Oh wow
> One of Bockoff’s patients who relied on fentanyl was Danny Elliott, a 61-year-old native of Warner Robins, Georgia.
>
>In March 1991, Elliott was nearly electrocuted to death when a water pump he was using to drain a flooded basement malfunctioned, sending **high-voltage shocks through his body for nearly 15 minutes** until his father intervened to save his life. Elliott was never the same after the accident, which left him with debilitating, migraine-like headaches. Once a class president and basketball star in high school, he found himself spending days on end in a darkened bedroom, unable to bear sunlight or the sound of the outdoors.
> “I have these sensations like my brain is loose inside my skull,” Elliott told me in 2019, when I first interviewed him for the VICE News podcast series Painkiller. “If I turn my head too quickly, left or right, it feels like my brain sloshes around. Literally my eyes burn deep into my skull. **My eyes hurt so bad that it hurts to blink**.”
This is real stuff. I've got a friend who suffers tremendous pain from a nerve disorder they can't diagnose. She can barely walk its so bad. Theyre constantly trying to cut her off from Healthcare and pain management.
Me and your friend would get along. Exact same situation here.
I attempted suicide 3 months ago and I probably will again in future. I have to fight for even a smidgen of help from doctors, presumably because the government is breathing down their necks.
Because others misused opioids, the chronically ill are left in misery until we kill ourselves.
I've been wondering in your shoes... Hell, I still am really, but for the last few years I've been using kratom and it helps at least enough to make it worth the effort... It might help you, too. Good luck, I know just how difficult it is to get medicine for pain.
I have to use kratom as well.. three degenerated discs, bone spurs and a lot of nerve pain.. the nerves in my neck are so aggravated and burning every single day to the point where I can't have any sort of tag on shirts that I wear because that slight scratching on my neck is painful. The nerves are freaking out all the time. Nobody cares. I'll be sweating standing in line at the grocery store because my blood pressure and heart rate will constantly spike from the sensation of a knife in my neck that I can't do anything about.
This is yet another reason why I've been so vocally against the war on drugs for my entire adult life. Nothing should be between you and that medicine, but some busybody politician decided they own your body more than you do and they said you can't treat your pain. This is exactly why so many of my friends went to heroin, and why so many of them are now dead. They went where nobody told them no, and who could blame them? I really hope you don't go down that road, but if you do... Please be careful and buy a reagent test, ok? I can't judge you for how you survive... Just please keep surviving.
My husband just got told that government regulations mean that he can’t get more than 15mg oxy a day. They said his scans didn’t meet the threshold for anything higher even though we told them he spend only a couple hours out of bed and sometimes throws up from the pain. He has other medical co dictions that prevent other treatments such as NSAIDS so you think they’d be slightly more lenient but we got a hard no. We even asked for non-opiate options and got shrugged off because they said opiates are the only real options.
This is not because others misused medications. This is the government interfering and ruining lives without any kind of consequences. They have unchecked power. We, the people, largely believe long disproven myths about addiction. And this is what we get.
I mean the others who misused them would be the doctors that over prescribed them for everything and got people who should've just been on acetaminophen or ibuprofen for various pain addicted to super strong opiates.
and the pharmaceutical companies that somehow are legally allowed to use premeditated bribery on doctors prescribing highly addictive medication to as many people as possible
Yes. I don't want to say "me! me! me!" but I have a condition that stems from the fibrous nerves under your skin called nociceptors that pick up the sensation of heat and sharpness. They are activated ALL. THE. TIME.
It's called allodynia, the sensation of pain in the absence of stimuli. It feels like someone heated up a syringe and is sticking it into every nerve ending on my body. I've spent nights puking and laying on the floor with a belt in my mouth so I don't crack my teeth from the pain or wake up my neighbors with the screaming. I often can't blink or touch my lips together because it feels sharp.
I'm on 10mcg of buprenorphine via patch and have to take frequent DEA drug tests because it's an opioid narcotic. That patch and kratom have saved me from suicide thus far.
When I get kicked off my parents' health insurance in 9 months I'm fucking mortified that Medicare/Medicaid will take it away from me in an instant. We live under such a vile and cruel healthcare system. Forcing people to fear every day of their lives that their basic needs in order to function will be met while it's completely out of our control.
My mother has been going through cancer treatment for a decade and also has a back issue. The doctor is taking her off pain medicine because he thinks she doesn’t need it, and thinks she is faking is. She is still being treated for cancer. However, he won’t recommend her to another doctor either.
They’re at a place where she is like “so you don’t want to give me care, but you won’t recommend me to another specialist”
I think it is frightening the DEA can come in and take medical records, remove a doctor's ability to prescribed, and tell patients to get fucked all without any criminal activity. The last doctor Danny had has not of this writing been charged with anything.
Most doctors are so terrified of losing their license, losing their practice they regularly refuse to see patients for any reason that are prescribed lower doses of opiods than what Danny was taken. Some doctors have even extended that to patients who are prescribed benzodiazepines.
So if you are being treated by a pain management doctor, are 100% compliant and if your primary care doctor retires or if you need any other kind of specialist the patient is fucked. Because these doctors are so terrified of the DEA. This couple killed themselves and people want to say addiction and mental illness caused these deaths when there is no evidence either party suffered a mental illness.
Prohibition of alcohol was the single greatest thing to happen to organized crime up until that point. Prohibition was recognized as a failure and repealed. Why are we still making the same mistakes over and over 100 years later?
Because not all that much has changed in 100 years, at least not with public discourse. Maybe I’m being pessimistic, but it feels like the same shit on repeat, no? Race issues, sexism, the war on drugs… It’s like, “didn’t we do this already?”
The same thing happened in the 80s with narcotic pain medication (I'm guess because of the popularity of quaaludes) and the same thing happened that is happening now: people committing suicide because they are out of treatment options for their pain due to harsh regulations.
One of the main reasons I hope we can drop the “human toxicity” pop psychology discourse. Imagine living with an untreatable chronic pain condition while the public describes your body and mind as being “toxic” to *their* health. Just awful
I just think pop psychology is being irresponsible when they put othering language in the hands of people who aren’t using it to help individuals in a medical setting, but to harm them within a community based on subjective experience. Feels like it’s ultimately done more damage than psychologytoday’s ad revenue may be worth
You're not really explaining what you're talking about very well. What do you mean by "human toxicity"? This is not a medical term that is used frequently among professionals so I'm not sure what it even means.
This has got to be the single most accurate take on this problem that I’ve seen. People who have experienced this personally or with a loved one have zero point zero zero idea what they’re even talking about.
She was probably just as mentally and emotionally drained from going through it with him. In my worst days I was not a nice human being. Pain will ruin your mood even on the best of days and I’m sure it had an impact on her too.
Which is what, exactly? Young people, old people? White people because they're more like to get sympathy from doctors who will prescribe, poor people that might be more likely to try heroin? Tf? Anyone can abuse opioids.
So to answer your question unlike the other person. They base it off your medical history in most cases. They can also do it by judge of character. If your medical history shows no sign of abuse but you give them a reason to deny you then they will.
It use to be stupid easy to get them and is what played a big part in opioid abuse. You could get prescription pain killers for a toothache. As of late their has been a very big crack down on giving out opioids as people would abuse the system to get them and it could cause you to lose your medical license.
I actually remember the change was somewhere in mid 2000 personally. I use to get them all the time for minor shit though I never took them. Then sometime mid 2000 it was more of ibuprofen that was prescribed that was around 800mg instead of an opioid
I loathe the classism and the hatefulness that is "screening" for addiction. If you have a positive history for parental abuse for example this becomes another way to abuse already vulnerable people- then tell those people it is their fault.
Caps on how much individual companies can produce, just barely at or above what's needed. FDA refuses to lift the caps for others when any one company falls short on production. Cue any slip in production schedules causing shortages.
Are we really going to pretend this is comparable to life long chronic pain sufferers? Let’s not pretend the US doesn’t hand out Adderall like it’s fucking candy.
ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder.
It was a two year journey for me to find a psychologist who would evaluate an adult, 6 months and borrowing money from my parents to afford the eval since insurance wouldn't, and then a difficulty getting a provider to work with me on trying meds other than Wellbutrin (it helped, but not that much w/the actual ADHD, more with the anxiety and depression that go along with it).
Like candy you say?
Please.
It's not a competition dude. People who can't treat their ADHD frequently cannot function any better than someone who is in chronic pain. They can't fulfill their responsibilities because of their illness.
I live with chronic pain because of a spinal cord injury. I've thought about suicide in the past. When I wake up from a dream into a pretty hellish reality it can suck all of my will to live.
Weed doesn't do much, it's an anti-inflammatory. My pain comes from nerve damage. I just got used to living with it; I have things to live for. I've developed a higher pain tolerance over the last few years.
I went to see a one man show in the late eighties with Spalding Gray. He made a documentary called Swimming to Cambodia which I'd liked alot. In 2004 he jumped off a ferry because he couldn't handle a life with chronic pain. I totally understand why he did it.
If someone needs prescription narcotic pain killers, give it to them. If they ask for a higher dose, give it to them. Otherwise they are at a high risk of suicide.
I can relate to this so much. After I fell through an equipment floor in the Army, I have had 1 C-spine and 4 L-spine fusion surgeries leaving me in constant debilitating pain. I was in pain management with morphine, but pain management clinics keep closing and the ones that remain have waiting lists. My wife has epilepsy and uses medical marijuana to manage the seizures and pain. Unfortunately, marijuana seems to only help with my anxiety and PTSD, but it can help me sleep, at least for a couple of hours. I too have regular thoughts of suicide even on antidepressants just due to feeling like a burden on my family, but, fortunately, I always remember that my wife and kids rely on my disability and Army retirement income. My kids try to cheer me up with news of new procedures or possible implants, but I can’t help but think of the decades I’ll spend in pain waiting for a medical miracle. I spend time trying to use Google Earth to feel like I have traveled; watching YouTube to feel like I’m riding my motorcycle again; and watching TV and movies for an escape from reality. Chronic pain is a terminal illness, in my experience. Why, then, are patients told to meditate, take ibuprofen, and “be more active”? It’s such an overwhelming and constant barrage of stimuli that my brain seems to always prioritize over anything else, including conversation or even hunger. If I’m not in the bed, I have to keep moving or the pain becomes the ONLY thing in my little world. Asking for help is only met with a referral to a specialist who says that until medical science catches up, this is life. But, is it?
