It seems to me that our medical community went from prescribing opioids for every pain, refilling pain medication often, and/or prescribing too much to nothing! Instead of educating patients on how to appropriately use narcotics, now a patient can’t get them when needed. I had to change physicians recently due to insurance and had to sign and initial a 3-page document. Meanwhile, those abusing them are still getting them. What’s up?
Why are postop patients only getting Tylenol? It’s long been known that a patient whose pain is managed heals faster. Pain used to be “the fifth vital sign”.
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My parents have had lots of recent surgeries [4 years ago]. They got more than they needed.
I haven’t heard anything about them being taken away for good. You just can’t get them easily anymore. For good reason though.
Postop patients are still getting opiods, or at least I did a few weeks ago. If you’ve got a history of opiod abuse, however, you aren’t.
As to what happened, it became very, very obvious that the pharmacy company who pushed the opiods of the 90s was lying through their teeth when they called them non-addictive, massive amounts of abuse happened so that the addiction and death caused by over prescription became a much more serious problem than pain, and the government and medical community cracked down hard on doctors overprescribing pain meds.
Is middle ground possible? We’re on middle ground right now. Theres just a whole lot of options between “give’em out like candy” and “no one gets any, ever.”
I would say there should be. Also it may help to screen people for addiction if they’ve been prescribed opioids and focus on early treatment for people showing signs of addiction. Telling people in agony to take a Tylenol and walk it off is just cruel.
Please tell me this question is a homework question and not the result of having to sign and initial a 3 page document, which seems like it would be part of that “middle ground.”
The over-prescribing of narcotics was only the secondary issue. The bigger issue was companies bribing doctors to over-prescribe narcotics.
Pain was never a vital sign. Vital signs are observable, objective measures. Your temperature, pulse, breathing rate, blood oxygen levels, pupil dilation, alert level, etc can all be tested and measured. Pain is whatever you say it is.
Pain is also very normal. If you’re in constant pain, you have deeper needs than just a little pill that causes all sorts of acute liver problems.
e: Tylenol is also terrible for your liver.
Last time I got a script it was for [T3s](https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/acetaminophen-and-codeine-oral-route/description/drg-20074117). I was pissed, because I wasn’t able to sleep due to the pain. I knew better than to ask for anything or they’d probably mark it as “narcotic seeking” or whatever they call it.
It’s crazy. And I swear it depends on the day. I went to the er for a kidney stone and I was given nothing. I was sent home to pass it with ib profen. It was horrific. for a kidney stone!!!
The same year I was in the hospital with norovirus, not only did I get iv opiates, I was sent home with a rx. (I was in pain, but way to nauseous and pukey to handle them and thought anti nausea and hydration was what I needed)
I broke my wrist, my ulna and radius and the er gave me one Percocet tablet, no iv. I had to have surgery and was sent home with 3 days of opiates.
I had dental surgery and had 30 days of opiates.
Nothing makes sense.
There should be and I think there are less extreme forms of opioids too.
When I broke my elbow I was prescribed tramadol because it’s supposed to be not as addictive. I barely took it cus I barely felt a change in the pain lol but my mom gets it prescribed sometimes for her osteoarthritis and she said it helps tremendously
My cousin was prescribed morphine tablets for some pain she had and she had to flush them down the toilet after like 2 days because she felt herself getting addicted THAT FAST. Like she would take her prescription and want more. She got scared and just got rid of them and dealt with the pain. It’s scary
I had major surgery recently. I had opioids for a day, but they caused breathing issues. On day 2, I switched to non opioids. By day 4 it was Tylenol. I was never in major pain.
We over prescribe opioids but you have to ask for something else.
If we were to add in THC, I think we could really cut down opioids.
The issue wasn’t necessarily the patients it was the doctors and pharmacist both overprescribing, overfilling, and overrecommending. While telling patients that it was nonaddictive. I grew up in the middle of the epicenter of the opiod crisis. I have more experience with it than most people. I’ve seen its affects forst hand through my mother. There is a lot of shadiness in the opiod pain killer market. I can go on about this all night but I’ll stop here.
All my two dozen friends who died from opiates weren’t prescribed to them. If they were, it wasn’t for very long. They bought them on the street until their addiction devolved into heroin and fentynal.
Yes, we’ve gone from one extreme to the other. I can’t get pain meds because some addict once abused them.
Some people will always try to get high. I shouldn’t have to live with pain because someone else wants to get high.
Dear FSM, I’m feeling this right now. Fell onto marble nightstand couple of weeks ago. Sucked it up almost 2 days but my wrist looked deformed and it STILL hurts to breathe…yeah they’re broken.Am braced but couldn’t afford the cost of Ortho and er doesn’t cast… Was given 15 5-mg hydrocodone. I know not to overdo Tylenol and it doesn’t help. But the shit tons of ibuprofen I’ve been taking since day 5 is I’m sure eating a hole in my stomach. It hurts so much. I’m bloated. Can’t eat. Dry heave (that makes the ribs hurt more).. seriously wondering if I’m going to die from kidneys or stomach bc I’ve been dealing with broken bone pain. Guess I’m lucky I got those and tbh they didn’t help much more but they didn’t seem to actually be harming me.