(01-25-2018 11:21 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  I get that........

My first post said Oxycontin........ I wanted to clear it up...... I honestly didn't know there was a difference til this thread. I'm still amazed by the whole thing actually. Absolutely no offense taken either in any of this. At the end it's been an education for me. I was definitely naive and didn't understand it.

This addiction problem and the restriction to pain meds is personal to me. I've seen both sides a number of times. So something simple to some of you I look at differently.

Cost is never the reason for addiction because a addict is going to get what they crave...

one way or another

I understand there's a problem with addiction and pain meds but not any more than smoking or drinking. driving up the cost or limiting supply is not going to solve the problem. Addiction is just that and the bodies craving will get their fix till that person has a reason to stop. Cigs went up from $7 a carton in the late 80s to $50 in tobacco states and $60-$70 in some others. Yet young people keep smoking and a very large % of those that started at $.75 a pack

They stop when something in their life gives them a good enough reason to quit. Same with alcoholics. Same with drugheads. But it's never supply or cost....

In that same trend everyday life will play a major role in addiction. When life is going good people are OK getting away from their problem with a few beers. When jobs decline or at least jobs people can live on those hit the hardest will try to escape. Look at the below charts and you can see why opioid use started going up 6 or so years ago in the places it did. Most jobs were service jobs. The other chart shows that when you try to make it hard to get one drug...those addicted moves on to something harder. Heroin deaths started to increase. But a lot of people confuse synthetic opioids (fentanyl) with the lower end opioids. Fentanyl is where most deaths from opioids come from.

But lets get something in context...64,000 overdose deaths last year and only 14k from opioids.

Smoking leads to disease and disability and harms nearly every organ of the body.
More than 16 million Americans are living with a disease caused by smoking.
For every person who dies because of smoking, at least 30 people live with a serious smoking-related illness.

https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statist.../index.htm

Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death.
Worldwide, tobacco use causes nearly 6 million deaths per year, and current trends show that tobacco use will cause more than 8 million deaths annually by 2030.2
Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day.1
On average, smokers die 10 years earlier than nonsmokers.3
If smoking continues at the current rate among U.S. youth, 5.6 million of today’s Americans younger than 18 years of age are expected to die prematurely from a smoking-related illness. This represents about one in every 13 Americans aged 17 years or younger who are alive today.







If we were really worried about the death of young people (or people in general)

We would put the same laws for something most people on this board use daily

Underage Drinking
Alcohol is the most commonly used and abused drug among youth in the United States.1

Excessive drinking is responsible for more than 4,300 deaths among underage youth each year, and cost the U.S. $24 billion in economic costs in 2010.2,3
Although drinking by persons under the age of 21 is illegal, people aged 12 to 20 years drink 11% of all alcohol consumed in the United States.4 More than 90% of this alcohol is consumed in the form of binge drinks.4
On average, underage drinkers consume more drinks per drinking occasion than adult drinkers.5


In 2010, there were approximately 189,000 emergency rooms visits by persons under age 21 for injuries and other conditions linked to alcohol.6
Drinking Levels among Youth

The 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Survey7 found that among high school students, during the past 30 days

33% drank some amount of alcohol.
18% binge drank.
8% drove after drinking alcohol.
20% rode with a driver who had been drinking alcohol.
https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-use.htm

Drinking too much can harm your health. Excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88,000 deaths and 2.5 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) each year in the United States from 2006 – 2010, shortening the lives of those who died by an average of 30 years.1,2 Further, excessive drinking was responsible for 1 in 10 deaths among working-age adults aged 20-64 years. The economic costs of excessive alcohol consumption in 2010 were estimated at $249 billion, or $2.05 a drink.3

Good stuff WKUYG. Very informative

I have a question. How does the increase in prescription drug abuse correlate with the allowing of widespread adverts of various pharmaceuticals on media serving the general population?

I mean, if I watch a golf tournament I probably get ads for four erectile dysfunction products every half hour. Does that not tend to promote abuse of prescription drugs?

(01-22-2018 10:35 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Last Wednesday I had shoulder surgery. Reattached Labrum, trimmed cartilage to unwrinkle the glenoid cavity, and shaved the numerous head to get rid of bone spurs. Dr said I have an excellent prognosis and I should see a drastic uptick in my quality of life in about 6 weeks. I had a tear in the supraspinatus (part of the rotator cuff) but he didn’t get into it and thinks the main problem was the impingement of the caracoid joint. Ok blah blah but I know we have some medical guys here and I wanted to explain.