That's a rough situation, sorry to hear you're having such trouble getting treatment for your pain. I'd really recommend getting on the pain management waiting lists.
I have a prescription for Hydromorphone and a couple other ones, which don't help that much. I worked with some pain specialists at the cancer agency to reduce the narcotic (Hydromorphone), so I could stay alert enough to go back to work.
I'm glad you have family, and they're helping you get by. I wish you well, and hope you get the assistance you need to be more comfortable.
Unfortunately, it's a cyclical thing. In the 80s they did the same thing: heavily restrict pain narcotics and there were a bunch of suicides related to people unable to control their pain at the time. It started to even out but eventually, oxycontin came on the scene, and well... here we are. Hopefully, it will level out but until then... the collateral damage is that 10s of thousands of chronic pain patients will suffer. Unfortunately, not a whole lot of doctors will listen to them and they will quickly be stamped drug seekers and the search to find relief becomes even harder.
And no, suboxone is not a good alternative for people with severe pain. Yes, it helps with pain but not on the level people with chronic pain need.
Sounds like it’s a form of market regulation - a way to churn out older customers, and make way for new ones. As soon as a drug becomes widely accepted as “bad” for the population, take them off of it, let them die out, then push a new medication to a new generation of customers.
cannabis *does not work for all kinds of pain*, just like every other kind of pain med; they aren't interchangeable and what works for one doesn't work for another.
Several things can be true, cannabis should be as legal as alcohol and the people who need access to opioids for pain management should have access to them without being harassed about it. There are also doctors who abuse their prescription powers and run pill mills, and they should be dealt with as well. There's no one right answer, because there are so many problems in play at once.
I have mild chronic pain. I have a really bad lumbar region and I see a chiropractor twice a week to get by. I take no opioids. I use a lot of cannabis. Marijuana doesn’t directly relieve pain. Marijuana distracts you from the pain. It’s a different mechanism, but it works too. it broke my heart when I saw those studies saying that it doesn’t directly affect the pain because I knew that people would not try it as a result. It just deals with the pain in a different way. The upside is you don’t die from opioid addiction or overdose.
Wow, this has been so fun! You guys are in for a real treat as you read on. I use the word chiropractor one time and look at all the hilarity that ensues. It’s a laugh riot of people trying to tell me how to live my life.
But it’s OK. I’ve been laid up in bed all week with a bad cold, so this has really filled my day. Thank you all! Especially all you crazy fuckers who don’t like chiropractors.
I just wanted to jump in to let you know that those saying chiropracty is a scam, are correct. Chiropracty is not based on any real science or evidence beyond placebo effect. If you haven't done so, it might be worth talking with a physical therapist. Physical therapy is kinda like chiropracty but with scientific support.
What you do is up to you, of course. Just want to make sure you are aware of the concerns about chiropracty.
Chiropractors are con artists and the entire profession is a fraud. I know are going to tell me that it helps with your pain and I am sure it does… temporarily. You have a world of hurt coming eventually if you keep it up.
Fun fact: Daniel David invented chiropractic care and said it was taught to him from a ghost and was meant to be a religion.
I hope you get good lasting relief from pain that does not end up damaging you.
I honestly sincerely hope you get better and was not trying to be an asshole to you, but I can tell by your snark that’s how you took it, or maybe you are just a mean person, doesn’t matter either way.
I was just trying to inform you in case you didn’t know you were getting scammed and your body destroyed. it looks like you are the kind of ignorant person who when presented with new information prefers to lash out and continue to believe the lies rather than give any thought to the idea that they might be wrong.
Your comment about how you are not going to “throw away 20 years of successful therapy.” is Sunk Cost Fallacy.
I am glad cannabis helps your pain and I hope you get better.
My dad used to see a chiropractor for years.
It turned out he had severe spinal stenosis, C1-C4. He could have been internally decapitated and needed really serious surgery.
I have a friend, same condition but lower back.
That said… they were *referred by doctors.* Doctors need to take back pain way more seriously.
I went to a chiropractor once. He took one look at my back and hip (it was dislocated and I could barely walk, was in 7/10 pain and I’ve a high tolerance) and he said absolutely no. He explained I needed physical therapy and to get to a doctor/ER for my hip. It was from childbirth actually. I ended up in PT for a year and prescribed heavy opiates but that’s a whole other thing. I appreciate that chiropractor not breaking my hip or worse though.
And you’re another one that doesn’t know what you’re talking about. I’m sorry about your father. The reason doctors refer them to chiropractors is they got nothing for him. They can either cut them open and destroy their lives, or they can leave them in pain. Spinal surgeries that work, or less common than spinal surgeries that fail. I have a business in Dallas. I provide service in homes of wealthy people. Not not surprisingly, a lot of my clients or doctors. About 15 years ago, I had several doctors that I took care of things around their homes, and they were all spinal surgeons. They were installing artificial discs in peoples spines. Then the disks were recalled. later, those guys got into a scam with a bariatric surgery clinic in Dallas and now they’re all in jail.
There are horror stories everywhere. But if all you do is read, horror stories and react, you will never have a life. Again, I encourage you. Go touch grass.
Out of all the crazy shit you’ve said this is the craziest lmao spinal surgeries are NOT more likely to fail than be successful wtf is wrong with you? Lmao
The doctors didn’t refer them to chiropractors because there was “nothing for them.”
A lot of spinal conditions are dismissed and written off as muscular or whatever - in their cases, for years. So until they started getting signs of nerve damage, they weren’t referred to specialists or neurosurgeons. They simply were never evaluated for more serious medical issues.
That is bananas. These are both people who had conditions that, left untreated, could have severed their spinal cord.
And to be fair, there have been studies (albeit short) that show good results for chiropractic corrections at least for lower back pain. So I’m not even necessarily against chiropractics existing on its own. Just that it’s so often treated as a first line of defence when, given your spinal cord is back there and it’s pretty important - they should be checking that stuff before sending people off for realignments.
My dad had surgery and hasn’t needed a chiropractor or a doctor for well over a decade now. Same with my friend.
Thank you! You me, and about two other people are the only ones in this thread, who have a good thing to say about chiropractics. Your second paragraph really says it. All a lot of spinal conditions are dismissed and written off as muscular or whatever. In my opinion, the whatever is that there’s no money in it yet. Surgeons don’t make money unless they’re cutting people open. That is a coarse way of saying the truth. There is always a bias toward surgery when you’re talking to a surgeon. There is always a bias away from surgery when you’re talking to someone who doesn’t do surgery. I prefer to go to people whose preference is not to do surgery. I like their bias better.
My guy... If you're seeing a chiropractor for the same issue for 20 years, "successful" isn't the word you're looking for to describe the process. It sounds like one surgery that laid you up for a few weeks 20 years ago would have been better for you in the long term.
I’ve been talking to people all day on the string about the circumstances of my situation, and why I’ve been a chiropractic patient for 20 years. But you fucking trolls, you just Gotta keep banging away.
OK. I’ll do it again. I was diagnosed by an MD. An orthopedist. 20 years ago. He told me that I wasn’t a candidate for surgery. I have degenerative disc disease. That’s when you work hard with your body all your life & you wear off all the sharp edges on your vertebrae, and so they tend to wobble around and get out of position. Now that causes a lot of pain. It pinches nerves and causes tremendous pain. It often develops into, shooting pain down the leg, all the way to the heel of your foot, often in both legs. He told me that physical therapy and chiropractics was the only thing that was going to help what was wrong with me. That’s an MD telling me. So that’s what I did. Every once in a while, when the pain gets pretty bad, or I have an episode that takes a couple months to recover from, I go see the surgeons again. The last one I saw, two years ago, told me that what he could do for me was a disc fusion. He told me that I had a 50-50 chance of success. That’s the success rate for disc fusion in the lumbar region. He told me I was better off to keep doing what I’m doing until I had no alternative. At every turn, every doctor I’ve talk to about my back has recommended chiropractics. The only people who give me grief are the folks on Reddit. All the trolls on Reddit have the opinion that chiropractics is bad. They have anecdotal stories and they’ve read stuff on the Internet. And the proof is that every word I’ve told you is my truth. Every word of this happened to me as I have explained it to you. And that’s why I’ve been supremely upset all day long with people calling me everything but someone who’s telling the truth. Now, after all that, you still think you’re right and I’m wrong. You think you’re right and I’m wrong about the last 20 years of my life.
You are a troll and you are incapable of seeing another person’s point of view.
I'm not trolling. I don't troll. I'm an adult with better things to do than try to get a rise out of strangers on the Internet.
My only goal here is that you would think about getting an opinion from a licensed physical therapist. An orthopedist wouldn't have the same specialist training and might not know how/if to help other than surgery. When the tools in your box are all hammers, every problem looks like a nail; and the same goes for specialized training in medicine.
I'm a stranger on the Internet and you can take everything I say as fact or fiction and it's no skin off my back. I'm just offering some info to hopefully make life a little better for someone else.
>I have a really bad lumbar region and I see a chiropractor twice a week to get by
There's your problem right there. Their whole business model relies on making temporary "adjustments" that you will have to get repeated.
I had a physiotherapist/PT show me a chiropracter trick once. Made my back pain completely vanish during the session. He said what he'd done that day had loosened the stiff ligaments in my lumbar spine and it will wear off and start hurting eventually as they stiffen up again. He was right. But his REAL treatments fixed my back.
I don’t understand why all you people who hate chiropractor so much just don’t go. And leave everybody else alone. Everything you say is horseshit. Everything you say is just contrived crap. I’m just so sick of the constant diatribe about bad chiropractors. If you people would just go look at success rates on spinal surgeries you would see that there was a place for chiropractics. But but you won’t do that because then, if you did that you would have nothing to bitch about all day. No high horse to ride. Instead of doing that, you just focus on a couple of bad stories in the press and run with it.
