doctor is reluctant to change him to xarelto, which MIL is on, because H still rides motorcycles. I am just so annoyed at H because, years ago, when he first got afib, he could have avoided all this if he’d been med compliant the first time around. It took multiple hospitalizations to get him to comply. He was like a schizophrenic who believes they don’t need the meds anymore because they feel better now. Now, he is refusing the ablation which might let him stop taking the meds altogether.
I try to avoid giving my kids pain meds because of H’s family history. However, I occasionally pop an oxycodone for a bad headache. It lets me sleep and I feel better when I wake up.
I had opiates when I developed a bad cough after breaking two ribs. I’m one of those who feel GOOOOOD on the drugs. After 3 days my wife, an NP, took them away. It’s best if I avoid mind-altering compounds entirely but I understand how someone can become addicted.
I would guess there is more to triggering this murder than “would not prescribe the opiate,” something that happens thousands of times every day. They really have to be careful to let patients know there are options. An addict in pain is always on edge.
Do we know what really happened–if the shooter was upset that his wife wasn’t given stronger meds because she truly had severe pain, if she was an addict, or if he was an addict using his wife to get meds, or if they were selling the meds, or if the guy had an unrelated mental breakdown and targeted the doctor for no logical reason? There are a lot of scammers out there. Family members are often used to supply drugs for addicts/dealers. Doctors are sometimes in on the deal. (Huge bust of a pain clinic doctor in our area recently–made $$$ writing prescriptions for scammers to re-sell). Most doctors can’t prescribe as they see fit. Most don’t work for themselves–they have to follow prescribing guidelines of their employers. They will be “flagged” if they prescribe too much of the “wrong” medicine. ER and Urgent Care docs often see patients who come in demanding certain drugs. Docs who are “easy” (give all patients what they ask for) develop a following of drug-seekers/addicts/diverters. Docs who don’t prescribe can be threatened by patients or their family members. (H is a physician–this has happened to him more than once. Scary.) No answers here, but doctors are not trying to keep people in pain by denying proper treatment.