A young man (at that time)that I had gone to high school with, having an excellent reputation and National Honor Society (when it really counted) student, was drafted into the military during the Viet Nam War.
I was unaware of his status but he was frightfully injured and spent months in various hospitals being treated for wounds that would leave him not only with a partial disability but also chronic pain to boot.
I learned later that he had been sucessfully weaned off pain killers before being released from his hospitalization and honorably discharged. Unfortunately, his pain never ceased and thus sought further medical treatment.
The end of my story is the tale his mom told me after I read in our local newspaper, that he had been shot and killed by a pharmacist (whom I also knew) after he attacked him attempting to get drugs without a prescription.
His mom said that after returning home to live with her, that he was never without pain. She said one of the new doctors he was seeing at the local VA would give him some drugs for a short time, then he'd return for an exam, see another doctor who felt he "no longer needed medication" and that went on for over 2 years.
Finally out of desperation, she said that he returned to the local pharmacy asking for some of the drug he had been given just months before and the rest of the story was him attacking the druggist and being shot and killed.
Being currently treated at a local pain clinic myself for treatment for nerve damage, I can understand one's desperation - not his actions but his desperation.
pain pills....even simple Lortabs....can be very addictive.....one of these days we’ll treat pain differantly....
I had an uncle who had severe back and neck pain, but he wasn’t able to get enough pain medication from doctors or specialists to control it. The last 6 months of his life were hell for him, and it wasn’t until the last few days of his life, when he was hospitalized for congestive heart failure that they finally gave him the level of pain medications he needed.
Mark
BTW, I was on the opoids for about 2 1/2 to 3 years and I just stopped taking them and never had a problem. Either I'm just a strange person who doesn't get addicted to opoids or it's because I'm too lazy to take medicines I don't need or maybe it's because I never experienced a high from them. I considered myself lucky all that medicine took even a slight edge off the pain I was in.