My wife is an ER nurse at a rural hospital here in middle TN. A very real cause of why granny gets the meds is Medicare. When medicare decided that what they pay the hospital is based in part on satisfaction surveys from the patients, nurses are told to give them whatever they want (tests that arent needed) and docs give them any meds they ask for. And some docs will write the scrips just to get them out of the way. The addicts learn who the "candyman" is, and what car he drives. My wife knows, depending on what doctor is on, how busy her day is going to be before it starts.
Jeez! I need to find some of those doctors!
My doctor is pretty darned tough! When I told him I really wasn’t feeling well, like passing out, he told me that I should “tough it out.” 3 days later, I was in the ER, and spent the next 2 months in the hospital, the first month on IV antibiotics.
I have Crohns disease, and was on Prednisone for nearly 25 years. I’m now off of it, but where I had some arthritis in my knees before, well, let me just say that I now hurt in places that I didn’t know I had places. I can’t find a Dr that will give me a Rx for vicodin, something that I think I need on occasion to help me sleep when my knees start aching so badly that it wakes me up in the middle of the night. I can’t take the stuff during the day, since it makes me loopy. But once or twice a week, it would be nice to get a full nights sleep.
I take about 2400mg of Ibuprofen a day, and it just barely takes the edge off the pain.
Mark