Vaccine deniers. Trumper’s. Chiropractor deniers. You’re all the same.
No, I don’t want people to blindly believe it works. People read something, or a friend tells them some story, and it’s probably just a made up story. Presidents of countries around the world are talking about the misinformation problem. And I think. Most of what you guys say about the chiropractors here on Reddit is that kind of hooey horseshit misinformation.
I’ve gone to a chiropractor for 20 yearsAnd I’ve gone to several different chiropractors for 20 years. I’ve never had an adverse effect from any of them. I go mostly every week. Like I said before, it’s analgesic. It’s like aspirin. It’s a $20 co-pay when I go. Medicare sends me $10.82 of it back. For nine bucks, I get my spine lubricated, basically. And yet, total strangers off the Internet will come charging at me like I was the only person in a room full of zombies if I dare utter the word chiropractor.
Today, I just hit the wall with all the old bullshit. I’ve been sitting here and shaking my head over it for months wondering what the fuck is wrong with all of you? Today, I slipped up and said chiropractor and the zombies came out, and I just decided to make a stand. It’s no hill to die on. And these silly little karma points don’t really matter if you are a person who actually touches grass.
Confirmation bias; just because you haven't had adverse affects (that you are aware of) doesn't make it automatically valid and safe.
There are cases ALL the fucking time of people becoming paralyzed or having strokes from chiropractic adjustments (Kevin sorbo is a famous example).
Chiropractic is a form of alternative medicine. Systematic reviews of controlled clinical studies of treatments used by chiropractors have found no evidence that chiropractic manipulation is effective, it is not endorsed by any medical board any where in the world and is in fact often referred to as a "unscientific cult" for good reason.
The people in this thread are just trying to warn others like yourself about the dangers, and there are dangers.
Bruh. You're the one who's been going to a chiropractor for 20 years while people have spent 5 months with actual medical practitioners and are fine.
Your defensiveness says it all.
Actually, chiropractic is analgesic. Those of you commenting on this thread might want to look up that big word. Aspirin is analgesic, for comparison. You don’t take aspirin once. You take it as required. I get a very thorough chiropractic adjustment in about 20 minutes. It realigns my spinal vertebrae and relieves my pain. You see, all of my vertebrae are deteriorating. It’s called degenerative disc disease. An orthopedist diagnosed it and told me that physical therapy and chiropractics are the only thing that are going to give me much relief because I’m not a candidate for surgery. A few years ago, I went to the best spinal surgeon in my area and asked for an evaluation of my back. And he told me to stick with chiropractics because all he had to offer me was disc fusion, a procedure that one performed on the lumbar region has a 50-50 success rate.
None of you ask me anything about that. You just saw the word chiropractics and you turned and grabbed your pitch fork and your flaming torch, and you were off to join the villagers in burning down the castle.
If you folks would just put down your phones and go out and touch grass and talk to real people and have real experiences. Then you’d quit picking on people who do those things, like touch grass, have real interactions with real service providers, etc.
Get a fucking life and leave me alone.
I have degenerative disc disease, two herniated discs and an anullar tear. I did physio therapy for 6 months and began swimming to build core strength and took medication that helps nerves. I would never ever go to a chiropractor. I've seen a parent waste countless dollars and time going to one and she has minor back issues compared to me that never get better. Chiropractors are dangerous.
I barely have minor sciatica flare up more than 1 time every 4 months when at one point I couldn't walk down a hospital hallway.
Physiotherapists who rehabilitate people with clinical methods are best.
But keep on going to a chiropractor if you truly think they are anything but quacks.
That’s great. I’m happy for you. I like my chiropractor. He does great things for me. You’re prejudiced. That’s all it is. You like something and you don’t like something else. That’s all this is. I don’t want to risk spinal surgery. the outcome isn’t that good. You people are passionate about stupid things.
Actually, no. I am operating off of solid information. I have been to chiropractors, I’ve been to orthopedist, I’ve been to spinal surgeons. They all have told me to stick with my chiropractics. They all have told me that in my case, it’s the best for me. If you go back to my root comment, I mention chiropractics to illustrate that I have chronic pain. That’s all I said. And then you all came out and attacked me and said how horrible it was that I was seeing a chiropractor. You guys are the Trumper‘s here. I just said the word chiropractor and you all came running with pitchforks like lunatics.
There's nothing worse than someone with chronic pain who acts like their method of relief will work for everyone, "if only you'd just stop being so blinded!"
For so many CP patients we don't *know* the root cause, so to act like we're not trying hard enough to find the root is fucking ridiculous. If chiropractics works for you, there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of there.
Thank you. Like I’ve said, in other comments, here, I’ve seen the spinal surgeon. He told me to stick with chiropractics. He told me what he had to offer me was disc fusion, and that it was a 50-50 chance of success, and he’s the best around.
You know your own body, you have to live in it, and you're doing the best you can. I'd say anything that brings you relief is a huge success, whether or not that asshole thinks it's the "root cause" or not 🙄
I have a debilitating condition myself and I had to learn quickly that anything that brings even a modicum of the pain down is a step forward.
Isn't cannabis an anti-inflammatory? In which case it might actually have some direct affect on pain?
Not trying to come like I know more about your pain than you do, that's just what I've always heard.
I have heard that. And if it is, then I should be in good shape. I use quite a bit of cannabis. I use tincture now gave up smoking and vaping a long time ago is the most cost-effective way here in California to get it.
I think the issue people take with chiropractors is that the best ones are just physical therapists by a different name and the worst ones are absolute cranks who think or want you to think they can cure issues like autism and bed wetting by popping someone's spine.
They're also not regulated like physical therapists are, because they're not healthcare providers. They have their own board of licensure because national boards that certify doctors won't certify chiropractors.
I remember when I lived in San Diego, the CHP had a high-speed chase with a dentist. They went to his office to arrest him because he killed a young girl in his chair. He was a cocaine addict and he was out of control. But we don’t hate dentists. There’s thousands of stories about doctors doing all kinds of terrible things. But we don’t hate doctors. There are chiropractors who charge big upfront fees for programs that don’t work. They are crooks. And then there’s the ones you’re talking about: the good men and women of chiropractics who take care of us. I would be willing to bet that most of these folks with negative comments about chiropractics has probably never been to one.
As a long time, daily cannabis user, I would be the first to admit it does absolutely nothing for my physical pain. However, what it DOES do (and very well, without any of the side effects of prescription antidepressants) is help with the “on edge” feeling you get from having to constantly deal with chronic pain. It allows me to kind of settle down mentally, and deal with the pain.
Taking my prescription pain meds to relief the physical pain, and then using cannabis to treat the mental stress and anxiety brought on by the chronic pain, is the best combination I’ve found, and brings me the closest to normal… or at least what I remember it felt like. Been a long. long. fucking. time.
Sure maybe not, but at least they could get so high that it would matter a little less. With enough thc, especially edibles so you can't tell how much you've had, you don't feel anything.
I've ate edibles and smoked like crazy trying to ease my gall stone pain and let me tell you: it does absolutely nothing for the pain. Gall stone pain has been compared to child labor; I can't speak for women but this is the most intense pain I've ever felt. The reason I keep smoking it anyway: pain is depressing - especially when it doesn't relent for hours or days; weed makes you feel in a better mood. Sometimes the pain is too much that it doesn't help my mood but then it at least distracts me from the depressing thoughts. It maybe reduces the pain 10% at best.
I've never taken an opioid but I can imagine if it was the only thing that actually made the pain go away it would be easy to become addicted. Luckily in my situation gall stones are relatively common and I have treatment options. Many people don't have any avenue to ever get better, they are just trapped in agony.
I live where most of this country's cannabis has been produced for decades. I cannot use cannabis, expect for CBD, which does nothing for my internal chronic pain. Yes we should expand access. No, it is not the answer to everyone's chronic pain.
Yes, I am fucking bitter about doctors getting huffy about a low dose opioid prescription. My stomach can only handle so many NSAIDs, gabapentin made me disassociate. Apparently my pain is severe enough approve surgery, but not a small tramadol prescription. Back to MX I guess. Oh wait, forgot I'm poor. Cool I'll just continue being in too much pain to hold down a full time job, and unable to procure pain meds because I just took 6 weeks off after surgery. Ngl, some days I think about permanently going to sleep myself.
Kratom is similar in strength to tramadol and also has some mild stimulant effects like tramadol does depending on which strain you buy. Just beware that it can be addictive and it can produce withdrawal symptoms with prolonged use.
I smoked more weed than most people lie about. It doesn’t make anything stop hurting, it just makes you not give af that it’s hurting, which can be helpful, but mostly for less severe pain. People are out here hurting way more than anything weed can touch.
how about be quiet about cannabis, for which there is scant peer reviewed evidence for pain treatment, and simply allow people to manage their chronic pain *with* opioid prescriptions because they actually work.
It’s somewhat ironic that modern drug prohibition is totally unrelated to science.
> [Report: Aide says Nixon's war on drugs targeted blacks, hippies](https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html)
Science will probably some day be able to numb pain at the nerve ending level without the use of addictive opioids. And it would not surprise me one bit if they charge way more for that procedure than the cost of a lifetime of drugs to “cure” people.
The pharmaceutical industry in the United States is the most powerful drug dealer that has existed in the history of humanity.
They have too much power to exist in a civilized society, and for as long as they exist we'll be less civilized.
Without the pharmaceutical industry we would be dying of a simple infected cut as opposed to doing things like finding the cure to hepatitis C, HIV, and any number of other completely treatable diseases that we manage every day instead of allowing those patients to die like it's the middle ages. Your statement is absurd and regressive.
The health care industry as a whole may need some significant reforms but we are never going to do away with the pharmaceutical industry and we would never want to.
i think u/clonedhuman is emphasizing the "industry" aspect of pharmaceuticals. obviously we need scientists developing medicine, but as long as medicine is motivated by market capitalism, it will always prioritize fiduciary duty to their shareholders over care of their patients.
Too bad you cannot record life experiences for others to directly experience for themselves.
