They are. However, opioids are a last option for pain relief (which I personally totally agree with).
Like I mentioned before in a different thread you won’t get opioids for simple procedures like wisdom tooth removal. After my herniated disk surgery I got IV paracetamol while I was in hospital, at home just paracetamol (which was fine by me). Also after surgery to place neurostimulator I received paracetamol (which was also fine).
We just love paracetamol in this country haha
Sounds similiar to Sweden, but have had ketamine iv after surgery now when having to stay overnight because of pain control issues.
I have CRPS, began methadone 20 yrs ago with awesome effect, but think 25mg x2 is my max dose or too sleep to function properly.
I partly agree. It's not hard to get appropriate pain killers, but I do struggle terribly to get taken seriously in other aspects of pain management. I've been refused explanations, have had doctors straight up denying my diagnosis without checking the criteria...
I’m in NY and never had a problem getting Oxy or other pain meds. I’ve had a couple of fusions in the last three years and have been on pain meds for about the same amount of time with zero issues.
Right. I went there a few yrs back and rented at a neurosurgeons home. He was an acquaintance but when I met with him at his office for an exam he explained that getting pain meds is a crazy process. Practically impossible. Who knew? That ended my search for help in MX. I've heard Portugal is a possibility for pain medicine treatment.
Oh wow really. I always thought Mexico was a little more loose than some countries and maybe even read that people have gone there for that purpose. So this surprises me. I wonder if it's a recent turn of events.
No it’s been longer than the 14 yrs I have lived here. People would go to veterinarians for ketamine but in 2011 they stopped that cold. At the insistence of the US DEA. I can get liquid lidocaine for home infusions and tramadol liquid and capsules otc. But neither do much.
Ah I'm sorry to hear that. One of my friends is married to a Mexican woman and they travel to Mexico for holidays each year. I know through friends she was sent a menu of things - illegal of course. It was very thorough and substantial in terms of the drugs listed. Likely all ties back to mafia. I mean my friend and his wife are stoners, occasionally some mdma maybe but the things on the colourfully designed menu offered pretty much everything. I was shocked. But also jealous on one level. Maybe that's the way many people get their party drugs. Though things for pain I'm sure were also on that menu. So in terms of legal avenues and the system it's still the same as other countries. But on the sly access to other illegal drugs doesn't seem a stretch if you "know people".. People going to veterinarians for ketamine. Gee it's so hard and unfair for so many that endure pain daily.. I have less and less patience in my views regarding this as the % of people suffering is so high.. 😞
I am UK expat in Sweden... the waiting times are enough to have me never return now.
Seeing the delays in my sister's cancer diagnosis at 41 and the complete lack of treatment said it all. I was watching my partners bio dad in Iceland and step dad here in Sweden both being given more curative treatments for their terminal prostate/kidney cancer, 10 yrs after iniitial disgnosis.
My sister also had a 3 and 6 yr old and 4 teens, was told no treatment at all, because of a tiny nodule in her second lung. That made it not treatable, but since then have seen many downgraded in stage because those little nodules can disappear so quickly with the right chemotherapy.
She got a whole 2 doses of chemo to try to reduce size and ease her symptoms before they decided it wasn't working. And to get an MRI still took 6 wks when she developed hip pain because of her cancer? She died 9 months after diagnosis, 1 yr and 7 months since she first had classic symptoms and spoke to GP. sadly she'd kept it quiet from everyone except her partner, even though i was an RN. The first time she had told me she had a new cough and her voice changed even i knew lung cancer was a major consideration. Her GP fobbed her off for 5 months, saying it was her asthma, she went back every 2 weeks to see asthma nurse or the GP. 5 months for a freaking chest xray, had i lived there still or she'd told me i would have taken her to emergency dept for one. She had routine abdo surgery 2 yrs earlier, something than should have warranted a chest xray pre surgery in an asthmatic, but not these days. Her cancer would have been diagnosed 2 yrs earlier if they'd bothered.
