Will The Feds Ban Your Pain Meds?
Great video that debunks some of the crapthink about how taking pain pills will automatically ruin lives: reason.tv's Ted Balaker:
I saw my dear friend Cathy Seipp suffering terribly from lung cancer, and her Oxycodone helped ease her suffering. It's unthinkable that she wouldn't have had this to help her.
I deal with some of the anti-drug paranoia surrounding my own ingestion of Ritalin. Sure, some people abuse it, but it helps me focus so I can write. And I've been taking the same 10 mg. dose for about 10 years. Better living through chemistry. It's simply fantastic that I can take a pill, with almost no side-effects for me, apparently (according to an epidemiologist friend) and be better at what I do.
I am so sick of the menatilty that eveyone must suffer for the actions of a few assholes
lujlp at February 16, 2010 7:49 AM
Oxytocin? Do you mean oxycodone, maybe?
Barry Leiba at February 16, 2010 9:17 AM
The problem is that people try to force drugs like Ritalin onto children that it is not appropriate for and ignore the cases that it does work for (like you). In any case, one should be careful with the diagnosis and dosage and make sure that it is correct. I am glad that it is working for you.
Sabba Hillel at February 16, 2010 11:38 AM
Sabba, your point is absolutely taken, and I'm very sensitive to the thing about Ritalin being forced into young children given that nearly all of them are boys, and if I were a boy of that age today, they'd probably be making me take it. I was pretty asocial (not antisocial, asocial) when I was a child, and the public school regime today considers introversion and leave-me-the-hell-alone-ism as disorders to be "fixed". But yes, Ritalin does have many legit uses, and the shame of it is that there are probably a lot of people who would benefit from it who aren't getting it because of the horror stories. I know a young lady whose narcolepsy (falling asleep involuntarily at random times) was fixed by Ritalin.
I'm on a daily dose of an SSRI for depression, and I probably will be for the rest of my life. Now, SSRIs have kind of gotten a bad rap, in part because clumsy practitioners prescribe them to bipolar patients, and SSRIs make bipolar disorder worse rather than better. But for anyone with long-term clinical depression, SSRIs are a godsend. Yes, there are certain risks; I have to keep an eye on my blood pressure, for instance. But I can tell you that from both a statistical and a personal perspective, slightly elevated blood pressure is a heck of a lot less risky than clinical depression is.
Cousin Dave at February 16, 2010 1:07 PM
As I have mentioned before, I am on pain management (ms-contin mostly) for a pain disorder. I also take many other medications (anti-spasmodics, muscle relaxants, lesser narcotic medications, TENS, topical analgesics, etc) to alleviate much of the pain. I'm currently in the process of kicking the morphine because it is getting harder and harder to find a doctor to prescribe it.
When my last doctor was brought up on charges to the DEA (they are cracking down on pain doctors here, and prosecuting docs who are prescribing medications within the therapeutic limits.) I consulted and researched no less than 30 pain management doctors and had office visits with 10-15 of them before I found a doctor who would prescribe me my medication. I have never engaged in addictive behavior and have always taken my medication as prescribed and submitted to all drug tests requested joyfully...but I can't risk going off cold turkey when this doctor closes up shop or gets a matching set of police issue bracelets. The fact of the matter is that there isn't anything to replace these narcotic medications with. If you don't give narcotics, people will just suffer needlessly.
Few people understand how horrible chronic pain really is, and this is something that will lead to increased disability and increased suicide.
When the boomers start dying of cancer, they are in for a rude awakening.
-Julie
JulieW at February 16, 2010 1:18 PM
When the bomers start dying of cancer I'm going to enjoy rubbing their self imposed situation in their sactimonious faces
lujlp at February 16, 2010 2:09 PM
The boomers that you refer to are the ones who are pushing euthenasia, like the Oregon "Dr. Kevorkians". When they get cancer, their own "death panels" will "suggest" doctor assisted suicide as a remedy.
Sabba Hillel at February 17, 2010 8:21 AM
When they get cancer, their own "death panels" will "suggest" doctor assisted suicide as a remedy.
And let me tell you, they will consider that a blessing.
-Julie
JulieW at February 17, 2010 9:13 AM
I had a girlfriend for a time who had bipolar disorder, or manic depression as we called it back then. I'm reading that Catherine Zeta-Jones has developed the condition after being subject to great stress connected with the cancer of Michael Douglas, her husband. That this is possible, developing the condition, is certainly news to me as in my day we were only told (so far as I'm aware) that it was a genetic condition, you had it or you didn't have it. It sounds like more is understood about bipolar disorder these days, so that at least is encouraging news.
Dragon Images at April 14, 2011 3:35 PM
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