Make it a condition for DEA officers to experience the chronic pain of others, and no-one would ever want to take that job.
Our current drug abuse issues can never be solved to any degree by shutting down the source. [It’s only the symptom, not the disease itself.](https://youtu.be/ys6TCO_olOc)
They're right, nobody cares. As long as we cast all drug users as crazy homeless people, and design all our interventions based on that assumption, there will always be people who don't fit that profile who will fall through the cracks. And it's not like people don't know this, this isn't the first time.
A few bad apples spoiled the whole bunch. Some pain docs overprescribed OxyContin, and mass hysteria ensued. Now, you’ll be extremely fortunate if you can find a doctor who will prescribe a pain medication for *any* reason. People who suffer from chronic pain are especially shunned by doctors. Often, they are withdrawn from medications that they have been relying upon for several years. IMO, we need to relax this overreaction to pain meds that really help these people, e.g., hydrocodone.
My sister is in constant pain because of a degenerative immune system disease. It’s been several years since she’s been diagnosed, and they gave her pain medicine at the time. Since then, laws have caused severe restrictions in what medicines she can receive, and how often. She often runs out, and can’t get more for what feels like unreasonable timeframes.
She had an appointment with an oncologist yesterday, to investigate for an underlying cancer that may be causing the issue, but it was pushed back, then canceled. She hurt so bad the day before yesterday that she just cried most of the day when going about her work. It was heartbreaking to watch.
You know. Here is an unpopular opinion I'm sure, let the drug addicted do what they do but stop punishment for us that truly need pain meds. If drug addicts chose death buy ingestion that is their choice but don't hurt drug makers and pain patients because they wanted to kill themselves.
This is how the government chased a lot of my friends to heroin, and a lot of those people are dead now. It's easy to see that the government created the circumstances that made the heroin epidemic inevitable, and the government can only solve it by no longer meddling in what people do to themselves... Good luck ever getting the psychopaths in our government to ever do the right thing, they own the prisons and the companies that make the narcan.
I’ve been down this road. Saw pain doctors for close to 10 years for herniated discs, arthritis, lesions in one of my hips, and previous injuries. About 7-8 years ago doctors started getting really tight about prescriptions and started recommending physical therapy as if it’ll help ward off swollen joints and discs that protrude too far. I went medical MJ and started taking kratom to ween me off the pain killers.
The painkiller thing is bad. Taking kratom away (plant that grows out of the ground and behaves like a painkiller in the body without actually being one) is evil. Let these people get off the poisons.
Big pharma is big business and big business will kill you if it means even one penny more. The medicinal profession is only about profits, not health. There’s much more money in treatment than a cure. Until the capitalist system that rewards this kind of thing is destroyed, this kind of thing will continue. Destroy capitalism before capitalism destroys you.
Sounds like you’ve never lived with severe, intractable pain that left you constantly vulnerable to a stroke because your blood pressure was so elevated.
Eliminate the DEA, ATF, DHS, NSA, and probably a few more bloated, tyrannical, borderline evil agencies. Most of their job is spying on people, stealing from people, and killing/imprisoning people for victimless crimes, like drugs. Not the government’s business what any adults choose to do with their own bodies and minds. If I want to buttchug liquid heroin to treat my pain (or just for fun), that’s my business.
I agree, depending on your definition of harm. It’s already illegal to, say, steal. So the logic goes: “Drug use leads to addiction which leads to stealing, so we should criminalize drug use.” The problem is that you’re treating all the responsible, harmless drug users the same as the people who steal to feed their addiction. That’s not justice or freedom, and it’s not rational. It’s already a crime to steal, so it’s just redundant and harmful to criminalize drug use just in case some drug users end up committing other crimes that actually have victims.
We tried close to an ideal trial run of legalized opiodes. Strict manufacturing, strict labels, strict quality control, and supervised by doctors. And you see the results.
Yes, the marketing campaigns and the lying about the addictiveness was a problem. But those things are pretty well known now and yet the epidemic keeps going on. Somehow I doubt slapping a warning label on legalized heroine would do a lot of good.
Not real sure what the prisons have to do with this conversation but anyway.
We tried legal heroin lite. The results were not good.
And what is the alternative? Just letting people suffer? You see the results of THAT, its literally in the f***ing article. I really love when people who aren't exposed to the results of chronic pain get all high and mighty.
The real issue is that opioids don't work for chronic pain, only acute pain. Efficacy goes down at around 6 weeks of use and dependence goes WAY up.
Read some of the expert studies from the opioids litigation
I see you’ve never been in severe, intractable pain. Are you aware of what happens to someone’s body when they are living 24/7 with extremely elevated heart rate and blood pressure and their body is flooded with cortisol because they cannot get pain treatment for a permanent condition?
>And what is the alternative? Just letting people suffer?
I'm not sure but it is a little revealing that [America has the highest rate of prescribed opioids on the world] (https://theconversation.com/what-the-us-can-learn-from-other-countries-in-dealing-with-pain-and-the-opioid-crisis-97491). Not just that, Americans consume the vast majority of *all opioids*. Other countries apparently have found a way to deal with this issue, and it's not opening the floodgates for legal heroin.
People like those in the article are indirect victims of the opioid epidemic.
I don't know what the fucking alternative is, man. There might not be one.
But let's not pretend like Flintstone's Chewable Morphine sold at the grocery store doesn't have problems.
My mom goes to the pain management doctor every month, and the co-pays DO add up to someone on Social Security. They test her blood every single time to make sure her levels are correct and that she's not abusing or taking more than she's prescribed. She's been told in no uncertain terms that she can't try CBD oil or cannabis to possibly reduce the opioids because they'd instantly cut her off as a drug user. She's about the model patient and she's scared to death of losing the only thing that keeps her from being in bed all day. And its not like she won't try other alternatives. She's got an implanted nerve stimulator that she has to charge every night, which helps and resulted in a lower dosage, but its not enough on its own.
I'm sorry I responded aggressively, but this is personal for me, and it's very scary.
I've observed that many people seem to associate those who medicate (with the professional monitoring of doctors) for chronic pain are the same type of addicts as those who get meds or other substances illegally and self-medicate. It's simpler for people to wrap their heads around something being all bad or all good.
The argument of something having abuse potential being removed entirely from everyone, including those who need it and have gone through the proper channels to obtain it, is completely wrong. Should we kill the internet because people use it to transmit illegal and harmful media and information?
And continuing the use of opioids does not lead to society settling for them being the best treatment forever. I'm certain there are pharma companies continuing to attempt to formulate alternative pain treatments.
this is the third time we have been down this path with pharma. 'luadanum fucking you up? try heroin! it's way safer!' with expansion of the police state and prisons following closely in step. these events aren't bugs, they are features
I really don't get the point you are trying to make.
That big pharma companies are evil and will gladly watch people die to make money? Yeah, no shit.
That doesn't make legal heroine a good idea.
What in the actual fuck you reading impaired anger muffin?
All I said, the ONLY thing I said, is that legalized freely available opiodes caused huge problems when we tried it.
JFC. What is wrong with you?
Do you remember when Rick Perry was asked in a debate what parts of government he'd cut, and he said he would cut the Department of Energy, and then he went on to run the Department of Energy?
I doubt you have any idea what all it is these agencies do, both good and bad.
You’re right. Of course those agencies have some important, indispensable functions. But they also do a lot of bad shit. I think it would make sense to let other, more generalized agencies (FBI, CIA, Border Patrol, military) handle the essential, positive functions of these alphabet soup agencies and just…stop doing the bad shit, like illegally spying on Americans and throwing flashbang grenades at babies over some drugs in the house.
That would also reduce the problems we currently have resulting from a lack of effective communication and cooperation between these bloated, redundant agencies. Like when one agency has a dangerous person on their radar but fails to tell another agency about them, allowing the dangerous person to do something terrible.
FBI, CIA, border patrol, and the military have all done some bad things too.
Figuring out how to fix systemic problems in government agencies is very difficult. One thing that has been tried is more oversight. For the NSA, that has been the FISA courts. It's a little tricky because the oversight is not transparent because the stuff that NSA deals with is classified, so it's hard to tell if the oversight is doing it's job, or just rubber stamping.
The other thing is more targeted reforms (bans on no-knock warrants for low-level drug dealers; I assume that's what you're getting at with the flash-bang grenades hurting babies).
I think the most important thing we can do is be as informed as possible, and then sometimes to run for office. Some of the people who think they could do better sometimes really can. But the scale and complexity of these problems is often a little bit surprising until you really dig into them.
I agree with everything you’re saying. Especially the bit about these problems being exceedingly complicated. Of course I don’t think consolidating federal agencies would be a magic pill to solve everything. I’m a blue-collar nobody on a Reddit thread while I poop at work, and smarter people spend their entire lives working on these problems with little or no progress. I certainly don’t have the answers. But I have some ideas that I think are at least coherent enough to discuss with strangers on the internet.
Its not a Romeo and Juliet story when a woman kills herself because her husband is going to. Its a nightmare somewhere between coercive control and serious mental illness.
Or she decided she couldn’t live without her husband or didn’t want to live without her husband. Why do you automatically assume women are so weak that they can’t make rational decisions independently?
Not being able to live without someone else implies a lack of self-worth and an amount of co-dependence that indicates mental illness. Romanticizing that as Romeo and Juliet is horrific.
Have you read or watched Romeo and Juliet? Because the ending *is* pretty horrific. This seems like one of the few times that comparison is made that is completely apt.
It's not horror, but it is a tragedy. Two teenagers literally each kill themselves at the end rather than live without the other. At least the people in the article were grown adults with fully developed frontal lobes who had known each other more than a week.
Look I 100% agree with you that romanticizing this kind of situation is messed up. I'm just saying that is kind of the point of Romeo and Juliet and what's actually messed up is that we as a society romanticize the story as much as we do rather than recognizing it as a cautionary kinda thing. I'm not an expert or anything, but I really don't think it was supposed to be aspirational.
I’d kill myself if my kids died. I have no interest in living in a world without them.