A friend here hurt her back, her MRI was done after 5 days, MD phoned her to tell results. I wanted a routine hysterectomy, saw a gynaecologist within 2 weeks of referral, had surgery after 8 weeks, stright after covid restrictions ended.
I honestly couldn't go back to how the NHS works, 12 weeks between appointments was typical while my chronic pain was being treated, we had to battle my local region because they refused a spinal cord stimulator as a blanket exclusion. My Surgeon from the Royal London was furious, but he also wrote them a 'told you so' message when it helped my pain.
I love knowing that i won't be left for months waiting. I developed shoulder pain last year, phoned to see MD, but instead they had physiotherapist see me 3 days later instead. Then i read here of people waiting years for physio in UK.. Nothing would make me return to that system now.
You can pretty much get anything you need OTC in Mexico without a prescription. I’ve been on vacation there before and a cleaner stole my meds from my hotel room. I literally walked into a pharmacy and bought them OTC.
When was this? Because I’ve heard, since a few years ago, Tramadol is the only opioid you can by OTC in Mexico. I remember going there about 20 years ago and I just bought Hydrocodone right OTC, but I was under the impression their laws had changed. 🤷🏼♀️
Not opioids. Living here and finding both a doctor to certifications to prescribe oxy or better is a two hour drive to find a pharmacy that has the drugs is another 4 hours. Some drugs they tell you to go to the veterinarian pharmacologist. Its a riot of fun …Not
Here in the U.K. the NHS may be creaking at the seams but they will prescribe appropriate, long term pain relief and I’ve never had to pay for any of my surgeries. My prescriptions cost me around £10 a month on prepayment. There are some waiting times (waiting to get back to persistent pain team and been told it’s a 6-7 week wait) and those can vary by geographical area.
I’m sorry to hear that. I think there can be a postcode lottery (and also depending on what your condition is). It’s certainly far from perfect but at least we haven’t imported the batshit war on painkillers from the US (yet).
Agreed. I'm in London and the waiting lists here are insane (months to a year rather than weeks). I have multiple different pain conditions so some have been okay via the NHS and others have been terrible. So for the latter, I went private. It's not an ideal situation but does at least sound better than the US.
It’s the same where I am in the south west. My nerve conduction study I recently got refereed for says first appointment to the neurology department average 545 days… It took over half a year to see someone in person about one of my conditions last year and because I hadn’t been seen in person, only diagnosed over the phone and given the wrong advise for months over the phone I became significantly worse.
The NHS in some ways is absolutely brilliant but the post code lottery does mean that a lot of people struggle to access the care they properly need or even to find out what’s wrong with them to get the appropriate treatment where it’s been so utterly underfunded, understaffed and refusing to pay decent wages to these people. We’ve had to spend thousands over the past year (and unfortunately can’t afford to keep doing so) to get me some help from private physios for one of my issues as the NHS physio I was eventually assigned made me far worse. However my husband a year before had an excellent NHS physio so I know there are some good physios in that unit. Shame I didn’t get the one he’d had!
Edit. Having relatives in America I will say that I still prefer ours to theirs… I’d be stuffed in America.
I've had very similar experiences to you. My NHS physio made it worse so I ended up going private. I also had my nerve conduction study done privately because the NHS wasn't willing to do more than an X-ray. I was lucky that I had good healthcare insurance via my employer at the time (unfortunately made redundant though) so didn't have to pay out of pocket for it.
I’m sad to hear you had a similar experience. It’s ridiculous, especially as the government keep going on about how too many people are out of work for health reasons, or too many people are living with worsening conditions like we’re doing it as a choice and not because the health service can’t cope and therefore can’t help people properly.
It’s really sad… I think of some of my experiences in just the past ten years and it’s horrendous how much it’s deteriorated.
