This Kos diary on the crisis in pain medication is a must-read. Bottom line: People in genuine pain are being denied relief because they've been falsely tagged as potential abusers.
I was in need of medication myself not long ago, and I know how infuriating it is to have to ask for something stronger than ibuprofin. If you bluntly tell the doc "Just gimme some damn codeine," you'll be suspected of wanting happy pills.
If one-twentienth of the money spent of this inane war had gone into medical research, we might have discovered an effective, non-addictive, non-prescription pain remedy.
6 comments:
The most ironic in all that, combined with the story about spooky drug dealers, is that most drug addiction cases involve LEGAL pharmaceutical drugs.
We were just in Paris when our teenage daughter had a wisdom tooth attack. Codeine is sold over the counter there!
i know this is a real problem, and have the deepest of sympathy for anyone who suffers pain so excruciating that only powerful meds will work. including you, joe (haha!).
but i hate to tell ya, the fantasy of such a drug that will NOT be addictive is just NOT in the physiological cards.
it is the nature of pain, or at least the human experience of pain (which may be all that pain is, really) to adjust to whatever agent soothes it.
this is not to say that this adjustment is insurmountable. however, that's not something that can be found in the drugs, or even in the physiological reaction to the drugs.
regardless, your point is well-taken; the addiction nazis are completely out of control, in effect addicted themselves to punishing all weaknesses in americans, however fleeting or temporary or unavoidable.
There are actually effective remedies that don't come from a pharmacy.
Omega 3 Fatty Acids are being studied for their anti inflammatory effects.
In japan a fat soluble form of B-1 (benfotiamine) has been used for almost 50 years to treat sciatica, and diabetic neuropathy as well. Then again a derivative from potatoes has been used for that as well Alpha Lipoic Acid. If your sciatica is from spinal degeneration maybe consider getting out side a lot more, as vitamin D deficiency is linked with opsteoporosis, multiple sclerosis Cancers and such. T
You are what you eat, and what you do. If you don't consume the basic building blocks of life how can you expect your body to do proper maintenance on its self.
Sometimes it does take many different approaches (eliminate this , take that, exercise and alternative and allopathic treatments) to alleviate symptoms.
I have seen good results in people trying "alternatives". But they are not as quick or powerful as pharmocagnacy.
Drug addiction names a chronic behavior (not a mortal sin or a mortifying condition), and in many instances the side-effect of 'addiction' ought to be innocuous. Healthful doses of addictive opiates won't hurt the user: the world is loaded with people whose lives have been made normal and long because they kept themselves fixed, which should be almost nobody else's business also. The law 'creating' the DEA is very bad law. Snitches are its fuel, blackmail its currency. Hey! Remember the early 1980s, before drug-testing and peeing into jars? They (any authority) already had reliable tests for every legal and illegal substance under the sun except marijuana. A lot of R&D $$ went into 'creating' a reliable test for marijuana's presence. Then came Reefer Madness Day, and they began testing and requiring your urine sample, and you know the rest.
Okay, I voted for Clinton in 1992 only because he sounded like the guy who would be the first Enlightenment POTUS since Jefferson. He broke my heart. I fixed it so that his wife can break it again.
Won't every POTUS election choice be between two evil candidacies until enlightened drug policies happen?
clayton makes a good point, that many natural pain remedies don't threaten addiction. but then, they are not as strong or as quick, nor are they manufactured, the three-way combo being what our bodies cannot handle, and what forces the addiction.
for what it's worth, pain is a very mysterious phenomenon because it is so subjective. it's also become such a bugaboo in our culture - the opposite of pleasure and all that - so that we've lost sight of it's important survival role: it tells us something is wrong. if it persists after treatment, then you need to try another treatment. and/or, the source of the pain is not entirely physical.
in my clinical practice, i've seen patients endure unbelievable levels of discomfort and pain from physical illnesses, and then observed others with no documentable source whatsoever remain in a subjective pain state for years. though there is always the possibility that medical testing is not catching a pain source in the latter case, it's also possible psychic pain is at work. i've seen this happen with folks who had small accidents but fell into apparently intractable tangles with chronic pain. when i listened to their stories, it became clear the accident allowed them to release old emotional pains they'd long ignored.
like i said, mysterious stuff. way too mysterious for the so-called marvels of modern chemistry to solve with an endless series of quick fixes. the natural route is harder, but allows the individual the opportunity to work with the pain and learn to recognize its important signals. this takes a very unusual kind of mindset, in the first place to even consider this option given the cultural zeitgeist on the matter, and second to even consider taking it on.
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