Tony K, the following is a link about providors: /www.vivitrol.com
I go to a pain clinic for a bad back. In like 5 years I have never ever been offered or gotten an opiod. He is all about steriod shots, blocks and spinal stimulation packs (new) for back/neck pain. Pain relief that lasts for months (2-6 ish) Now I think some patients do get/seek opiods but I suspect they are the ones he has taking urine tests (which I haven’t done). He knows I have sometimes dug into my medicine cabinent in betwen shots but I think he figures if I am still working off pills from a gallbladder two years ago I am probably safe.
That said, because I am a drug hoarder I have been thinking about getting a small locked safe type thing for those as I have 3 kids in the house.
Interesting how the suspicion toward opioids by posters in this thread is largely absent in the wisdom tooth recovery thread.
Not sure what you mean by that. Suspicion of what or whom?
When D had her wisdom teeth removed a couple of weeks ago, the pain meds her oral surgeon prescribed did nothing for the pain. I had hidden away the liquid opioid that she had left over from her tonsillectomy last year. I gave her one dose and that is all she needed. The pain was handled by Motrin the rest of the time.
It still makes sense to me for doctors to prescribe a pill or two for pain. No need to prescribe 30 when 2 will get someone over the hump. I hate to think that we’re going to be at a stage where folks who need very short term pain relief can’t get it.
I think we will be at that stage very shortly if we aren’t now. Doctors are going to be gun shy, just like they have become with antibiotics, even when they are justified and needed.
The same thing happened with Sudafed in my state. First they made it illegal to even buy the amount of drug that the label says is needed. Now, it’s extremely difficult to buy at all. It didn’t lower meth use; it may have lowered meth manufacturing. So? Now a stronger crystal version is purchased that originates in Mexico.
Really stinks for those with chronic allergies like me…no, the supposed “substitutes” don’t work as well. Tired of people that truly need a drug being made to pay for those addicted.
We need to be careful about the gateway theory. While approximately 80% of heroin users misused prescription drugs first, only about 4% of prescription pain medication abusers will start using heroin within 5 years. 96% of recreational prescription drug users don’t migrate on to heroin within 5 years. For heroin and fentanyl, you have to watch for increases in supply. In many cases, demand follows supply for illegal drugs.
I have three options for health insurance providers at work. Each year I choose the most expensive one. For years, the decision was based on not having to change primary care doctors for my husband (now the choice is based on the fact that I need the insurance to cover my kids when they attend college out of state.)
DH’s doctor prescribes him 30 Vicodin a month, each and every month. He stopped being fussy about prescribing that amount about six years ago when he ordered/received an X-ray of DH’s back. Turns out his anklosing spondylitis had progressed pretty significantly. DH’s spine is slowly fusing together, like stalagmites and stalactites forming and meeting each other.
I really hate that folks like DH could be kept away from pain medication that allows them to exist day to day.
I get that they are abused - I’ve lost a step brother and a nephew to opioid overdoses. Pain is difficult to diagnose and treat safely.
I agree with those who have suggested that the prescriptions be written but for a very short duration. Seems that you often hear the story of someone who has just had surgery or some sort of injury, is prescribed the opioids and then gets addicted. These are the cases that need to be addressed. How is it that they are able to continue to get more pills prescribed? If the pain has not subsided then something has gone wrong. They should focus on correcting that before prescribing pain meds in ad finitum.
Let’s not assume that all pain can be diagnosed. I’ve had severe headaches that I have tried to resolve through massage, acupuncture, migraine medications, muscle relaxants, etc. I have gone to many doctors over the last decade with no solution. The only thing that stops the pain is Norco and Valium combined. I will go through about 60 norco in a 12 month period. Since the pain is intermittent, I can sometimes use 20 norco in a month or go half a year with none. Maybe I’m the exception but after so many years I have zero addiction to these drugs.
It’s always easy to criticize when you are looking in from outside.
Don’t think anyone is “criticising” - just discussing a social problem that appears to be on the uprise.
i have yet to meet a doctor that was more interested in using a shortcut, just proscribe some meds vs trying to find the cause and solution. Are there crappy doctors that do that? Perhaps, and hopefully they lose their license.
I think the theory is not that opioids are a “gateway” to heroin or fentanyl, in the same way that people used to say weed was a gateway to heroin because someone who has used one illegal drug will be more likely to use another. Rather, I’ve heard that people were prescribed opioids for pain-- perhaps too many opioids, for too long a time, or perhaps opioids for chronic pain-- and became addicted. When opioids became harder to get, these addicts moved to another drug, heroin, that does the same thing.
It’s difficult, because on the one hand there are many people who have chronic or intermittent pain and need pain relief, but on the other hand 33,000 Americans died of opioid overdoses in 2016, most of them from prescription opioids. That’s huge. That’s more than all gun deaths.
Some do, @Jliu32472
http://www.heraldnet.com/news/bothell-doctor%C2%92s-license-restricted-for-over-prescribing-meds/
Yup and they shouldn’t be doctors anymore. My point would be there is already a system in place to address this. It just needs to be enforced more. Just seems to me a bunch of over regulation in another area of our lives.
Not all drugs are obtained through doctors. There is a very healthy drug trade outside any doctor’s office.
In response to post 38 about Motrin–I bring it up because years ago a doc could write a prescription for pain relief that was not about narcotics. I think it is reasonable for Motrin to be OTC (thank goodness it is!) but it took a biggie out of the doc’s pain relief arsenal.
sryrstress–I totally get it. I hate “signing” in the pharmacy to get Sudafed. Is it worth the inconvenience to consumers to catch how many “abusers”? Guess if the number is a lot then that would be worth it but it seems “solutions” are sometimes more show than actual help.
Side note:
Pharmacy tip (since I saw the wisdom tooth post)–try taking one Motrin (or aspirin) in combo with one acetaminophen for better action (versus two Motrin or two Tylenol). Yes, there is a biological reason this works.
Why would ibuprofen being OTC take it out of a doctor’s arsenal? The doctor could tell the patient to take an OTC drug if it is the best match for the situation.
I echo @ucbalumnus. Why is ibuprofen out of a doctor’s arsenal? My doctors have told me to take ibuprofen.
My understanding is that acetomenaphin (Tylenol) is just bad for pain relief in almost all cases; it doesn’t relieve pain. It works to reduce fevers though. When I last had the flu, the docs recommended ibuprofen and Tylenol at staggered doses: ibuprofen would reduce my fever, and then when it started to go up again but it wasn’t yet time for another dose of ibuprofen, the Tylenol would do the job, and then when the Tylenol was starting to wear off, it was time for another ibuprofen.
https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/01/the-limits-of-tylenol-for-pain-relief
I don’t know what the preponderance of the research shows, but I recently took a CE class for credit for my license renewal which referenced a study that looked at pain relief post-op using acetaminophen alone and in combination with other drugs, and the results were good. Acetaminophen is often combined with narcotics in order to get a better result than either can give alone. Patients who were given narcotic pain medication combined with acetaminophen took less narcotics than those who were given narcotics alone. Exceptions for the effectiveness of acetaminophen were found in patients with neuropathic pain.
The same result occurred in a different study using acetaminophen combined with NSAIDS. In that study, however, gastric problems occurred with the combination but decreased when the acetaminophen dose was decreased by half.