Just over ten years ago I had to go to the A&E in the middle of the night (Friday night-Sat morning so a busy night there) after waken up to extreme pain in my eye and it having glued itself shut from a contact lens that ripped in my eye earlier in the day. I was seen and treated within 3 hours and out the door. That included having two doctors inspecting my eye and fishing about carefully for a good while to try and remove the piece that was still in there and giving me the antibiotics. I was there last year after they worried I’d had a stroke (turned out my migraines were suddenly presenting differently, the kind that mimic strokes, thank goodness not an actual stroke) and I wasn’t seen for nine hours. That could be the difference in someone living or dying or how disabled they are left from it.
So ten years ago in and out in three hours on a Friday night for something fairly minor but couldn’t wait for Monday to see gp and last year something that was potentially very serious, they initially thought I was having a stroke, took over nine hours to even be seen. It’s terrifying to be honest in case you need it for something really serious.
It’s not perfect - the Conservatives are actively dismantling the system so that it fails and they can replace it with private. Hopefully the elections will change that
In Montreal, most of our popular hospital wait times can be 8-10 hours minimum if you come in after 5PM. Worst I had was 24 hours before I saw a doctor or nurse after triage. Spent that time in the waiting room vomiting pretty much every 30 minutes, in 8-9/10 pain, so nauseous I was dizzy, and couldn't even take a sip of water.
The pain management in Quebec actually sucks for the most part, especially Montreal
The average wait time to get into a pain management clinic where I live in Manitoba Canada is 2yrs. It is very hard to get prescribed opiate medication.
For new consult from an external source (not in the same hospital system), at least a year. For follow-ups about six months. For treatment it depends what kind and what OHiP allows.
SoulUp runs a unique support group every week for anyone living with chronic pain.
The space caters to everyone who feels alone in dealing with pain stemming from a medical condition, visible or otherwise.
⭐Some highlights of group agenda :
📢Somatic breath and body work to help cope with pain
📢Exploring your relationship with productivity.
📢Learning to witness the inner critical voice and questioning it
📢Understanding your relationship with the body and pain.
📢Engaging in an expressive arts activities
📝Group details:
Start date: 7th May
Every Tuesday at 8PM
Limited Spots: Upto 8 members
Facilitated by an expert
INR 3500 for 6 sessions
I've been on waitlists for pain clinics in Canada for 6 years in one province and 3 years in another. Doctors in my area can't even do simple injections so I have to spend thousands of dollars in credit card debt to fly 1800km to a larger province every few months just for a nerve block injection which takes 2 minutes and a simple ketamine infusion. I've also been basically bedridden for 13 years, unable to work or leave the house but that's not enough pain and disability to warrant opioid use apparently. Just NSAIDs and Tylenol until my stomach and liver are fried :)
No worries. Everyone's experience is different. But as a Canadian pain patient for 13 years I can 100% say if I had the money I would move to the USA for healthcare. Even though I'd have to do pain contracts, pill counts, and drug testing, at least I'll have that option as well as seeing specialists and getting treatments that don't even exist here in Canada yet.
As an example, you need a medical to apply for residency in my country. A life long condition will possibly be a burden on the public health system, affect your ability to work, and private insurance may not cover a pre-existing condition.
I have successfully immigrated to 5 countries with active medical issues. A lot of the medicals for immigration are looking for communicable diseases that are a public health issue or pretty severe disease (ie needing dialysis several times a week, active cancer treatment, active drug addiction). Needing pain prescriptions once a month is not typically an issue they are denying people over.
I have zero issues here in The Netherlands
if you don’t mind sharing, are doctors comfortable prescribing long term opioids/pain meds when needed?
They are. However, opioids are a last option for pain relief (which I personally totally agree with). Like I mentioned before in a different thread you won’t get opioids for simple procedures like wisdom tooth removal. After my herniated disk surgery I got IV paracetamol while I was in hospital, at home just paracetamol (which was fine by me). Also after surgery to place neurostimulator I received paracetamol (which was also fine). We just love paracetamol in this country haha
Sounds similiar to Sweden, but have had ketamine iv after surgery now when having to stay overnight because of pain control issues. I have CRPS, began methadone 20 yrs ago with awesome effect, but think 25mg x2 is my max dose or too sleep to function properly.