So here’s where this gets interesting. A couple of years back I had nasal surgery for a deviated septum. I was prescribed OxyContin for the pain. I had a guy I taught with who had back pain and those pills were his downfall. Started there. Chewed them for the pain. Sucked on them liked altoids. Dr shopped. Got cut off. Started self medicating and it blew into a full blown heroin addiction. No shirt. Beautiful wife. 3 kids. College degree. Life by the balls. Now I believe he’s laying to waste in some prison.

Ok so I was very very very wary of these things and I took one pill a couple of years ago after the nasal surgery and I was so afraid of them they made me physically sick. So my wife says my pain pills are percocetts. She picked them at pharmacy afterthought surgery. Month supply for 4.50. Packages says 1 to 2 every four hours for pain. Last Friday I was in some real pain. So I broke down and had 1. Man bingo wingo. Within 15 minutes my arm was out of the sling and I was doing the pendulum exercises on the sheet. Saturday I busted 2 down in one four hour period. Just felt great on these things. Sunday funday the same deal. I went back to work on Friday btw that’s why I took the first pill. I hate to miss work. Just the way I was raised. Now today. I grab the bottle.

Look at the bottom to see what the generic name for what I was taking.......

Oxy fcking Contin.............


One it sent shivers down my spine...... isn’t that something since I thought I was taking a minor thing I went at it like Axl Rose when LA guns was first hitting the scene.

I can TOTALLY understand how one can get hooked on these things........

If I were in a pain management life long scenario. I get it. I totally get it.

First, sorry about your pain. I have similar story. Narcotics kick my ass, can't function... so I ruin my liver stacking NSAIDS.

Second, a lot of us get it... and some people have far more addictive personalities than others (subject to addiction)

The current problem is that in many ways, we make those who deliver healthcare responsible to stop it. They CAN and sometimes do contribute to it, but when you have a patient who shakes and shivers and has heart palpitations and seizures without the medication, what are you supposed to do? You can prescribe rehab, but you can't make them go. You can't make them stop hanging out with their addicted friends.

What you CAN seem to do is sue the doctors and hospitals and pharmaceutical companies (who make pills that by your own experience do exactly what they're supposed to do) and make lawyers wealthy and make these people wealthier addicts.

I don't have an answer that suits all the situations. There will always be a way around it or someone who takes advantage of it... but imo, the answer starts with the individuals. You've got to WANT to get off the stuff... and you've got to want it BAD.

Healthcare has in many ways become a service industry where we're performing surgeries on people who don't NEED it, because NEED is often based on pain, or perceptions of pain... and of course people aren't the same. I put up with pain every day that some people resort to narcotics to deal with... and we routinely perform high cost and high risk surgeries on people who are only marginally qualifying for those surgeries... but their insurance covers it... so................

(01-25-2018 12:35 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Good stuff WKUYG. Very informative

yes it was......and he nailed why Nicotine should be outlawed and why it's not....

I don't ever feel a 'need for weed', but 'ole st Nic' will make you sick when w/o....

toughest thing I ever went through was to quit smoking ciggy butts....I kick myself every day for starting back after 7 clean yrs....

When I had surgery for a torn meniscus I was given a whole bunch of pain killers. I really don't know what they were because I never even took one. I got rid of them as soon as I got better. If I had pain I would man-up to it. I hate any kind of medications even the High Blood pressure (almodipine) and Metformin I have to take. A month ago I had two tooth implant surgery and the doc prescribed a whole bunch of Tylenol and Acetaminophen both at the same time three times a day. I hated every time I had to swallow those things. I breathe a sigh of relief when they were finally exhausted. I've gotten headaches before and I man-up to those because like I said, I hate pills.

Hey mach, are those pills what makes you post those weird posts? You should stay away from them you're starting to sound like Tommie and Fit. LOL

(01-25-2018 04:19 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I have a question. How does the increase in prescription drug abuse correlate with the allowing of widespread adverts of various pharmaceuticals on media serving the general population?

I mean, if I watch a golf tournament I probably get ads for four erectile dysfunction products every half hour. Does that not tend to promote abuse of prescription drugs?

advertising any of those agents should've been outlawed yesterday.....it's amazing that liquor ads are allowed.......that's simply fk'd the the fokkk up....

that's a YUGE pet peeve of mine.....

this is where the docs should be held responsible for continual education and why I abhor lobbyists....

the pharma industry now is no different than the guy that pulled up in a wagon 150 yrs ago.....

#morebrainwashing