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Comment by freedomben | Hacker News Reader

exactly. This has already happened to me. I had surgery and was sent home for several days of agonizing pain with "extra strength tylenol." I was informed that it was now hospital policy not to prescribe take-home opioids due to the "opioid epidemic." ftr I have never had a problem with opiates before, and I've had them in the past when I broke my arm, and when I had my wisdom teeth removed.

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I believe the solution to this isn't "let more people have opioids", it's very hard to determine abuse, and requires monitoring. Reducing the number to monitor is one way increasing safety. Long term I believe the solution will move to "let's find a safer alternative to opioids".

Based on research canibis is promising http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullart... With a 25% reduction in opioid abuse by allowing patients access (not necessarily prescribing).

Kratom is an even better candidate in my opinion. It works very well for pain management and anxiety relief, and it’s both less dangerous (e.g., no respiratory depression) and less addictive (although still certainly habit-forming) than synthetic opiates. People use it to help kick addiction to opiates because it contains mild opioid receptor agonists. The DEA considered banning it late last year, but there was considerable backlash, and I doubt the new administration is going to move on it for a while.

Kratom is saving lives. When Alabama banned it, opiate overdose deaths shot up 30% (no pun intended). It really is one of the premier solutions to the country's opiate epidemic.

Yup. It’s been a massive help to me for managing anxiety, insomnia, some minor chronic pain, and a predisposition to alcohol abuse. It’s not a wonder-drug but it comes about as close as I personally could ask for.

This is exactly the same situation I am in. I found kratom in 2010 while looking for some solution to my back pain and arthritis which wasn't also a recreational drug. It ended up helping me with anxiety and depression associated with PTSD, chronic pain, and even helped me stop drinking altogether. I felt like marijuana was a pretty amazing thing before, but it isn't even on the same planet as kratom.

You're not going to get addicted from one prescription to manage short-term pain for a few days, e.g. wisdom teeth or surgery recovery.

The people who got addicted, and the subject of the lawsuit, were prescribed opioids for long-term pain management. Of course you're going to get addicted if you take them every day for weeks or months. It's the nature of the drug, and the drug companies are being sued because the purposefully downplayed that.

Out of curiosity, was the wisdom teeth removal an especially complex operation? My last wisdom tooth removal took 20 minutes for the whole visit, after which the dentist neither prescribed any painkillers whatsoever nor did I get a day off from work.

Many wisdom teeth removals involve "digging them out" where the gums need to be cut open and stitched back together. I was put under general anesthesia and given Oxycodone for a few days, and was very glad to have it because it hurt like hell.

If the teeth have come in enough though, they can be treated like regular extractions. They are still painful, but generally much less invasive / potentially complicated.

Yep, this is exactly what happened to me.

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