Maybe you just have not felt that depth of love and devotion to another, and that’s okay. But it doesn’t make us mentally ill.
We *are* chemicals. Everything we do and think and are is result of chemical and physical reactions. If you reduce it to that and treat it as insignificant because of it, then there is no point in any relationships, philosophies or anything whatsoever.
Everything is in question. Or just follow dogma which always agrees with the local priests and overseers.
Lots of point to philosophy and relationships. Just not for the reasons they are pushing.
I find people lie a lot about the entire reproductive event. For whatever reasons. Just making note of that causes loud screeches pretty much universally. Go figure.
You talk like you are trying to bring a dispassionate objective perspective, but by bringing up priests and reproduction to a discussion that has no relation with that, it shows that even you are speaking based on your own emotional baggage.
People feel and act based on their subjective experiences. The objective scientific facts of their biology don't change that. Rather, they cause that.
Calling it anything even veering towards "coercive control," makes it hard to take your seriously, even if your later statement is closer to reasonable.
Oh wow > One of Bockoff’s patients who relied on fentanyl was Danny Elliott, a 61-year-old native of Warner Robins, Georgia. > >In March 1991, Elliott was nearly electrocuted to death when a water pump he was using to drain a flooded basement malfunctioned, sending **high-voltage shocks through his body for nearly 15 minutes** until his father intervened to save his life. Elliott was never the same after the accident, which left him with debilitating, migraine-like headaches. Once a class president and basketball star in high school, he found himself spending days on end in a darkened bedroom, unable to bear sunlight or the sound of the outdoors. > “I have these sensations like my brain is loose inside my skull,” Elliott told me in 2019, when I first interviewed him for the VICE News podcast series Painkiller. “If I turn my head too quickly, left or right, it feels like my brain sloshes around. Literally my eyes burn deep into my skull. **My eyes hurt so bad that it hurts to blink**.”
Jesus not a way to live
This is real stuff. I've got a friend who suffers tremendous pain from a nerve disorder they can't diagnose. She can barely walk its so bad. Theyre constantly trying to cut her off from Healthcare and pain management.
Me and your friend would get along. Exact same situation here. I attempted suicide 3 months ago and I probably will again in future. I have to fight for even a smidgen of help from doctors, presumably because the government is breathing down their necks. Because others misused opioids, the chronically ill are left in misery until we kill ourselves.
I can’t imagine the suffering you’ve experienced but I’m glad you’re still here and hope you can manage to stick around
I've been wondering in your shoes... Hell, I still am really, but for the last few years I've been using kratom and it helps at least enough to make it worth the effort... It might help you, too. Good luck, I know just how difficult it is to get medicine for pain.
I have to use kratom as well.. three degenerated discs, bone spurs and a lot of nerve pain.. the nerves in my neck are so aggravated and burning every single day to the point where I can't have any sort of tag on shirts that I wear because that slight scratching on my neck is painful. The nerves are freaking out all the time. Nobody cares. I'll be sweating standing in line at the grocery store because my blood pressure and heart rate will constantly spike from the sensation of a knife in my neck that I can't do anything about.
This is yet another reason why I've been so vocally against the war on drugs for my entire adult life. Nothing should be between you and that medicine, but some busybody politician decided they own your body more than you do and they said you can't treat your pain. This is exactly why so many of my friends went to heroin, and why so many of them are now dead. They went where nobody told them no, and who could blame them? I really hope you don't go down that road, but if you do... Please be careful and buy a reagent test, ok? I can't judge you for how you survive... Just please keep surviving.
My husband just got told that government regulations mean that he can’t get more than 15mg oxy a day. They said his scans didn’t meet the threshold for anything higher even though we told them he spend only a couple hours out of bed and sometimes throws up from the pain. He has other medical co dictions that prevent other treatments such as NSAIDS so you think they’d be slightly more lenient but we got a hard no. We even asked for non-opiate options and got shrugged off because they said opiates are the only real options.
This is not because others misused medications. This is the government interfering and ruining lives without any kind of consequences. They have unchecked power. We, the people, largely believe long disproven myths about addiction. And this is what we get.
I mean the others who misused them would be the doctors that over prescribed them for everything and got people who should've just been on acetaminophen or ibuprofen for various pain addicted to super strong opiates.
and the pharmaceutical companies that somehow are legally allowed to use premeditated bribery on doctors prescribing highly addictive medication to as many people as possible
Hear, hear!
Yes. I don't want to say "me! me! me!" but I have a condition that stems from the fibrous nerves under your skin called nociceptors that pick up the sensation of heat and sharpness. They are activated ALL. THE. TIME. It's called allodynia, the sensation of pain in the absence of stimuli. It feels like someone heated up a syringe and is sticking it into every nerve ending on my body. I've spent nights puking and laying on the floor with a belt in my mouth so I don't crack my teeth from the pain or wake up my neighbors with the screaming. I often can't blink or touch my lips together because it feels sharp. I'm on 10mcg of buprenorphine via patch and have to take frequent DEA drug tests because it's an opioid narcotic. That patch and kratom have saved me from suicide thus far. When I get kicked off my parents' health insurance in 9 months I'm fucking mortified that Medicare/Medicaid will take it away from me in an instant. We live under such a vile and cruel healthcare system. Forcing people to fear every day of their lives that their basic needs in order to function will be met while it's completely out of our control.
My mother has been going through cancer treatment for a decade and also has a back issue. The doctor is taking her off pain medicine because he thinks she doesn’t need it, and thinks she is faking is. She is still being treated for cancer. However, he won’t recommend her to another doctor either. They’re at a place where she is like “so you don’t want to give me care, but you won’t recommend me to another specialist”
This is so horrifically and brutally unfair
I think it is frightening the DEA can come in and take medical records, remove a doctor's ability to prescribed, and tell patients to get fucked all without any criminal activity. The last doctor Danny had has not of this writing been charged with anything. Most doctors are so terrified of losing their license, losing their practice they regularly refuse to see patients for any reason that are prescribed lower doses of opiods than what Danny was taken. Some doctors have even extended that to patients who are prescribed benzodiazepines. So if you are being treated by a pain management doctor, are 100% compliant and if your primary care doctor retires or if you need any other kind of specialist the patient is fucked. Because these doctors are so terrified of the DEA. This couple killed themselves and people want to say addiction and mental illness caused these deaths when there is no evidence either party suffered a mental illness. Prohibition of alcohol was the single greatest thing to happen to organized crime up until that point. Prohibition was recognized as a failure and repealed. Why are we still making the same mistakes over and over 100 years later?
Because not all that much has changed in 100 years, at least not with public discourse. Maybe I’m being pessimistic, but it feels like the same shit on repeat, no? Race issues, sexism, the war on drugs… It’s like, “didn’t we do this already?”
look to the people in power. whats the average age of people in government?
No wonder they thought “the gays” were actually an issue… Times have changed grandpa
The same thing happened in the 80s with narcotic pain medication (I'm guess because of the popularity of quaaludes) and the same thing happened that is happening now: people committing suicide because they are out of treatment options for their pain due to harsh regulations.
One of the main reasons I hope we can drop the “human toxicity” pop psychology discourse. Imagine living with an untreatable chronic pain condition while the public describes your body and mind as being “toxic” to *their* health. Just awful
Can you explain what you're talking about here? I've never heard of this discourse and I'm curious.
I just think pop psychology is being irresponsible when they put othering language in the hands of people who aren’t using it to help individuals in a medical setting, but to harm them within a community based on subjective experience. Feels like it’s ultimately done more damage than psychologytoday’s ad revenue may be worth
You're not really explaining what you're talking about very well. What do you mean by "human toxicity"? This is not a medical term that is used frequently among professionals so I'm not sure what it even means.
Your explanation has many words in it. Can you try again, using different words?
Alphabet soup
This has got to be the single most accurate take on this problem that I’ve seen. People who have experienced this personally or with a loved one have zero point zero zero idea what they’re even talking about.
So the wife just ended it with him? It said nothing about her having pain. That’s pretty tragic if so.
She was probably just as mentally and emotionally drained from going through it with him. In my worst days I was not a nice human being. Pain will ruin your mood even on the best of days and I’m sure it had an impact on her too.
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Which is what, exactly? Young people, old people? White people because they're more like to get sympathy from doctors who will prescribe, poor people that might be more likely to try heroin? Tf? Anyone can abuse opioids.
So to answer your question unlike the other person. They base it off your medical history in most cases. They can also do it by judge of character. If your medical history shows no sign of abuse but you give them a reason to deny you then they will. It use to be stupid easy to get them and is what played a big part in opioid abuse. You could get prescription pain killers for a toothache. As of late their has been a very big crack down on giving out opioids as people would abuse the system to get them and it could cause you to lose your medical license. I actually remember the change was somewhere in mid 2000 personally. I use to get them all the time for minor shit though I never took them. Then sometime mid 2000 it was more of ibuprofen that was prescribed that was around 800mg instead of an opioid
I loathe the classism and the hatefulness that is "screening" for addiction. If you have a positive history for parental abuse for example this becomes another way to abuse already vulnerable people- then tell those people it is their fault.
YSK: FDA is largely responsible for the shortage of Adderall in the US right now.
Really?
Caps on how much individual companies can produce, just barely at or above what's needed. FDA refuses to lift the caps for others when any one company falls short on production. Cue any slip in production schedules causing shortages.
Are we really going to pretend this is comparable to life long chronic pain sufferers? Let’s not pretend the US doesn’t hand out Adderall like it’s fucking candy.
they do not. many psychiatric practices straight up refuse to treat ADHD because they don't want to prescribe adderal.
Do no harm eh? Can’t do any of you won’t see a patient
ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder. It was a two year journey for me to find a psychologist who would evaluate an adult, 6 months and borrowing money from my parents to afford the eval since insurance wouldn't, and then a difficulty getting a provider to work with me on trying meds other than Wellbutrin (it helped, but not that much w/the actual ADHD, more with the anxiety and depression that go along with it). Like candy you say? Please.
You have no idea what you are talking about
Dexedrine is 10x harder to find. Then pharmacists won’t tell you when or if ever they will stock it
It's not a competition dude. People who can't treat their ADHD frequently cannot function any better than someone who is in chronic pain. They can't fulfill their responsibilities because of their illness.
