Meanwhile there are people walking around with a reasonable quality of life right now, but would not have any quality at all but for the Opioids they have to take.
The person I've mentioned on these threads that needs Hydrocodone for her Fibromyalgia to be able to move, was just cut off by her Doc (Rheumatologist) yesterday, and switched to something else. It was by order of the government.
So, the plans are working to create a permanently dependent class of people, from the crowd of well-financed now. Not just the poor anymore. Congratulations.
Some years ago I got a severely abscessed molar. But it started at the beginning of a long holiday weekend so no dental offices were open and at the time I didn’t have a dentist as I had recently moved and my old one had recently retired. I was in severe and intolerable pain (it felt like my face and jaw and upper neck had been splayed open with an ax, I was crying and ended up on my living room floor in a fetal position because it just hurt that bad at one point), had facial swelling and was running a 101 to 102 fever. I didn’t want to but broke down and went to the ER that Saturday.
The ER doc gave me an RX for antibiotics and an Rx for Hydrocodone for the pain, (IIRC it was for only 10 pills and with no refills) just enough of the pain pills to get me through until I could get in to see an oral surgeon.
Thank God he did! I don’t know how I would have managed those three next days until, after calling several oral surgeons, I finally found one who would see me the next morning. And of course getting the anti-biotic was important too. And a tooth abscess left untreated can be fatal.
The tooth and the infection was too far gone ended up having to be pulled and the oral surgeon wrote and another Rx for an antibiotic and asked if I wanted more pain meds, but I still had a couple of Hydrocodone’s left from the ER and told him I would use those and then go to an OTC if needed. After the Novocain wore off I took one Hydrocodone that night so I could sleep and by the next morning I was more sore than in severe pain and didn’t need to even take an OTC pain med.
Some years earlier I had a bad episode with my back. I’ve had intermittent lower back problems before but this was the worse I’d ever had.
I could hardly stand up or walk, getting in and out of my car was torture and took forever to get in just the right position so that the pain and spasms didn’t double me over - severe nerve pain and muscle spasms. My boss observed me struggling, wincing and crying out in pain just getting out of my chair at work and trying to walk by holding on to the walls and cubical walls and sent me home.
I called one of my nieces to ask if she could bring over her heating pad as mine wasn’t working and perhaps her back massager. When she got to my house and saw how debilitated I was and how much pain I was in, she insisted on taking me to the ER.
The ER doc gave me a shot in my butt of a very strong anti-inflammatory and sent me home with Rx’s for a muscle relaxer (one to two every 6 hours as needed) and Percocet (one every 6-8 hours) and instructions to follow up with an orthopedic.
I spent the next couple of days on my living room recliner alternating ice packs and a heating pad. It was easier to get up from the recliner than trying to get in and out of a bed and also so I didn’t have to go up and down the stairs and also be on the same floor as the kitchen and a bathroom. My niece went to the grocery store and bought me some microwave dinners and cans of soup, some ginger ale and some snacks - things that wouldn’t require much effort for me to make or eat.
I vaguely remember watching a lot of TV, mostly channel surfing those couple of days but not really remembering or understanding what I was watching. I felt like a zombie which I really didn’t like but at least I wasn’t in pain anymore – or, as is my theory with opioids – “you are still aware you have pain, but you just don’t careâ€. But it did the trick because after about 3 days in a fog and the pain and spasms finally subsiding, on the 4th day I was able to stand up for the first time in over a week and walk and on the 5th I went back to work and without taking any drugs.
I followed up with an orthopedic who after examining me and reading my X-rays which showed disk narrowing of L5 and L6, and proscribed an anti-inflammatory, more muscle relaxers and sent me to what he called “back schoolâ€, i.e. physical therapy.
But as he told me, it was important that the inflammation needed to go down somewhat and the severe spasms and pain needed to be somewhat better before going to PT, so he also wrote another Rx for Percocet (again with no refills) in case I needed them, which fortunately I didn’t – I never got the Rx filled.
The chief PT who spent a lot of time examining me and reading my X-rays told me something I didn’t know.
That not only was my pelvis tilted up and down but also side to side and that as a result caused my back muscles to over compensate and tighten more to one side than the other and that along with the disk narrowing and also with having very over developed and overly tight calf and hamstring muscles (I’d always did a lot of walking and at the time I was playing a lot of golf and mostly walking the course instead of riding in a cart, and doing a lot of walking for exercise and had recently joined a gym), was the cause of my back pain and muscle spasms.
I was in PT for the next couple of months – 2 to 3 times a week and along with the deep tissue massages, hydrotherapy, ultrasound therapy and manual muscle stretches, it was great as I also learned a lot about the stretches and core exercises that would help my problem and how to do them at home - what exercise to do and also importantly what exercises to avoid and even how to get in and out of a car and perform other daily tasks without twisting my back – it really was as my ortho said - “back schoolâ€.
Pain meds, even opioids IMO are not “evil†and have their place and people who have debilitating painful, chronic and or untreatable or difficult to treat conditions, people with certain late stage and or terminal cancers and people with short term but extremely painful medical episodes, IMO shouldn’t suffer because some doctors irresponsibly proscribe them or some patients end up abusing them.
Imo and in my experience having been once married to an alcoholic, thankfully in recovery for the last 25+ years, but also having known some drug addicts, they will lie and cheat and steal and manipulate and game whatever system is in place, and do whatever it takes.
You could outlaw and eliminate all Rx opioids tomorrow and the drug addicts and those who supply them for profit will just come up with a different high. And the people who legitimately need them and don’t abuse them will suffer the most for it.
