FA_Q2
Gold Member
People with no malice scoff at others pain all the time.....I am familiar with the doctors scale of pain 1-10 that is in fashion now-a-days.
I have suffered kidney stones and would rank it a strong 9. We are talking pain so violent that projectile vomiting from the pain is normal.
Apparently many people that have never suffered serious CP would list their "cramps" a 9 when in reality "cramps" for a few hours would be a 2 on my scale. They just do not know. It is high time they do.
Ouch! I understand the kidney stone problem and it's about an 8.5--9.0+ on anybody's scale. In 1966 I had surgery to repair a blocked ureter resulting from a pedestrian--truck accident (I was the pedestrian) fourteenth months previously. The pain was exactly what you would get from a kidney stone stuck in a ureter, except that it went on for nine months, destroyed 96% of the interior of the kidney from the fluid buildup, and caused me to drop from 145 pounds to 94 pounds (I'm 5'10"). Back in the day there was no such thing as morphine pumps. A nurse came in every four hours or so and you got stuck in the butt. After three days you got to go cold turkey. I have a 26" incision scar as a souvenir. That was surgery in the Marcus Welby era.
And yes, projectile vomiting is a good indication that the pain control is not working. So are second degree burns from heating pads you don't even notice. Add blurred vision and involuntary repetitive motion to the stew. Some people actually die from the pain and not the underlying condition. Blood pressure rises to the point the patient can stroke out. We don't keep statistics on how many people die from chronic and severe pain, or from suicide prompted by it; but my guess is that that number is several times the number of truly accidental overdoses.
WOW! You have certainly had a tortured relationship with the medical issues. The passage I boldined is more in line with the discussion I was hoping to generate.
The drug policy as it stands and where it is threatened to go has purposefully diminished the value of pain as a controllable entity and a responsibility for the medical community to address.
Throwing the corpses of foolish out of control people at the feet of responsible IN CONTROL people as a reason to deny them medical help is goulish and cynical.
This is what happens when you throw personal freedom out the window in favor of being ‘taken care’ of. What the government does with the drug industry is completely asinine. Here (Washington) you can’t get a common cold medication over the counter if it contains sudafedrin without delivering a whole list of personal information so they can track your usage because they are combating the evil methamphetamine labs by taking it away from the common user. I really hope you don’t get sick for over 7 days or the local government is going to kick in your door.
Surprisingly enough – it does not seem to have hampered meth production at all
We should be allowing patents and doctors to make those calls. Simple as that. Sure, abuse is a problem BUT that is a twofold issue that has nothing to do with the current ‘solution.’ Some people are going to make piss poor decisions and are going to abuse drugs. You are not stopping them by making it difficult for people to get required prescriptions through their doctors nor should a doctor be liable for the bad decisions that you make. Also, the control that is put on the drug industry makes alternative products damn near nonexistent. Someone mentioned pot in the thread already – just one example of a drug that can have a better result than the myriad of opiates that we deal in.
There is something to be said about doctors overusing some of the more powerful stuff though. I think that is a personal responsibility issue though. If a doctor says you can have morphine that does not mean that you have to take it. You are completely capable of asking for something else. There is no reason that those refusing to take charge of what they willingly place in their bodies should somehow effect the ability for the rest of us to use it when we NEED it. The idea that we are not the ultimate arbiters of our health is rather asinine.
I remember once we were in the hospital for some treatments for my son and we requested some Tylenol because he has some discomfort. The nurse went to go talk to the doc to see if we could get some and returned letting us know that the doc did not want him to take Tylenol because it might mask a fever. They were willing to give him some morphine though in its place.
Naturally I asked how we made the jump from Tylenol to morphine. There should be something a little less extreme. After leaving and coming back she had another solution – oxycodone. At that point we said we would just deal with it. He was uncomfortable, not in severe or even moderate pain and with the amounts of opiates and other very nasty drugs he has already been on there was little reason to pump him with some more without cause.