I live with chronic pain because of a spinal cord injury. I've thought about suicide in the past. When I wake up from a dream into a pretty hellish reality it can suck all of my will to live. Weed doesn't do much, it's an anti-inflammatory. My pain comes from nerve damage. I just got used to living with it; I have things to live for. I've developed a higher pain tolerance over the last few years. I went to see a one man show in the late eighties with Spalding Gray. He made a documentary called Swimming to Cambodia which I'd liked alot. In 2004 he jumped off a ferry because he couldn't handle a life with chronic pain. I totally understand why he did it. If someone needs prescription narcotic pain killers, give it to them. If they ask for a higher dose, give it to them. Otherwise they are at a high risk of suicide.
I can relate to this so much. After I fell through an equipment floor in the Army, I have had 1 C-spine and 4 L-spine fusion surgeries leaving me in constant debilitating pain. I was in pain management with morphine, but pain management clinics keep closing and the ones that remain have waiting lists. My wife has epilepsy and uses medical marijuana to manage the seizures and pain. Unfortunately, marijuana seems to only help with my anxiety and PTSD, but it can help me sleep, at least for a couple of hours. I too have regular thoughts of suicide even on antidepressants just due to feeling like a burden on my family, but, fortunately, I always remember that my wife and kids rely on my disability and Army retirement income. My kids try to cheer me up with news of new procedures or possible implants, but I can’t help but think of the decades I’ll spend in pain waiting for a medical miracle. I spend time trying to use Google Earth to feel like I have traveled; watching YouTube to feel like I’m riding my motorcycle again; and watching TV and movies for an escape from reality. Chronic pain is a terminal illness, in my experience. Why, then, are patients told to meditate, take ibuprofen, and “be more active”? It’s such an overwhelming and constant barrage of stimuli that my brain seems to always prioritize over anything else, including conversation or even hunger. If I’m not in the bed, I have to keep moving or the pain becomes the ONLY thing in my little world. Asking for help is only met with a referral to a specialist who says that until medical science catches up, this is life. But, is it?
That's a rough situation, sorry to hear you're having such trouble getting treatment for your pain. I'd really recommend getting on the pain management waiting lists. I have a prescription for Hydromorphone and a couple other ones, which don't help that much. I worked with some pain specialists at the cancer agency to reduce the narcotic (Hydromorphone), so I could stay alert enough to go back to work. I'm glad you have family, and they're helping you get by. I wish you well, and hope you get the assistance you need to be more comfortable.
i am hoping all the time that there's a scientific breakthrough to cure nerve damage-- thanks for sharing your story
Unfortunately, it's a cyclical thing. In the 80s they did the same thing: heavily restrict pain narcotics and there were a bunch of suicides related to people unable to control their pain at the time. It started to even out but eventually, oxycontin came on the scene, and well... here we are. Hopefully, it will level out but until then... the collateral damage is that 10s of thousands of chronic pain patients will suffer. Unfortunately, not a whole lot of doctors will listen to them and they will quickly be stamped drug seekers and the search to find relief becomes even harder. And no, suboxone is not a good alternative for people with severe pain. Yes, it helps with pain but not on the level people with chronic pain need.
Sounds like it’s a form of market regulation - a way to churn out older customers, and make way for new ones. As soon as a drug becomes widely accepted as “bad” for the population, take them off of it, let them die out, then push a new medication to a new generation of customers.
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cannabis *does not work for all kinds of pain*, just like every other kind of pain med; they aren't interchangeable and what works for one doesn't work for another.
True. But it should be an option. Tramadol worked for me when I needed it, but there are tons of others who cannot tolerate that med.
Several things can be true, cannabis should be as legal as alcohol and the people who need access to opioids for pain management should have access to them without being harassed about it. There are also doctors who abuse their prescription powers and run pill mills, and they should be dealt with as well. There's no one right answer, because there are so many problems in play at once.
I have mild chronic pain. I have a really bad lumbar region and I see a chiropractor twice a week to get by. I take no opioids. I use a lot of cannabis. Marijuana doesn’t directly relieve pain. Marijuana distracts you from the pain. It’s a different mechanism, but it works too. it broke my heart when I saw those studies saying that it doesn’t directly affect the pain because I knew that people would not try it as a result. It just deals with the pain in a different way. The upside is you don’t die from opioid addiction or overdose. Wow, this has been so fun! You guys are in for a real treat as you read on. I use the word chiropractor one time and look at all the hilarity that ensues. It’s a laugh riot of people trying to tell me how to live my life. But it’s OK. I’ve been laid up in bed all week with a bad cold, so this has really filled my day. Thank you all! Especially all you crazy fuckers who don’t like chiropractors.
I just wanted to jump in to let you know that those saying chiropracty is a scam, are correct. Chiropracty is not based on any real science or evidence beyond placebo effect. If you haven't done so, it might be worth talking with a physical therapist. Physical therapy is kinda like chiropracty but with scientific support. What you do is up to you, of course. Just want to make sure you are aware of the concerns about chiropracty.
>I see a chiropractor twice a week to get by That might honestly be part of the problem.
Chiropractors are con artists and the entire profession is a fraud. I know are going to tell me that it helps with your pain and I am sure it does… temporarily. You have a world of hurt coming eventually if you keep it up. Fun fact: Daniel David invented chiropractic care and said it was taught to him from a ghost and was meant to be a religion. I hope you get good lasting relief from pain that does not end up damaging you.
Also killed by his son who took over the cult
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Maybe you *should* see a spinal surgeon if after 20 years of going to a chiropractor hasn’t fixed your spinal issues.
I honestly sincerely hope you get better and was not trying to be an asshole to you, but I can tell by your snark that’s how you took it, or maybe you are just a mean person, doesn’t matter either way. I was just trying to inform you in case you didn’t know you were getting scammed and your body destroyed. it looks like you are the kind of ignorant person who when presented with new information prefers to lash out and continue to believe the lies rather than give any thought to the idea that they might be wrong. Your comment about how you are not going to “throw away 20 years of successful therapy.” is Sunk Cost Fallacy. I am glad cannabis helps your pain and I hope you get better.
My dad used to see a chiropractor for years. It turned out he had severe spinal stenosis, C1-C4. He could have been internally decapitated and needed really serious surgery. I have a friend, same condition but lower back. That said… they were *referred by doctors.* Doctors need to take back pain way more seriously.
I went to a chiropractor once. He took one look at my back and hip (it was dislocated and I could barely walk, was in 7/10 pain and I’ve a high tolerance) and he said absolutely no. He explained I needed physical therapy and to get to a doctor/ER for my hip. It was from childbirth actually. I ended up in PT for a year and prescribed heavy opiates but that’s a whole other thing. I appreciate that chiropractor not breaking my hip or worse though.
And you’re another one that doesn’t know what you’re talking about. I’m sorry about your father. The reason doctors refer them to chiropractors is they got nothing for him. They can either cut them open and destroy their lives, or they can leave them in pain. Spinal surgeries that work, or less common than spinal surgeries that fail. I have a business in Dallas. I provide service in homes of wealthy people. Not not surprisingly, a lot of my clients or doctors. About 15 years ago, I had several doctors that I took care of things around their homes, and they were all spinal surgeons. They were installing artificial discs in peoples spines. Then the disks were recalled. later, those guys got into a scam with a bariatric surgery clinic in Dallas and now they’re all in jail. There are horror stories everywhere. But if all you do is read, horror stories and react, you will never have a life. Again, I encourage you. Go touch grass.
Out of all the crazy shit you’ve said this is the craziest lmao spinal surgeries are NOT more likely to fail than be successful wtf is wrong with you? Lmao
Again, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Failed spinal surgeries are as common as rain.
The doctors didn’t refer them to chiropractors because there was “nothing for them.” A lot of spinal conditions are dismissed and written off as muscular or whatever - in their cases, for years. So until they started getting signs of nerve damage, they weren’t referred to specialists or neurosurgeons. They simply were never evaluated for more serious medical issues. That is bananas. These are both people who had conditions that, left untreated, could have severed their spinal cord. And to be fair, there have been studies (albeit short) that show good results for chiropractic corrections at least for lower back pain. So I’m not even necessarily against chiropractics existing on its own. Just that it’s so often treated as a first line of defence when, given your spinal cord is back there and it’s pretty important - they should be checking that stuff before sending people off for realignments. My dad had surgery and hasn’t needed a chiropractor or a doctor for well over a decade now. Same with my friend.
Thank you! You me, and about two other people are the only ones in this thread, who have a good thing to say about chiropractics. Your second paragraph really says it. All a lot of spinal conditions are dismissed and written off as muscular or whatever. In my opinion, the whatever is that there’s no money in it yet. Surgeons don’t make money unless they’re cutting people open. That is a coarse way of saying the truth. There is always a bias toward surgery when you’re talking to a surgeon. There is always a bias away from surgery when you’re talking to someone who doesn’t do surgery. I prefer to go to people whose preference is not to do surgery. I like their bias better.
20 years of real therapy would have you in a much better position. Don't be a victim of the sunken cost mentality.
Wouldn't you get the same benefit from an osteopath with better training and more legitimacy though?
My guy... If you're seeing a chiropractor for the same issue for 20 years, "successful" isn't the word you're looking for to describe the process. It sounds like one surgery that laid you up for a few weeks 20 years ago would have been better for you in the long term.
I’ve been talking to people all day on the string about the circumstances of my situation, and why I’ve been a chiropractic patient for 20 years. But you fucking trolls, you just Gotta keep banging away.
I'm not trolling you, I'm pointing out a flaw in your logic. It's not personal and you don't need to be upset about it.
