The Prescription Drug Epidemic is Deliberate..

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

If I am in desperate need, it's the ER, and I know what that is and I go.

But most of the time, it's something that can wait.

a reply to: ketsuko

well, and to be fair, chronic pain is something different than acute pain. For you, its more a process of management and accepting that some pain is going to be part of any given day.

our local ER....only folks without a car go there. Or folks who are dying. If you like living you drive to the next town, which is 1/10th the size of this town, and use their little country doctors.

originally posted by: ketsuko
@ Biigs and Quantum,

Believe me between the chronic migraines and the bonespur in my neck ... I understand the temptation to self-medicate. I've lived with it for a long, long time. I've had and still do have addictive stuff in this house that is just. right. there ... every time my neck and shoulder are killing me ... every time my head is killing me and I just want to sleep a day or two away.

But I want to be an addict even less.

I can totally relate to the pain you deal with. I destroyed my hips in the Army as a result of undiagnosed early onset osteoarthritis and at 43 I've had one hip replaced with a titanium ceramic composite prosthetic that they claim will last me 30 years as opposed to the conventional titanium only replacement that has a lifespan of 12-15 years. I've also got severe degeneration throughout my entire spine including precarious disc impingements at C4/5 and C5/6 with varying degrees of severity above and below and L1-L5 is shot to hell and riddled with Arthritis and one of my hands, from playing music, barely works anymore with about 10% function in the thumb.

One thing you need to do for yourself is to understand there's a difference between being an addict and having physical dependency on a medication and beyond that, a difference between quality of life and tolerance for pain.

I totally get that to most people there's no difference between addiction and physical dependency but it really is much more than a fine lime that separates the two realities. As you mentioned earlier, there are plenty of people who will get a scrip for 60 pills for a max of 2/day prn who instead of calling their Dr. Will just say F# it and dive right in and take what they feel is justified to alleviate the pain. This is certainly behavior typical of someone with addictive tendencies.

Where people really find themselves in trouble is less in line with your example and more in line with someone who is prescribed 4 or 6/day max and takes the entire days worth at once so that they can get off on the euphoria as serotonin floods the brains opiate receptors. Taking excessive amounts of medication like this has 2 consequences that are quickly realized in terms of changes in brain chemistry.

The first is a much faster increase in tolerance which means that the next time they take their entire days allotment of medication at once, it will have a diminished affect and in a very short time those 4 or 6 pills won't feel like they have done anything to you at all necessitating an increase in number of pills ingested to give the same euphoric effects. The 2nd issue that occurs is that much like abuse of a certain South American plant extract, it permanently alters your brain and how it interprets both pain signals and how it processes the serotonin in conjunction with the opiate receptors. This is where one has crossed the lime from occasional over use/abuse of their scrips into an actual addict.

The converse to this is that there are many people who like me, have been on long term chronic pain management. We take our medications as(or at least mostly as) directed by the prescribing physician and keep up to date with that physician regarding the effectiveness of our medication regiment and routine etc... If I were to cease taking my meds suddenly, I would certainly go through withdrawal and it would be miserable. But this is a physical dependency not an addiction. I don't save pills so I can get wasted or take more than I'm supposed to, I'm not buying extras on the street because I consistently run out early or any of the other countless behaviors associated with being an addict.

You don't fit into either category from what you have posted. If you aren't taking meds everyday or in a semi regular schedule you should be able to take something on a day where you're in extreme discomfort and have no worries about falling into either addiction or a cycle of physical dependency. This is just my opinion, but you're doing yourself a great disservice by not taking anything on your worst of days for fear of becoming an addict. If you've got the Will power to have scrips sitting in the medicine cabinet unused, I would think you've got the willpower (as well as an awareness of your body and the levels of acceptable pain you can tolerate) to be able to take the appropriate amount of medication to make yourself at least a little more comfortable.

And again, this is all just my opinion and I'm not a medical doctor, just some guy who's been around the block for many years and been on everything from Tramadol to the Fentanyl patch and every shade of grey in between. One of the most overlooked aspects of this whole equation is the secondary physiological affects brought on by chronic pain. One is a massive increase in stress levels and the hormones released as a result which can lead to weight gain or an inability to lose weight and often makes people more easily agitated and snippy.

