Chronic Pain and Opiod Addiction

Magrat

Mrs. Rincewind
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Can anyone explain to me why opiod addiction is more important than chronic pain?

As a chronic pain sufferer, I am very frustrated by the opposition to cannibis and opiod pain medications. People like me are not even usually mentioned in the news articles. Why?
 
In my case, the board of directors of the clinic my doctor practices in, decided patients could have pot or painkillers, not both. When we talked about this in 2014, when the policy took effect, I nearly screamed about the BS. If they know doctors are over prescribing, do something about those doctors!! Why am I and others like me being punished for the sins of others? :mad:
 
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Addiction indicates a moral failing and it's therefore inappropriate to feed someone's addiction, even if doing so will relieve real physical pain. Stoicism should be enough to deal with any pain.
 
KatieG said:
In my case, the board of directors of the clinic my doctor practices in, decided patients could have pot or painkillers, not both. When we talked about this in 2014, when the policy took effect, I nearly screamed about the BS. If they know doctors are over prescribing, do something about those doctors!! Why am I and others like me being punished for the sins of others? :mad:
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I cannot speak for your experiences with your local clinic; I am not a physician; I am not intimately familiar with the effects and contraindications of cannabis; and there most certainly IS considerable demonization of painkiller usage / addiction. HOWEVER, there might conceivably also be medically valid reasons why one might not want to prescribe both cannabis and opioids at the same time. Both can cause respiratory issues (depending on the route of cannabis administration) and sedation, for example.
 
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RogueKitten said:
Can anyone explain to me why opiod addiction is more important than chronic pain?

As a chronic pain sufferer, I am very frustrated by the opposition to cannibis and opiod pain medications. People like me are not even usually mentioned in the news articles. Why?
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Second hand anecdote here; my sister-in-law was (well is but not in the same line of work) a nurse working as part of a homecare team for a hospice, dealing with the terminally ill. She'd visit them regularly, usually daily, to assist by administering heavy painkillers including good old diacetylmorphine (that's heroin to you). The team was managed by doctors specialising in pain management and oncology amongst other disciplines. They knew, and accepted, the risks of addiction (and the usual opiate side-effects) and considered them far more preferable to letting patients suffer. In numerous cases the patients were addicted but the addiction was managed and it allowed them a better quality of life.
 
RogueKitten said:
Can anyone explain to me why opiod addiction is more important than chronic pain?
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Because the deaths of young white men who became addicted to opiods after being perscribed them for pain is reaching very high levels. As these deaths are easy to see it is easy to say that many instances opiod's are over perscribed in part because of some bad studies that downplayed the long term risks of their use.

I don't see any easy solution for this as there are serious costs in quality of life and simply lives on no matter what you do.
 
catsmate said:
Second hand anecdote here; my sister-in-law was (well is but not in the same line of work) a nurse working as part of a homecare team for a hospice, dealing with the terminally ill. She'd visit them regularly, usually daily, to assist by administering heavy painkillers including good old diacetylmorphine (that's heroin to you). The team was managed by doctors specialising in pain management and oncology amongst other disciplines. They knew, and accepted, the risks of addiction (and the usual opiate side-effects) and considered them far more preferable to letting patients suffer. In numerous cases the patients were addicted but the addiction was managed and it allowed them a better quality of life.
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Hospice and Morphine addiction? Yeah...what you wrote sounds like a crazy concern, but I remember the my father's Hospice Nurse warning us that Morphine was highly addictive. To which I replied,"Then I'm gonna get him plenty damned hooked over the coming week. (Dad's kidneys had already shut down and the Nurse figured 6-7 Days was the very most he had left)

Poor dad didn't even last 4 whole days...but gawd almighty we gave him a crap-load of morphine!

I also used to administer morphine to a quadrapalegic I knew. Yeah...he was definetly hooked...and has been hooked for 25+ years.
 
There is a deep-seated fundamental belief in many cultures that anything that brings pleasure must necessarily be evil, and should be fought against.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Because the deaths of young white men who became addicted to opiods after being perscribed them for pain is reaching very high levels. As these deaths are easy to see it is easy to say that many instances opiod's are over perscribed in part because of some bad studies that downplayed the long term risks of their use.

I don't see any easy solution for this as there are serious costs in quality of life and simply lives on no matter what you do.
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Then there are situations like this.
 
I realize mileage varies widely from person-to-person, but an anecdote nonetheless:

I have had kidney stones, broken bones, and head lacerations (bike wreck), and 800mg ibuprofen worked every bit as well for me as any opiods ever did. My wife has had several surgeries, and she's always opted for the ibuprofen as well.
 
The paranoia over opioids is ridiculous. I just had surgery to remove part of my right lung due to cancer, and they only sent me home with just enough hydrocodone to last me a week (and at a dosage that barely took the edge off the pain, not nearly enough to let me actually SLEEP at night).
 
RogueKitten said:
Can anyone explain to me why opiod addiction is more important than chronic pain?

As a chronic pain sufferer, I am very frustrated by the opposition to cannibis and opiod pain medications. People like me are not even usually mentioned in the news articles. Why?
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Marijuana is a gateway drug.

Here - have some opiates instead!

:confused:
 
The VA docs, on the other hand, sent me back to my Guard unit with way the hell more of way stronger pills than I needed, rendering me mostly horizontal for way more of that year's annual training than I wanted. For a simple cut.
 
Depending on the person and the pain, Kratom works as an opiate replacement for some people. It can even be used to treat and mitigate opioid withdrawal as well. It can be addictive but won't kill you. Of course because it's fun, they will probably make it illegal at some point.
 
I have a traumatic spinal cord injury. Everything below that point (C4-5, which is obviously very high) gets "static". Body translates static as pain. So every nerve in my body registers either nothing (which isn't bad, under the circumstances) or (more popularly) excruciating pain. The majority of my muscles are locked in spasms (Ie Charley horse) all the time. I have a medical device that delivers nerve inhibitor directly into my spinal cord, in the lower lumbar region, which relaxes my leg muscles enough that I can walk. Everything above that point, meaning my entire back, shoulders,neck, face, tongue, even my eye muscles, cramp and spasm constantly.

I have a butrans patch which delivers pain medication transdermally, so it doesn't make me high. That relieves most of the aching in my legs, but nothing else. I have various neurological drugs to allow me to move with varying degrees of ability. But I hurt.

I see a pain management doctor for botox shots in my neck muscles and face (cervical dystonia, meaning the spamsing made my had tip to one side, impossible to chew, and constant migraines) and he says, every time I see him "our goal is to make you more functional, we aren't trying to alleviate all the pain".

Ibuprofen isn't going to help my situation, FYI.

My situation is complicated by the fact I was 33 when I got hurt, and that was 5 years ago. If I was elderly, they would drug me to the gills. But nobody know the effects of 60+ years like this, and they don't want to kill my liver or kidneys. Also I have multiple other health problems from before I got hurt (three autoimmune disorders, etc...).

I do not understand how a country that can grow hair on bald people, cure some cancers, give old men erections...can't treat pain.
 
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