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It was interesting seeing this play out as a patient, as I had the same injury and surgery last year as I'd had during the height of the epidemic but was prescr
by yelling_cat 5y ago
It was interesting seeing this play out as a patient, as I had the same injury and surgery last year as I'd had during the height of the epidemic but was prescribed only 20% of the pain meds I'd received the first time. The second prescription was a lot more reasonable, to be honest, but I did have to fight with my insurance company as they wanted me to revisit the pharmacy every few days instead of giving me my full prescription at once. That was a little impracticable when I was on crutches.
- dcolkitt 5y ago> The second prescription was a lot more reasonable No it wasn't. Fewer than 1% of post-surgical patients given opioids develop any sort of abuse whatsoever.[1] Under treating pain is in no way medically responsible. It is true that there's a (very weak) association between high opioid prescription rates and society wide abuse. But that's entirely due to outright fraud and diversion. Just because some crooked doctor is fabricating prescriptions on dead patients to supply the mob with Oxycontin does not mean that legitimate patients shouldn't have their pain adequately managed. Narcotic analgesics are literally a medical miracle. The force of Neo-Puritanism are forcing millions to suffer needlessly. [1]https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.j5790 https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.j5790
- yelling_cat 5y agoTo clarify I meant "more reasonable" in terms of getting the number of painkillers I actually needed to comfortably heal from my surgery. I don't find them habit-forming, fortunately, and agree that the anti-narcotic backlash is making life miserable for chronic pain sufferers.