At the end of the day I guess it comes down to what the lesser evils are and how much personal accountability one has. For me, abusing my scrips isn't really an option. The state I live in has more draconian prescription tracking and laws than the federal laws require and my Pain Mgmt Dr. takes it a step farther. At your first visit with him, you sign a contract where you agree tn be called up to give random urine samples at any point in time during the month as well as random counts of your prescriptions. If you ever have fewer pills than you are supposed to, you will be immediately discharged from the practice. If you fail a drug test, immediate discharge. And by fail the drug test, this means that if you don't have in your system the amount you have been prescribed you can be discharged and if you test positive for anything illegal, or in the case of a certain green flower, some that have been added to state level prescription lists. It may be a little over the top but it keeps everyone on huge up and up. Especially with the statewide database that makes doctor shopping and filling multiple versions of the same prescriptions impossible these days.

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
a reply to: marg6043

They had commercials during the SuperBowl this year.

That tells you something.

~Tenth

Right! I'm an advisor within the health industry. These pharmaceutical companies mark up their products so high that they can afford to buy whatever they want.

It still fascinates me that they buy so much T.V. time, and produce slick commercials with actors and athletes (i.e. Arnold Palmer) sporting huge smiles... all while tiny disclaimers flood the lower 1/4th of the screen. Disclaimers that point out the horrific side effects that can occur immediately, or years later, or adversely the next generation, via our genes.

The Flint, Michigan water crises is tiny compared to what will be found when illnesses get to the point that formal investigations are launched into the role(s) that legal drugs played.

Last night, I saw a commercial for a drug that counteracts the negative effects caused by 3 other popular drugs. Unreal!

a reply to: carewemust


It is no wonder that we have a health crisis. A Corporation in the big pharma game will not do anything to get general good health, nor will Doctors or consultants, the status quo is great for them. Its a shame that it has come to this state of affairs. Making laws to get your kids vaccinated , shows how cocky they have become.

a reply to: pheonix358

This is why Cannabis is dangerous, only to big pharma. Plain and simple. People don't die from it. People are not addicted to it. And of they are addicted it's mental.

Take that info and do what you think you should do.

Graffik

whoa a corporation would sell drugs to make money on purpose? holllly cow, what? how even.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

It is absolutely an intentional problem. How easy is it to brainwash people when they are physically weak and decaying?

The average American timeline:
Birth: drugs flowing through their veins upon seeing first light
0-12 Months: Toxic diapers, toxic gmo formulas and baby food riddled with toxic chemicals, Toxic baby wipes and powders
1 Year: Injected with multiple vaccines of questionable safety
1-4: GMO poison food. Living in a home with massive amounts of cancer causing cleaning chemicals, introduction to fast food poison.
5 Years: Public school food filled with chemically modified sugars and GMO's. Drinking and bathing in fluoride, arsenic, and other cancer causing chemicals.
That is the introduction to our intentional poisoning. The lifestyle stays with most people through adulthood.
Now just think of the personal hygiene products, shampoo,shaving creams,deodorant, makeup, cologne, toothpaste, mouthwash, the list goes on. There is no need to research "chemtrails" it is much easier to sell poison that people willingly and happily ingest. 1-2 Americans will get cancer in their lifetimes. ONE IN TWO!

The Big Pharma problem is just another cog in the machine that is intenionally poisoning and murdering us. We are weak, slow, unhealthy, and go through our lives in a drugged up poisonous fog that clouds every aspect of life.

Our government and government agencies work hand in hand with the poison manufacturers in a revolving door system that is bought and sold to the highest bidder, regardless of the safety.

Explosions in Autism, Cancer, central nervous system disorders, and everything else under the sun, and yet no one questions anything. We get cancer, and run right back to the people that gave us the cancer to fix us.

Why are we so blind to think that running back to the government to fix our problems is the way to go? We always want to give them more money, and more power, and they ALWAYS without fail use it against us.

originally posted by: ketsuko
And what about people who don't take them as prescribed?

If the drug says, no more than two in any 24-hour period, then that's what it means. If it doesn't cut your pain, then it is up to you to resist the temptation to take more and call your doctor to complain, not simply pop more drugs to self-medicate.

I'll bet you that's what a lot of people do, or they figure that it's good for any pain and self-medicate.

If the pain is bad enough you will take more to make it stop.
To take as prescribed and get no pain relief is an exercise in futility.
I'd rather endure some bad pain and get full relief when I really need it.
Pain plays hell on your social, working and creative life.
If you can't concentrate, interact with others in any normal fashion or move comfortably all you can do is crawl in bed.
Everybody has to have a life of some sort and doctors are taking vague guesses as to what amount will give relief.
In the end the patient is the one who will have to get by without should they consistently take more than prescribed.
That's a learning experience few will care to repeat.

a reply to: Asktheanimals

Pain plays hell on your social, working and creative life.

That's a fact. I'm in agony all the time but won't take pills. I don't want to get hooked. I've seen what it does to people.