I’m a physician. There are many many pain meds out there for the terminally ill patient with pain. What I’m seeing is the use of opioids for the treatment of chronic muscle-skeletal pain. People are taking 3 to 4 Percocet, or other opioids per day, so they can go to work....
Excuse me, but if you need to take 4 pain pills per day, to go to work, you’re not fit for work.
Secondly, some good studies out there showing that Tylenol is AS EFFECTIVE in controlling chronic pain, (and acute pain in ED) as the opioids.
There’s a prescription and abuse problem out there. I was blind to it, not anymore.
“Excuse me, but if you need to take 4 pain pills per day, to go to work, you’re not fit for work.”
Maybe you don’t want to lose your house to the bank and end up homeless.
My brother brings up this topic (he’s almost fifty). In his rural region, he estimates that 40-percent of guys with no college background, have chronic muscle pain by age 35 to 40. Those who played high school football? Probably 20-percent of them at the same age....wandering over to opioids. He works with a guy whose daughter around age 25 got into a serious car accident....got onto opioids, never getting off. Serious liver issues within five years....dead eight years after the accident.
You are correct, all of this effort is about getting the four pain pills a day. It deadens the pain enough to walk and function. Thinking, logic and coordination? About fifty-percent at best. You can refer to them as zombie-like in functionality.
I’m very allergic to acetaminophen aka tylenol. I guess if I ever get into an accident or need pain meds, I’m screwed.
You may be a physician, but you apparently either don't know (rather unlikely) or choose to ignore the fact that there is a limit to the pain levels that acetaminophen and nsaids are able to control. I have a kid who is a surgeon, and she flat out states that post operative pain for major surgery cannot be controlled by anything other than opioids. And going from personal experience Tylenol and advil didn't touch the pain I felt for the first couple of days post operatively (two operation for separate things) Just to get the records straight I dislike taking opioids, but for some sorts of pain there is no alternative.
I had chronic pain. Tylenol, aspirin, ibuprofen, et al did nothing to help. When I was able to get some narcotics it did help a bit. I was not able to receive the meds on a regular basis and many days I could barely function within my house.
I am very concerned that this bill will do more harm than help.
In many cases, that's true. My wife and I have had a number of experiences that tell me that opioid medication has a place in providing relief from both minor and major suffering. My wife had fairly extensive bone mets from breast cancer a few years ago, with (as you can imagine) considerable pain. Offered oxycodone she initially refused to take it, for fear of addiction. I recall her telling the oncologist about her concern. His reply was to give her an astounded look and say, "You've got cancer." So she took the pills, got blessed relief, and found that she had no trouble limiting herself to the prescribed dosage. When her treatment kicked in and she no longer was in pain, she simply stopped taking the pills.
For my part, I suffered an aortic dissection two years ago. The pain, of course, was intense. Part of the initial treatment was pain relief with morphine, not only the obvious reason, but to help keep my blood pressure down. After eight or nine days, the pain lessened, and I requested to be switched to Tylenol, which at that point worked very well, so long as I was lying in bed. They sent me home with a bottle of Percocet, which I used only on select occasions when I had to be mobile for an extended period of time. On all other occasions I used Tylenol to relieve the pain, which persisted for another two months.
Earlier this year I had an umbilical hernia repaired. A simple operation, but one that left me with quite a bit of discomfort for about four or five days afterward. I must say, after the event, that I was quite grateful for the little bottle of oxycodone the surgeon prescribed me. In that case, Tylenol would not have done the trick.
We Americans, once we set our minds on something, are very good at pursuing it to its logical end. I hope, in the present case, we don't pursue a solution to the opioid "epidemic" to the point where people who have a legitimate need for these remarkable drugs are unable to get them, or must jump through impossible hoops to do so.
I'm reminded of the Reverend Crisparkle in Charles Dickens's "The Mystery of Edwin Drood." Confronting that bumptious blowhard, Reverend Honeythunder, a rabid temperance advocate, he heatedly observes, "Another time, in another of your undiscriminating platform rushes, you would punish the sober for the drunken. I claim consideration for the comfort, convenience, and refreshment of the sober; and you presently make platform proclamation that I have a depraved desire to turn Heaven's creatures into swine and wild beasts!" [My italics].
So glad you are not my doctor.
Tylenol is worthless for severe pain.
So if I have to take pain meds because of a ruptured disc I'm not fit?
Roger that, Doc...I have chronic back pain and a knee replacement that went badly....I had opioids with the knee replacement and all they did was make me woozy with no real pain relief.
Tylenol actually works well...I keep a few in my pocket and take them as needed. They also help me sleep at night.
Your ignorance is amazing. I predict your not a doctor or if you are you are a bad one. I see malpractice in your future if any of your patients read your post and connect it back to you. Untreated chronic pain leads to early death. It’s that simple. And yes, people can be treated for chronic pain and still function. That is the purpose of treating.
Is it over prescribed? Yes. That is no reason to stop everyone. If that was the logic dentists would have to stop extracting all wisdom teeth because often it’s not needed.
For SOME conditions (e.g., chronic back pain or hip or knee osteoarthritis pain).
If you’re a physician, I pity your patients. Studies that show Tylenol is as effective as opioids are a joke. You know as well as I do, that a researcher can get a study to say anything he wants. Opioids should be used at the lowest effective dose, but replacing them with Tylenol for any but a very rare patient who is lucky enough to be extremely sensitive to it and get relief, is absurd. My husband is a chronic pain patient with severe disc disease. Without opioids, he would not be able to function, or enjoy any normal activities, of which he can only enjoy a few, anyway. He also gets anti-inflammatant spinal injections, which play havoc with his blood sugars and mood, while giving only mild relief. He has gastric bleeding if he takes more than a couple of anti-inflammatants a WEEK, and is on plavix, so can’t take them anyway. If he took enough Tylenol to relieve his pain, it would destroy his liver, and still wouldn’t relieve the pain. You’re either a heartless old goat, or too wet behind the ears to remember the number of arthritis patients who died of liver failure because their rheumatologists thought Tylenol was a harmless miracle drug, and dosed them with massive amounts. Doctors like you are a menace, and should consider doing autopsies for a living, instead of inflicting your sadism on living patients.
How special is that judgement, perhaps you could explain to those people exactly how they are to survive without working? Who will clothe, feed and house their families?
I went to work for decades in chronic pain without the benefit of effective pain relief.......because I had to, and because my doctors told me there was nothing wrong. One actually said to me when I told him my pain was so severe I could hardly get out of bed that "It will go away in a week or two". Interestingly enough, with in a year of that awesome diagnosis when I couldn't work anymore due to the pain a DOCTOR actually listened sent me for an MRI and two major spinal surgeries,including having four cervical disks replaced, I still have good days of barely tolerable pain and periods of up two two weeks of intolerable pain. Tylenol is absolutely worthless to me and may many others, what I am allowed is Tramadol, the imitation Opiod which is one baby step above Tylenol.
I don't care if you are a doctor, if you haven't lived with long term severe chronic pain............you don't know jack.
there are people who have used their bodies in their work for forty years. as plumbers, riggers, etc.
Their bodies are worn out but their work life is not.
Up to the late seventies, these guys like men for thousands of years prior, drank, usually constantly throughout the day.
They no longer can do that .
Legally.