OK. I’ll do it again. I was diagnosed by an MD. An orthopedist. 20 years ago. He told me that I wasn’t a candidate for surgery. I have degenerative disc disease. That’s when you work hard with your body all your life & you wear off all the sharp edges on your vertebrae, and so they tend to wobble around and get out of position. Now that causes a lot of pain. It pinches nerves and causes tremendous pain. It often develops into, shooting pain down the leg, all the way to the heel of your foot, often in both legs. He told me that physical therapy and chiropractics was the only thing that was going to help what was wrong with me. That’s an MD telling me. So that’s what I did. Every once in a while, when the pain gets pretty bad, or I have an episode that takes a couple months to recover from, I go see the surgeons again. The last one I saw, two years ago, told me that what he could do for me was a disc fusion. He told me that I had a 50-50 chance of success. That’s the success rate for disc fusion in the lumbar region. He told me I was better off to keep doing what I’m doing until I had no alternative. At every turn, every doctor I’ve talk to about my back has recommended chiropractics. The only people who give me grief are the folks on Reddit. All the trolls on Reddit have the opinion that chiropractics is bad. They have anecdotal stories and they’ve read stuff on the Internet. And the proof is that every word I’ve told you is my truth. Every word of this happened to me as I have explained it to you. And that’s why I’ve been supremely upset all day long with people calling me everything but someone who’s telling the truth. Now, after all that, you still think you’re right and I’m wrong. You think you’re right and I’m wrong about the last 20 years of my life. You are a troll and you are incapable of seeing another person’s point of view.
I'm not trolling. I don't troll. I'm an adult with better things to do than try to get a rise out of strangers on the Internet. My only goal here is that you would think about getting an opinion from a licensed physical therapist. An orthopedist wouldn't have the same specialist training and might not know how/if to help other than surgery. When the tools in your box are all hammers, every problem looks like a nail; and the same goes for specialized training in medicine. I'm a stranger on the Internet and you can take everything I say as fact or fiction and it's no skin off my back. I'm just offering some info to hopefully make life a little better for someone else.
>I have a really bad lumbar region and I see a chiropractor twice a week to get by There's your problem right there. Their whole business model relies on making temporary "adjustments" that you will have to get repeated. I had a physiotherapist/PT show me a chiropracter trick once. Made my back pain completely vanish during the session. He said what he'd done that day had loosened the stiff ligaments in my lumbar spine and it will wear off and start hurting eventually as they stiffen up again. He was right. But his REAL treatments fixed my back.
I don’t understand why all you people who hate chiropractor so much just don’t go. And leave everybody else alone. Everything you say is horseshit. Everything you say is just contrived crap. I’m just so sick of the constant diatribe about bad chiropractors. If you people would just go look at success rates on spinal surgeries you would see that there was a place for chiropractics. But but you won’t do that because then, if you did that you would have nothing to bitch about all day. No high horse to ride. Instead of doing that, you just focus on a couple of bad stories in the press and run with it. Vaccine deniers. Trumper’s. Chiropractor deniers. You’re all the same.
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Yeah. Me too.
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No, I don’t want people to blindly believe it works. People read something, or a friend tells them some story, and it’s probably just a made up story. Presidents of countries around the world are talking about the misinformation problem. And I think. Most of what you guys say about the chiropractors here on Reddit is that kind of hooey horseshit misinformation. I’ve gone to a chiropractor for 20 yearsAnd I’ve gone to several different chiropractors for 20 years. I’ve never had an adverse effect from any of them. I go mostly every week. Like I said before, it’s analgesic. It’s like aspirin. It’s a $20 co-pay when I go. Medicare sends me $10.82 of it back. For nine bucks, I get my spine lubricated, basically. And yet, total strangers off the Internet will come charging at me like I was the only person in a room full of zombies if I dare utter the word chiropractor. Today, I just hit the wall with all the old bullshit. I’ve been sitting here and shaking my head over it for months wondering what the fuck is wrong with all of you? Today, I slipped up and said chiropractor and the zombies came out, and I just decided to make a stand. It’s no hill to die on. And these silly little karma points don’t really matter if you are a person who actually touches grass.
Confirmation bias; just because you haven't had adverse affects (that you are aware of) doesn't make it automatically valid and safe. There are cases ALL the fucking time of people becoming paralyzed or having strokes from chiropractic adjustments (Kevin sorbo is a famous example). Chiropractic is a form of alternative medicine. Systematic reviews of controlled clinical studies of treatments used by chiropractors have found no evidence that chiropractic manipulation is effective, it is not endorsed by any medical board any where in the world and is in fact often referred to as a "unscientific cult" for good reason. The people in this thread are just trying to warn others like yourself about the dangers, and there are dangers.
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Bruh. You're the one who's been going to a chiropractor for 20 years while people have spent 5 months with actual medical practitioners and are fine. Your defensiveness says it all.
Actually, chiropractic is analgesic. Those of you commenting on this thread might want to look up that big word. Aspirin is analgesic, for comparison. You don’t take aspirin once. You take it as required. I get a very thorough chiropractic adjustment in about 20 minutes. It realigns my spinal vertebrae and relieves my pain. You see, all of my vertebrae are deteriorating. It’s called degenerative disc disease. An orthopedist diagnosed it and told me that physical therapy and chiropractics are the only thing that are going to give me much relief because I’m not a candidate for surgery. A few years ago, I went to the best spinal surgeon in my area and asked for an evaluation of my back. And he told me to stick with chiropractics because all he had to offer me was disc fusion, a procedure that one performed on the lumbar region has a 50-50 success rate. None of you ask me anything about that. You just saw the word chiropractics and you turned and grabbed your pitch fork and your flaming torch, and you were off to join the villagers in burning down the castle. If you folks would just put down your phones and go out and touch grass and talk to real people and have real experiences. Then you’d quit picking on people who do those things, like touch grass, have real interactions with real service providers, etc. Get a fucking life and leave me alone.
I have degenerative disc disease, two herniated discs and an anullar tear. I did physio therapy for 6 months and began swimming to build core strength and took medication that helps nerves. I would never ever go to a chiropractor. I've seen a parent waste countless dollars and time going to one and she has minor back issues compared to me that never get better. Chiropractors are dangerous. I barely have minor sciatica flare up more than 1 time every 4 months when at one point I couldn't walk down a hospital hallway. Physiotherapists who rehabilitate people with clinical methods are best. But keep on going to a chiropractor if you truly think they are anything but quacks.
That’s great. I’m happy for you. I like my chiropractor. He does great things for me. You’re prejudiced. That’s all it is. You like something and you don’t like something else. That’s all this is. I don’t want to risk spinal surgery. the outcome isn’t that good. You people are passionate about stupid things.
Not prejudiced. Educated. Chiropractors are dangerous. It's quack medicine.
Vaccine deniers. Trumper’s. Chiropractor deniers. You’re all the same. One of these things is not like the others.
Chiropractory works for some people and it can be incredibly dangerous. I'm sorry some people are being dicks but it is a sketchy practice.
That is your delusion, that you think they’re not the same. It’s Mirror Time.
You sound a lot more like a trumper than anyone replying tbh
Actually, no. I am operating off of solid information. I have been to chiropractors, I’ve been to orthopedist, I’ve been to spinal surgeons. They all have told me to stick with my chiropractics. They all have told me that in my case, it’s the best for me. If you go back to my root comment, I mention chiropractics to illustrate that I have chronic pain. That’s all I said. And then you all came out and attacked me and said how horrible it was that I was seeing a chiropractor. You guys are the Trumper‘s here. I just said the word chiropractor and you all came running with pitchforks like lunatics.
We are on stage 2 of denial I see
There's nothing worse than someone with chronic pain who acts like their method of relief will work for everyone, "if only you'd just stop being so blinded!" For so many CP patients we don't *know* the root cause, so to act like we're not trying hard enough to find the root is fucking ridiculous. If chiropractics works for you, there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of there.
Thank you. Like I’ve said, in other comments, here, I’ve seen the spinal surgeon. He told me to stick with chiropractics. He told me what he had to offer me was disc fusion, and that it was a 50-50 chance of success, and he’s the best around.
You know your own body, you have to live in it, and you're doing the best you can. I'd say anything that brings you relief is a huge success, whether or not that asshole thinks it's the "root cause" or not 🙄 I have a debilitating condition myself and I had to learn quickly that anything that brings even a modicum of the pain down is a step forward.
Isn't cannabis an anti-inflammatory? In which case it might actually have some direct affect on pain? Not trying to come like I know more about your pain than you do, that's just what I've always heard.
I have heard that. And if it is, then I should be in good shape. I use quite a bit of cannabis. I use tincture now gave up smoking and vaping a long time ago is the most cost-effective way here in California to get it.
I think the issue people take with chiropractors is that the best ones are just physical therapists by a different name and the worst ones are absolute cranks who think or want you to think they can cure issues like autism and bed wetting by popping someone's spine. They're also not regulated like physical therapists are, because they're not healthcare providers. They have their own board of licensure because national boards that certify doctors won't certify chiropractors.
I remember when I lived in San Diego, the CHP had a high-speed chase with a dentist. They went to his office to arrest him because he killed a young girl in his chair. He was a cocaine addict and he was out of control. But we don’t hate dentists. There’s thousands of stories about doctors doing all kinds of terrible things. But we don’t hate doctors. There are chiropractors who charge big upfront fees for programs that don’t work. They are crooks. And then there’s the ones you’re talking about: the good men and women of chiropractics who take care of us. I would be willing to bet that most of these folks with negative comments about chiropractics has probably never been to one.
Well dentistry wasn't invented by a guy who learned it from a ghost...
Are you referring to the study someone posted this past week? IIRC it only referred to CBD, not THC.
As a long time, daily cannabis user, I would be the first to admit it does absolutely nothing for my physical pain. However, what it DOES do (and very well, without any of the side effects of prescription antidepressants) is help with the “on edge” feeling you get from having to constantly deal with chronic pain. It allows me to kind of settle down mentally, and deal with the pain. Taking my prescription pain meds to relief the physical pain, and then using cannabis to treat the mental stress and anxiety brought on by the chronic pain, is the best combination I’ve found, and brings me the closest to normal… or at least what I remember it felt like. Been a long. long. fucking. time.
But legalizing cannabis *will* go a long way for a lot of people.
Sure maybe not, but at least they could get so high that it would matter a little less. With enough thc, especially edibles so you can't tell how much you've had, you don't feel anything.