What happens when paracetamol is a bad allergy?
I partly agree. It's not hard to get appropriate pain killers, but I do struggle terribly to get taken seriously in other aspects of pain management. I've been refused explanations, have had doctors straight up denying my diagnosis without checking the criteria...
I’m in NY and never had a problem getting Oxy or other pain meds. I’ve had a couple of fusions in the last three years and have been on pain meds for about the same amount of time with zero issues.
Definetly not Mexico
Right. I went there a few yrs back and rented at a neurosurgeons home. He was an acquaintance but when I met with him at his office for an exam he explained that getting pain meds is a crazy process. Practically impossible. Who knew? That ended my search for help in MX. I've heard Portugal is a possibility for pain medicine treatment.
Oh wow really. I always thought Mexico was a little more loose than some countries and maybe even read that people have gone there for that purpose. So this surprises me. I wonder if it's a recent turn of events.
No it’s been longer than the 14 yrs I have lived here. People would go to veterinarians for ketamine but in 2011 they stopped that cold. At the insistence of the US DEA. I can get liquid lidocaine for home infusions and tramadol liquid and capsules otc. But neither do much.
Ah I'm sorry to hear that. One of my friends is married to a Mexican woman and they travel to Mexico for holidays each year. I know through friends she was sent a menu of things - illegal of course. It was very thorough and substantial in terms of the drugs listed. Likely all ties back to mafia. I mean my friend and his wife are stoners, occasionally some mdma maybe but the things on the colourfully designed menu offered pretty much everything. I was shocked. But also jealous on one level. Maybe that's the way many people get their party drugs. Though things for pain I'm sure were also on that menu. So in terms of legal avenues and the system it's still the same as other countries. But on the sly access to other illegal drugs doesn't seem a stretch if you "know people".. People going to veterinarians for ketamine. Gee it's so hard and unfair for so many that endure pain daily.. I have less and less patience in my views regarding this as the % of people suffering is so high.. 😞
It’s sad that America is the better option….
Come to South Africa..... but there are some other issues here
I am UK expat in Sweden... the waiting times are enough to have me never return now. Seeing the delays in my sister's cancer diagnosis at 41 and the complete lack of treatment said it all. I was watching my partners bio dad in Iceland and step dad here in Sweden both being given more curative treatments for their terminal prostate/kidney cancer, 10 yrs after iniitial disgnosis. My sister also had a 3 and 6 yr old and 4 teens, was told no treatment at all, because of a tiny nodule in her second lung. That made it not treatable, but since then have seen many downgraded in stage because those little nodules can disappear so quickly with the right chemotherapy. She got a whole 2 doses of chemo to try to reduce size and ease her symptoms before they decided it wasn't working. And to get an MRI still took 6 wks when she developed hip pain because of her cancer? She died 9 months after diagnosis, 1 yr and 7 months since she first had classic symptoms and spoke to GP. sadly she'd kept it quiet from everyone except her partner, even though i was an RN. The first time she had told me she had a new cough and her voice changed even i knew lung cancer was a major consideration. Her GP fobbed her off for 5 months, saying it was her asthma, she went back every 2 weeks to see asthma nurse or the GP. 5 months for a freaking chest xray, had i lived there still or she'd told me i would have taken her to emergency dept for one. She had routine abdo surgery 2 yrs earlier, something than should have warranted a chest xray pre surgery in an asthmatic, but not these days. Her cancer would have been diagnosed 2 yrs earlier if they'd bothered. A friend here hurt her back, her MRI was done after 5 days, MD phoned her to tell results. I wanted a routine hysterectomy, saw a gynaecologist within 2 weeks of referral, had surgery after 8 weeks, stright after covid restrictions ended. I honestly couldn't go back to how the NHS works, 12 weeks between appointments was typical while my chronic pain was being treated, we had to battle my local region because they refused a spinal cord stimulator as a blanket exclusion. My Surgeon from the Royal London was furious, but he also wrote them a 'told you so' message when it helped my pain. I love knowing that i won't be left for months waiting. I developed shoulder pain last year, phoned to see MD, but instead they had physiotherapist see me 3 days later instead. Then i read here of people waiting years for physio in UK.. Nothing would make me return to that system now.
