Source: Many doctors in my family who talk about their experiences.
As the article shows, at worst they get bamboozled by addicts sometimes, who go to multiple doctors and lie.
There was a very strong campaign to re-educate physicians to not consider pain as only a symptom. It was suggested that there was liability in not treating pain for the sake of getting rid of pain alone, but mostly it didn’t just change prescribing practices out of fear of liability, the focus of attention on pain changed prescribing habits.
In practice, someone who hardly has enough time for the patients they see, may subconsciously think that in spite of the prevalence of national opioid deaths, no one they treat has died or destroyed their lives through addiction, simply because those who do also stop booking appointments.
These letters sound like a great idea.
My father had 2 bad operations last year. He suffered a lot of pain afterwards, but he refrained from taking strong drugs. I’m not sure if he did the right thing and if I’d do the same. But there’s is definitely middle ground between killing every pain and enduring all of it.
I found this article interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/27/opinion/sunday/surgery-ge...
I was given 36x325Mg Hydrocodone (not a typo) and 14x600 Mg Ibuprofen. Which is pretty absurd.
I only used 6 of the Ibuprofen. I'm not sure why I wasn't just given a two day supply of Hydrocodone and if more was needed I could have just called it in asking for a more if the pain was bad.
It was such a over-prescription I hope it was just sloppy handwriting.
I was told to take the ibuprofen for swelling and the hydrocodone for pain.
But there is a line break. after "5-" so since I am not a doctor I think my interpretation is a reasonable one.
You knew exactly what I meant, so cool.