We need to quit blaming doctors for opioid problem
By Lethbridge Herald on July 13, 2022.
Editor:
I can remember clearly entering my doctor’s office years ago to renew my opioid prescription. I had been on opioids for 18 years and this was a regular thing that occurred when the prescription ran out. One of the first things my doctor asked was how was my pain.
I remember saying it seemed better. His reply was perhaps we could then cut back on the amount I was taking! My heart skipped a beat and I remember panic setting in! He said what was my pain level now (out of 10) I realized then, I better lie because if I told the truth, he would reduce my medication. I had to think quickly so I said that overall my pain level over the past few weeks was in fact better but, the last week or so, it had gotten worse or back to where it was prior to the “reprieve.” He then asked if I knew what had brought on the latest bought of pain. I told him no, but that it seemed to come and go but when it came back, it came back with a vengeance. He looked somewhat perplexed and sighed, and signed off on my regular dosage.
I am not an anomaly: most pain sufferers dread going back into intense pain. Fear of losing a pain killer is a preoccupation of pain sufferers!
I see daily in various papers throughout the world how doctors are oversubscribing, and I am sure there are some that are, but in my over two decades of taking opioids I have yet to meet that person!
Doctors are not mind readers. If you say your pain is nine out of 10 and they prescribe for it, suddenly they are giving out too many pills!
If a pain sufferer goes the illegal drug route, then it’s the doctor’s fault for getting him/her hooked! Is their no personal responsibility in this ever? Are we so attuned, dare I say “woke,” that we cannot realize that personal responsibility is what creates a cure, not blame? I now cope with my pain because I know the alternative.
Start demanding personal responsibility instead of catering to the addict as if they were sucked in by the dastardly medical society who plot against us! It’s a scenario the woke seem to enjoy and of course the addict will cheer them on!
Dennis Bremner
Lethbridge
11-10
Top reason most doctors are leaving Lethbridge is that they are weary of the endless lines of peoples coming to them for prescription opioids for their “sore back”.
And you know this how?
I heard the same thing! It was from my 3rd cousin, who heard it from her “partner” (RME), who heard it from her mother.
Utter hilarity!
omg – have you really this little depth?
and now it has swung the other way: it is like talking to a wall when in need of effective pain medication – doctors and dentists unwilling/”unable” to deliver anything decent, save for useless tylenol 3 and the like. the issue with so-called opioids is that they are synthetic. synthetic because the only way for pharma to turn a great buck for themselves was to patent an unnatural formula. that is what led to ridiculous dependency rates, as people too often do not interact well with synthetics. real opium has markedly lower addiction rates. real opium would also be extremely cheap to source, were it legal. once again, govt has no place determining what a person can take into their body; govt’s overstep has led to far more issues, in terms of social/human and costs, with its illegal war on drugs than it has been able to do any good. in backing pharma, and stepping into the realm that is one’s right to their body, govts have too long now perpetrated a massive crimes against humanity program. the solution is more simple than not: legalise, and get out of the bodies of adults.
I’d step a little carefully Biff.
Opium is addictive even in a “raw” state (Tar sap).
It’s why there were “Dens” back in the day…
That said: There’s definitely gradients of pain relief available from whole-plant based applications which do NOT require the synthetics you mention. -You’re definitely on the right track there.
I am in your camp when it comes to Decriminalisation though (I’m more a fan of that than Legalisation. Legalisation is a regulatory disaster waiting to happen. -And has/is happening to Cannabis as an example).
i appreciate your entry, as well as your follow up. i agree that opium is addictive, but not nearly as addictive as derivatives such as heroin and morphine, which are each not nearly as addictive as are the synthetics. in fact, the great majority of people that have used opium did not become addicts. what i am saying is the addiction rate is low, quite unlike “opioids.”
So, because you haven’t met any Doctor the over prescribes you think that’s a good baseline for fact based information?
Sorry. But that isn’t how it works.
There’s two parties to blame for the Opioid Crisis:
1) (The BIG ONE)The Pharmaceutical Companies that spent millions over-promoting their product via bribing/cajoling/outright lying to the Medical Community.
2) The Doctors who took those bribes/promotions and then proceeded to prescribe doseage levels higher than what was required.
Please don’t try to deflect from the plain fact that the parties above are somehow to be forgiven for their disregard for people (Especially when their greed was and is obvious).
Oh and based on your system I’ll use this next point as an example of how this BS went down:
Doctor: “What’s your pain level? On a scale of 1 – 10?”
Patient: “7”
Doctor: “*Thinking* That marketing Rep from Screwthemall Pharma said I’d get a 20% kickback on any sales of their product through my prescriptions. Soo…”
-Doctor proceeds to prescribe to the patient a doseage amount for someone who has a 9 pain level (Even though patient said 7).
THAT’S how a lot of this BS came to pass.
We didn’t get the Opioid Crisis because people were mis-reporting their pain levels.
There is also the scenario where the safety concerns surrounding drugs like Oxycontin were downplayed in promotional material.
Which places less blame on the Medical Community and more on the Companies…
To be clear though: Not ALL Doctors are to blame here; but there are/were enough bad apples available to feed the creation and growth of the Opioid Crisis. And those people should be castigated all the way into their expulsions from the medical community.
Unlike my GP. Who I think is awesome.
I am relaying my experiences only. However you raise a good point of 7 vs 9. So your position is that if the doctor prescribed for a 9 that you “under pain of death” must take the 9 level medication because it says so on the bottle?
So this all goes back to personal responsibility. When I was on opioids I would cut back if I felt I was taking too much for the period I was feeling better and increase it when I was not. I became rather good as splitting pills and taking the residue at the bottom of the splitter box.
If you are so sure that it must be a Doctors fault then I would suspect that you also believe you have no personal responsibility in the administration of your medication. You also must believe that if you are feeling really really really good its because you are having a good day?
No one can teach you these things. After I recognized I was an addict I took pain management responsibility. If I felt really really really good for a couple of days, I cut back because if you are a pain sufferer and I assume you are not, one of the things that you do as a pain sufferer is keep yourself so you still feel some level of pain. If you do not then you can through some exuberance level do more damage to yourself because you have numbed all the warning signs!
It is why in most cases instructions are to take 1-2 pills a day! The idea is if 1.5 pills works then take 1.5 not two! You have made some good points but personal responsibility seems to escape you, not sure why! You seem to think that you are to consume whatever is given whether you need it or not. So you wish to remove yourself from your own pain management and blame the Doctors when they oversubscribed but if they under prescribe you jump right in to actively participate in your pain management by asking for more?
You can’t have it both ways and still be your own pain manager, unless of course your intent is to shirk your responsibility and take the “come what may” attitude. That is how you become addicted. The only way to stop addiction is to manage your own pain 24/7
If you ask any opioid addicted individual there was a time when they had zero pain but insisted they needed more drugs. The reason was, they were nurturing the numb/stupor state and no longer were managing their pain.