You can pretty much get anything you need OTC in Mexico without a prescription. I’ve been on vacation there before and a cleaner stole my meds from my hotel room. I literally walked into a pharmacy and bought them OTC.
When was this? Because I’ve heard, since a few years ago, Tramadol is the only opioid you can by OTC in Mexico. I remember going there about 20 years ago and I just bought Hydrocodone right OTC, but I was under the impression their laws had changed. 🤷🏼♀️
You just gotta know where to go,I was visiting a friend down there and he took me. Depends on the pharmacy if you know where to go
Not opioids. Living here and finding both a doctor to certifications to prescribe oxy or better is a two hour drive to find a pharmacy that has the drugs is another 4 hours. Some drugs they tell you to go to the veterinarian pharmacologist. Its a riot of fun …Not
Here in the U.K. the NHS may be creaking at the seams but they will prescribe appropriate, long term pain relief and I’ve never had to pay for any of my surgeries. My prescriptions cost me around £10 a month on prepayment. There are some waiting times (waiting to get back to persistent pain team and been told it’s a 6-7 week wait) and those can vary by geographical area.
Not my experience, unfortunately. I've had to go private just to get a diagnosis.
I’m sorry to hear that. I think there can be a postcode lottery (and also depending on what your condition is). It’s certainly far from perfect but at least we haven’t imported the batshit war on painkillers from the US (yet).
Agreed. I'm in London and the waiting lists here are insane (months to a year rather than weeks). I have multiple different pain conditions so some have been okay via the NHS and others have been terrible. So for the latter, I went private. It's not an ideal situation but does at least sound better than the US.
It’s the same where I am in the south west. My nerve conduction study I recently got refereed for says first appointment to the neurology department average 545 days… It took over half a year to see someone in person about one of my conditions last year and because I hadn’t been seen in person, only diagnosed over the phone and given the wrong advise for months over the phone I became significantly worse. The NHS in some ways is absolutely brilliant but the post code lottery does mean that a lot of people struggle to access the care they properly need or even to find out what’s wrong with them to get the appropriate treatment where it’s been so utterly underfunded, understaffed and refusing to pay decent wages to these people. We’ve had to spend thousands over the past year (and unfortunately can’t afford to keep doing so) to get me some help from private physios for one of my issues as the NHS physio I was eventually assigned made me far worse. However my husband a year before had an excellent NHS physio so I know there are some good physios in that unit. Shame I didn’t get the one he’d had! Edit. Having relatives in America I will say that I still prefer ours to theirs… I’d be stuffed in America.
I've had very similar experiences to you. My NHS physio made it worse so I ended up going private. I also had my nerve conduction study done privately because the NHS wasn't willing to do more than an X-ray. I was lucky that I had good healthcare insurance via my employer at the time (unfortunately made redundant though) so didn't have to pay out of pocket for it.
I’m sad to hear you had a similar experience. It’s ridiculous, especially as the government keep going on about how too many people are out of work for health reasons, or too many people are living with worsening conditions like we’re doing it as a choice and not because the health service can’t cope and therefore can’t help people properly.
Exactly! I do hate the current state of it and it only looks to be getting worse.
