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Like lp4vn wrote: why are people even going so often to pain meds? Why does someone in the us gets opioids for an headache while in europe he takes an aspirin o

by stop50 3y ago

Like lp4vn wrote: why are people even going so often to pain meds? Why does someone in the us gets opioids for an headache while in europe he takes an aspirin or something else?

throwaway5959 3y ago
No one in the US is getting opioids for headaches. There are a lot of people in chronic pain in the US (car and motorcycle accidents, workplace accidents, genetic disorders, etc).
- acdha 3y ago
  The car accident one is really noticeable - it shows up over and over again in stories I’ve read about the crisis where someone started on opioids after getting insufficient treatment for some kind of crash and needing to go back to work before they were pain free, possibly compounded by a doctor being afraid of the DEA investigating them if they gave too many prescriptions which weren’t unambiguously necessary. I think a lot of our discussions about car safety saw fatalities declining and conflated “doctors are keeping more people from dying” with “driving getting safer”.
gopher_space 3y ago
We do not have a culture of preventative medicine and we have weak labor laws. You need opioids to work with a bad back, knee, etc and you'll be out on the street if you don't work.
- bgnn 3y ago
  This. Basically it's the price of not having proper social security against illness. I live in the Netherlands and opioids are unheard-of except cancer patients etc.. A friend of mine broke his collar bone, which was bulging out a bit, in a cycling accident and got only ibuprofen while waiting for surgery for 2 weeks. He just rested home on sick leave. No one expects you to work like that. This and unemployment benefits cost like 25% premium on the gross salary paid by the employer. At the end if you have a long term sickness leave like more than 3 months you are paid 75% of your salay from the social security fund. Employers are also supported to get temporary replacements in this case. Overall much cheaper than managing opioid addiction.
  - throwaway5959 3y ago
    Maybe if the US spent less on NATO it would have more money for social programs. Looks like the Netherlands spends 1.5% of GDP vs 3.5% for the US. https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2023/7/pdf/230707-def-exp-2023-en.pdf https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2023/7/pd...

by stop50 3y ago

Like lp4vn wrote: why are people even going so often to pain meds? Why does someone in the us gets opioids for an headache while in europe he takes an aspirin or something else?

throwaway5959 3y ago

No one in the US is getting opioids for headaches. There are a lot of people in chronic pain in the US (car and motorcycle accidents, workplace accidents, genetic disorders, etc).

acdha 3y ago
The car accident one is really noticeable - it shows up over and over again in stories I’ve read about the crisis where someone started on opioids after getting insufficient treatment for some kind of crash and needing to go back to work before they were pain free, possibly compounded by a doctor being afraid of the DEA investigating them if they gave too many prescriptions which weren’t unambiguously necessary. I think a lot of our discussions about car safety saw fatalities declining and conflated “doctors are keeping more people from dying” with “driving getting safer”.

gopher_space 3y ago

We do not have a culture of preventative medicine and we have weak labor laws. You need opioids to work with a bad back, knee, etc and you'll be out on the street if you don't work.

bgnn 3y ago
This. Basically it's the price of not having proper social security against illness. I live in the Netherlands and opioids are unheard-of except cancer patients etc.. A friend of mine broke his collar bone, which was bulging out a bit, in a cycling accident and got only ibuprofen while waiting for surgery for 2 weeks. He just rested home on sick leave. No one expects you to work like that. This and unemployment benefits cost like 25% premium on the gross salary paid by the employer. At the end if you have a long term sickness leave like more than 3 months you are paid 75% of your salay from the social security fund. Employers are also supported to get temporary replacements in this case. Overall much cheaper than managing opioid addiction.
- throwaway5959 3y ago
  Maybe if the US spent less on NATO it would have more money for social programs. Looks like the Netherlands spends 1.5% of GDP vs 3.5% for the US. https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2023/7/pdf/230707-def-exp-2023-en.pdf https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2023/7/pd...