I want to SCREAM at all the people who think that those of us in chronic pain or with other chronic health issues are taking medications because we are addicted and should just stop taking them. I am on very strong medications. They are not working well but have not been increased in over 3 yrs. It has caused me to be nonfunctioning - the pain, not the medications. I try all sorts of other things in addition to medications, but I won't go off the medications. I don't give a darn who thinks I should - my DOCS think I am doing amazingly well. The new resident at the pain doctor's office told me if his knees sounded like mine he would get a motorized wheelchair and never put weight on them again - ever. The pain doctor just nodded. They couldn't believe I am still toughing it out with-o the synvisc or the replacements. I can't afford either. I haven't seen the stupid ads on tv, but my husband won't ever push me to that. I try to be polite to the first 3 per day. After that I either walk away or tell them how to lose weight, fix their makeup, or some other thing that is none of my business but makes them get away from me as fast as they can. I can be quite creative if you won't leave me alone - and then you wish you had left me alone. husband hates that, but he stopped fussing when he realized how much the comments bothered me and how rude many of them are.
Janet, ignore the idiots. YOU know that your docs have your best interests a heart.
When J was caught shoplifting she had some medications in her purse. I went ahead and said she must have picked them up after I dropped them, mostly because I didn't want to go into why she had rx's for those medications. They were her medications and her rx's, even the pain medications which were rx'd because she had sprained her ankle and twisted her knee the week before. But it is a huge deal to explain that a dr had rx'd those and as it was the store mgr went into how her nephew got addicted because his mom had pain medications blah blah blah. If that store mgr hurt the way my daughter does, she would have gone out to find heroin (trust me, I know her and have for years - when I was in high school she asked for my migraine medications more than a few times and I barely knew her - she would just ask me as I was buying something at the store as she was the cashier!).
I HATE the way pain medications have been so villified. In MANY countries they sell codeine OTC like ibuprofen and here you are treated like an addict if you take it more than occasionally. I think people in the US are unrealistically afraid of pain medications. The fact is that codeine and other opiates for pain have been used for centuries and have far fewer side effects than most medications that we take often, that many people think NOTHING of taking - medications like prozac and various NSAIDS.
Tony is an idiot on the subject of pain medications. My husband pushes me to NOT try to take a lower dose of medications and has at times pushed me to ask for more medications because it bothers him when he sees me crying from pain in my sleep or when he sees me going about doing whatever and I don't realize tears are rolling down my face from the pain. He would FAR prefer I take medications than hurt like that.
He saw what has happened the two times I ran out because either the rx didn't arrive when they mailed it or the medications were stolen from my purse. We don't like ER visits after withdrawal has set in. It is ugly and dangerous for me, given other health issues. Heck, the ER docs didn't even fuss over giving me a shot of medications via IV after they looked up my rx records on the Bureu of Narcotics database. Yes, docs CAN look up how many times you get controlled substances rx's filled. I have NEVER had more than the amt the pain doctor rx'd filled per month and it makes a difference in how they treat you. They put a note in my file at the hospital when I had the cellulitis that I was not drug seeking and did not push for more pain medications and I guess that helped too.
I just hate how my medical business is something many people think is there business. One part of the health issuesi sthat I get big skin sores if I get wet very often. I don't shower, I sponge bathe because showering more than 1-2 times a MONTH means my skin starts to come off. No one knows why, except maybe the vit D thing plays in (even then they don't know why or how), but EVERYONE who sees me makes a comment on how to treat them. One old man even told me to rub kerosene on them. No joke, he was dead serious, said three times a day rub kerosene in and it would heal them. Sorry, no, not trying that.