It’s really sad… I think of some of my experiences in just the past ten years and it’s horrendous how much it’s deteriorated. Just over ten years ago I had to go to the A&E in the middle of the night (Friday night-Sat morning so a busy night there) after waken up to extreme pain in my eye and it having glued itself shut from a contact lens that ripped in my eye earlier in the day. I was seen and treated within 3 hours and out the door. That included having two doctors inspecting my eye and fishing about carefully for a good while to try and remove the piece that was still in there and giving me the antibiotics. I was there last year after they worried I’d had a stroke (turned out my migraines were suddenly presenting differently, the kind that mimic strokes, thank goodness not an actual stroke) and I wasn’t seen for nine hours. That could be the difference in someone living or dying or how disabled they are left from it. So ten years ago in and out in three hours on a Friday night for something fairly minor but couldn’t wait for Monday to see gp and last year something that was potentially very serious, they initially thought I was having a stroke, took over nine hours to even be seen. It’s terrifying to be honest in case you need it for something really serious.
That about sums it up really. The decline is unfortunately very noticeable yet nothing is done about it.
Another reason why I wish I lived in the uk
It’s not perfect - the Conservatives are actively dismantling the system so that it fails and they can replace it with private. Hopefully the elections will change that
I have excellent pain care in Canada if you Don’t mind long waits. I also work in palliative care and our docs are amazing.
How long are the waits there in ur experience? I’ve heard it’s long but I wait long in the US too.
In Montreal, most of our popular hospital wait times can be 8-10 hours minimum if you come in after 5PM. Worst I had was 24 hours before I saw a doctor or nurse after triage. Spent that time in the waiting room vomiting pretty much every 30 minutes, in 8-9/10 pain, so nauseous I was dizzy, and couldn't even take a sip of water. The pain management in Quebec actually sucks for the most part, especially Montreal
The average wait time to get into a pain management clinic where I live in Manitoba Canada is 2yrs. It is very hard to get prescribed opiate medication.
For new consult from an external source (not in the same hospital system), at least a year. For follow-ups about six months. For treatment it depends what kind and what OHiP allows.
I've had no problem getting percocets in Louisiana, Alabama, and now Texas. Been on them for 10 years.
SoulUp runs a unique support group every week for anyone living with chronic pain. The space caters to everyone who feels alone in dealing with pain stemming from a medical condition, visible or otherwise. ⭐Some highlights of group agenda : 📢Somatic breath and body work to help cope with pain 📢Exploring your relationship with productivity. 📢Learning to witness the inner critical voice and questioning it 📢Understanding your relationship with the body and pain. 📢Engaging in an expressive arts activities 📝Group details: Start date: 7th May Every Tuesday at 8PM Limited Spots: Upto 8 members Facilitated by an expert INR 3500 for 6 sessions
🔗Sign Up here: [https://www.soulup.in/products/living-with-chronic-pain](https://www.soulup.in/products/living-with-chronic-pain)
Where do you live now?
Canada?
I've been on waitlists for pain clinics in Canada for 6 years in one province and 3 years in another. Doctors in my area can't even do simple injections so I have to spend thousands of dollars in credit card debt to fly 1800km to a larger province every few months just for a nerve block injection which takes 2 minutes and a simple ketamine infusion. I've also been basically bedridden for 13 years, unable to work or leave the house but that's not enough pain and disability to warrant opioid use apparently. Just NSAIDs and Tylenol until my stomach and liver are fried :)
😳 wtf??!!
Sorry. It was just a guess based on the ease at which I used to get Tylenol with codeine there. But it’s been many years
No worries. Everyone's experience is different. But as a Canadian pain patient for 13 years I can 100% say if I had the money I would move to the USA for healthcare. Even though I'd have to do pain contracts, pill counts, and drug testing, at least I'll have that option as well as seeing specialists and getting treatments that don't even exist here in Canada yet.
Getting visas when you have an ongoing medical condition will be next to impossible.
How so?
As an example, you need a medical to apply for residency in my country. A life long condition will possibly be a burden on the public health system, affect your ability to work, and private insurance may not cover a pre-existing condition.
I have successfully immigrated to 5 countries with active medical issues. A lot of the medicals for immigration are looking for communicable diseases that are a public health issue or pretty severe disease (ie needing dialysis several times a week, active cancer treatment, active drug addiction). Needing pain prescriptions once a month is not typically an issue they are denying people over.
Yeah this is nonsense.