should give them antabuse
Posted on 01/02/2016 7:14:53 AM PST by Zakeet
Heroin addicts with recurring heart valve problems caused by their use of dirty needles are forcing surgeons across the state to make difficult ethics decisions on continuing to provide them expensive care.
Cardiac surgeons are seeing a 50 percent increase in ineffective valvular heart disorders attributed to the use of dirty needles, said Scott H. Bronleewe, a cardiac surgeon practicing in Tampa for the past 26 years.
The cost is staggering: more than $500,000 for the procedure and hospital stay for an uninsured addict, many of whom are back on the operating table within a few months, suffering from the same infections.
Surgeons across the state, already stretched thin by the problem, are stepping back, saying they will operate on an addict once, maybe twice, but will draw the line at a third time.
(Excerpt) Read more at tbo.com ...
It’s not “government money”.
It’s your money.
I worked for 3 weeks as temporary labor in support of a Treasury/GAO audit at the Bullion Depository in 1977. We moved about 47,000 bars out of one vault, down the hall, and into another, counting/assaying it along the way. Twice (two vaults moved/audited).
On the last day, we got a short tour of part of the place. We saw the nice range the Treasury guards had in the basement, as well as the very large room filled with huge bundles of morphine.
should give them antabuse
It gets even worse when you consider that doctors are now prescribing drugs that are far more dangerous and even more addictive. Neurotin and lyrica are the first two that come to mind. They are given out to patients without even the slightest hint of their addiction potential and no warning on how patients have to taper off even after a few weeks of use or face extreme withdrawal.
Take a moment to read patient experiences. There are thousands reporting burning skin, psychosis, nerve pain and possible damage, suicidal thoughts, depression, weight gain. I read stories of patients dealing with issues months after stopping. Even the worse opiates cannot begin to compare to this garbage yet doctors are giving it out like candy.
Western medicine’s answer for pain management is to take a safer but addictive drug and replace it with a worse one.
Yup. There’s no reason to shoot up with dirty needles.
Drug junkies are stuck on stupid.
But people who abuse drugs are like alcoholics: they refuse to take responsibility for their own lives.
I wouldn’t live with someone who refused to live a clean and healthy lifestyle.
My cup of tea isn’t watching someone die. I don’t care to go through that experience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmWXAPQiq_Q
The doctors should view this, especially starting at 2:57.
The problem is not just addiction, but to get money for drugs they are groomed to commit other crimes, thus a spike in crimes.
What I do not understand is why the dealers are under orders to recruit and sell to only whites, very different from the cartels. And these dealers are expanding.
And yet we struggle even to get basic dental care.
Things like this come up all the time in practice. In my line of work, complications from the heroin "epidemic" are especially common.
Here's my take: I get one vote, same as you do. I (hopefully) vote for excellent people who will make wise public policy.
The current response of public policy makers in my state, and of my US Senators, is terrible. What they are doing is, in my opinion, immoral on two grounds: First, they are facilitating heroin addiction by conveying the impression, via "emergency public health regulations", that heroin use can be and should be made safe. Second, by greatly complicating the process of prescribing narcotic pain medications, they are obstructing access to these medications by injured and diseased people who need them desperately.
That having been said, I don't and won't use my skills to make public policy I favor. I save the lives of heroin addicts almost every day. I do that because that's what I'm trained to do, what I know how to do, what I'm licensed to do. If I do not do those things, I'm in effect canceling the votes of the 272,000 NH voters who voted for airhead and kindergarten teacher wannabe Kelly Ayotte, who promotes the "epidemic disease" model of heroin use.
I won't vote for officials who promise unwise policies. But I won't use my skills to subvert their authority to make policy.
Hey, it's not THEIR money.
Shut up and pay, taxpeasant. Stroke that oar, galley slave!
The common sense libertarian solution is to make heroin legal everywhere. Get heroin free with your Obama Care. Get it free with your food stamps. Free heroin everywhere.
Give me a break. First of all, under libertarianism, Obamacare and food stamps wouldn't exist. Also, heroin addicts would be responsible for their own problems, not taxpayers, so there'll be less heroin (and drug) addicts overall.
Exactly the problem. And, daddy government is the champion of suffering unintended consequences like footing the $500K heart surgery bill for junkies.
The fix is much much much more important than doing it with a clean needle.
The only good heroin addict...
I’m OK with putting down drug dealers, they are murderers, only they usually kill people slowly.
If a pill helps someone in their daily life, then wonderful. If someone abuses it, its their own dam fault.
Stop criminalizing people because others don’t know how to be responsible.
When the guvmit started classifying pain meds, they just created millions of criminals.
When I worked at a top blood lab in a leading university hospital, we had blood dotting machines for testing trays, which had multiple needles dotting multiple specimens into each tray. Some were from sick people, including HIV. How did we clean the machine’s metal needles? Easy: hooked it up to a tiny hose and let tap water run through it for 5 minutes, then shoot alcohol through the needles. Bingo. Any addict could reuse a dirty needle if he had two syringes. Take the needle out of one and use it as the cleaning syringe. Shoot water into the dirty needle for a while, then inject with the needle less syringe some rubbing alcohol into the dirty needle, presto, clean needle.
I’ve seen the future, I can’t afford it
Tell me the truth sir, someone just bought it
...
Larger than life and twice as ugly
If we have to live there, you’ll have to drug me
I have had brain surgeries. I really really needed my morphine and my oxys. After a week, I weaned the hell off. I felt the desire to take one when I didn’t have excruciating pain and I knew what that desire meant: addiction. So I didn’t go there. Maybe because I’m a migraine sufferer, I have a strong knowledge of when I need meds for pain and when I don’t. I am glad I will never be addicted. (I take non addictive triptans for migraines)
This last surgery, in 2014, I found it funny that when I was on morphine one day in the hospital I decided to watch all the morning tv chat shows, one after the other. I was completely drugged on morphine. AND STILL THE SHOWS WERE IDIOTIC TO ME. Ha ha.
The best thing about the opiates this time, besides the pain relief, was the weird sensation every time I closed my eyes that I was slowly flying over a snowy hillside, or, alternately, over the textured white frosting on a cupcake. I was absolutely mesmerized by the texture of the white frosting or snow, somewhat dry yet formed and moist at the same time. The texture was indescribably complex. It was the most wonderful thing and I never tired of it. I kind of miss it.
Still, the constipation following use of opiates makes not touching them ever except in agonizing pain a very important thing.
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