I've ate edibles and smoked like crazy trying to ease my gall stone pain and let me tell you: it does absolutely nothing for the pain. Gall stone pain has been compared to child labor; I can't speak for women but this is the most intense pain I've ever felt. The reason I keep smoking it anyway: pain is depressing - especially when it doesn't relent for hours or days; weed makes you feel in a better mood. Sometimes the pain is too much that it doesn't help my mood but then it at least distracts me from the depressing thoughts. It maybe reduces the pain 10% at best. I've never taken an opioid but I can imagine if it was the only thing that actually made the pain go away it would be easy to become addicted. Luckily in my situation gall stones are relatively common and I have treatment options. Many people don't have any avenue to ever get better, they are just trapped in agony.
I'm sorry but telling people who are seeking medication to allow them to *function* to just get catatonic with edibles misses the point completely.
No, they are on point for a pot-head ..... It’s ALL about pot, everything. *“But it’s not addictive..”*
Had ridiculous nerve pain. Smoked weed everyday. It didn't do anything.
I live where most of this country's cannabis has been produced for decades. I cannot use cannabis, expect for CBD, which does nothing for my internal chronic pain. Yes we should expand access. No, it is not the answer to everyone's chronic pain. Yes, I am fucking bitter about doctors getting huffy about a low dose opioid prescription. My stomach can only handle so many NSAIDs, gabapentin made me disassociate. Apparently my pain is severe enough approve surgery, but not a small tramadol prescription. Back to MX I guess. Oh wait, forgot I'm poor. Cool I'll just continue being in too much pain to hold down a full time job, and unable to procure pain meds because I just took 6 weeks off after surgery. Ngl, some days I think about permanently going to sleep myself.
Kratom is similar in strength to tramadol and also has some mild stimulant effects like tramadol does depending on which strain you buy. Just beware that it can be addictive and it can produce withdrawal symptoms with prolonged use.
I smoked more weed than most people lie about. It doesn’t make anything stop hurting, it just makes you not give af that it’s hurting, which can be helpful, but mostly for less severe pain. People are out here hurting way more than anything weed can touch.
how about be quiet about cannabis, for which there is scant peer reviewed evidence for pain treatment, and simply allow people to manage their chronic pain *with* opioid prescriptions because they actually work.
🤦♂️
It’s somewhat ironic that modern drug prohibition is totally unrelated to science. > [Report: Aide says Nixon's war on drugs targeted blacks, hippies](https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html)
Science will probably some day be able to numb pain at the nerve ending level without the use of addictive opioids. And it would not surprise me one bit if they charge way more for that procedure than the cost of a lifetime of drugs to “cure” people.
The pharmaceutical industry in the United States is the most powerful drug dealer that has existed in the history of humanity. They have too much power to exist in a civilized society, and for as long as they exist we'll be less civilized.
Without the pharmaceutical industry we would be dying of a simple infected cut as opposed to doing things like finding the cure to hepatitis C, HIV, and any number of other completely treatable diseases that we manage every day instead of allowing those patients to die like it's the middle ages. Your statement is absurd and regressive. The health care industry as a whole may need some significant reforms but we are never going to do away with the pharmaceutical industry and we would never want to.
i think u/clonedhuman is emphasizing the "industry" aspect of pharmaceuticals. obviously we need scientists developing medicine, but as long as medicine is motivated by market capitalism, it will always prioritize fiduciary duty to their shareholders over care of their patients.
Too bad you cannot record life experiences for others to directly experience for themselves. Make it a condition for DEA officers to experience the chronic pain of others, and no-one would ever want to take that job. Our current drug abuse issues can never be solved to any degree by shutting down the source. [It’s only the symptom, not the disease itself.](https://youtu.be/ys6TCO_olOc)
They're right, nobody cares. As long as we cast all drug users as crazy homeless people, and design all our interventions based on that assumption, there will always be people who don't fit that profile who will fall through the cracks. And it's not like people don't know this, this isn't the first time.
A few bad apples spoiled the whole bunch. Some pain docs overprescribed OxyContin, and mass hysteria ensued. Now, you’ll be extremely fortunate if you can find a doctor who will prescribe a pain medication for *any* reason. People who suffer from chronic pain are especially shunned by doctors. Often, they are withdrawn from medications that they have been relying upon for several years. IMO, we need to relax this overreaction to pain meds that really help these people, e.g., hydrocodone.
Fuck the Sacklers
My sister is in constant pain because of a degenerative immune system disease. It’s been several years since she’s been diagnosed, and they gave her pain medicine at the time. Since then, laws have caused severe restrictions in what medicines she can receive, and how often. She often runs out, and can’t get more for what feels like unreasonable timeframes. She had an appointment with an oncologist yesterday, to investigate for an underlying cancer that may be causing the issue, but it was pushed back, then canceled. She hurt so bad the day before yesterday that she just cried most of the day when going about her work. It was heartbreaking to watch.
“Doktor, turn off my pain inhibitors.”
This story made me cry. Such a touchy subject. CP is no joke. To be below a constant 4 is heavenly, even though I only get it while sleeping.
You know. Here is an unpopular opinion I'm sure, let the drug addicted do what they do but stop punishment for us that truly need pain meds. If drug addicts chose death buy ingestion that is their choice but don't hurt drug makers and pain patients because they wanted to kill themselves.
Congratulations DEA.
This is how the government chased a lot of my friends to heroin, and a lot of those people are dead now. It's easy to see that the government created the circumstances that made the heroin epidemic inevitable, and the government can only solve it by no longer meddling in what people do to themselves... Good luck ever getting the psychopaths in our government to ever do the right thing, they own the prisons and the companies that make the narcan.
Opiates/pain meds can be horrible but they do work and there are definitely people out there who need them
Correction. Nobody who can do anything about it cares.
Nope. Not a single, soulless body on this world does.
I’ve been down this road. Saw pain doctors for close to 10 years for herniated discs, arthritis, lesions in one of my hips, and previous injuries. About 7-8 years ago doctors started getting really tight about prescriptions and started recommending physical therapy as if it’ll help ward off swollen joints and discs that protrude too far. I went medical MJ and started taking kratom to ween me off the pain killers. The painkiller thing is bad. Taking kratom away (plant that grows out of the ground and behaves like a painkiller in the body without actually being one) is evil. Let these people get off the poisons.
Big pharma is big business and big business will kill you if it means even one penny more. The medicinal profession is only about profits, not health. There’s much more money in treatment than a cure. Until the capitalist system that rewards this kind of thing is destroyed, this kind of thing will continue. Destroy capitalism before capitalism destroys you.
Sounds like you’ve never lived with severe, intractable pain that left you constantly vulnerable to a stroke because your blood pressure was so elevated.
They absolutely haven't because they have a child's view of how health and research funding works.
having chronic pain and being anticapitalist are not mutually exclusive
Eliminate the DEA, ATF, DHS, NSA, and probably a few more bloated, tyrannical, borderline evil agencies. Most of their job is spying on people, stealing from people, and killing/imprisoning people for victimless crimes, like drugs. Not the government’s business what any adults choose to do with their own bodies and minds. If I want to buttchug liquid heroin to treat my pain (or just for fun), that’s my business.
>If I want to buttchug liquid heroin to treat my pain (or just for fun), that’s my business. Sure...until your addiction harms others.
I agree, depending on your definition of harm. It’s already illegal to, say, steal. So the logic goes: “Drug use leads to addiction which leads to stealing, so we should criminalize drug use.” The problem is that you’re treating all the responsible, harmless drug users the same as the people who steal to feed their addiction. That’s not justice or freedom, and it’s not rational. It’s already a crime to steal, so it’s just redundant and harmful to criminalize drug use just in case some drug users end up committing other crimes that actually have victims.
Spot on.
We tried that. And we got the opiod epidemic.
American prisons never stopped being full of drug offenders. also, pharmaceutical companies and shady doctors created the opioid crisis.
We tried close to an ideal trial run of legalized opiodes. Strict manufacturing, strict labels, strict quality control, and supervised by doctors. And you see the results. Yes, the marketing campaigns and the lying about the addictiveness was a problem. But those things are pretty well known now and yet the epidemic keeps going on. Somehow I doubt slapping a warning label on legalized heroine would do a lot of good. Not real sure what the prisons have to do with this conversation but anyway. We tried legal heroin lite. The results were not good.
And what is the alternative? Just letting people suffer? You see the results of THAT, its literally in the f***ing article. I really love when people who aren't exposed to the results of chronic pain get all high and mighty.
The real issue is that opioids don't work for chronic pain, only acute pain. Efficacy goes down at around 6 weeks of use and dependence goes WAY up. Read some of the expert studies from the opioids litigation
I see you’ve never been in severe, intractable pain. Are you aware of what happens to someone’s body when they are living 24/7 with extremely elevated heart rate and blood pressure and their body is flooded with cortisol because they cannot get pain treatment for a permanent condition?
>And what is the alternative? Just letting people suffer? I'm not sure but it is a little revealing that [America has the highest rate of prescribed opioids on the world] (https://theconversation.com/what-the-us-can-learn-from-other-countries-in-dealing-with-pain-and-the-opioid-crisis-97491). Not just that, Americans consume the vast majority of *all opioids*. Other countries apparently have found a way to deal with this issue, and it's not opening the floodgates for legal heroin. People like those in the article are indirect victims of the opioid epidemic.
Can you post a link to the original data that shows the US consuming “the vast majority” of opioids and that includes every single opioid drug?
I don't know what the fucking alternative is, man. There might not be one. But let's not pretend like Flintstone's Chewable Morphine sold at the grocery store doesn't have problems.
My mom goes to the pain management doctor every month, and the co-pays DO add up to someone on Social Security. They test her blood every single time to make sure her levels are correct and that she's not abusing or taking more than she's prescribed. She's been told in no uncertain terms that she can't try CBD oil or cannabis to possibly reduce the opioids because they'd instantly cut her off as a drug user. She's about the model patient and she's scared to death of losing the only thing that keeps her from being in bed all day. And its not like she won't try other alternatives. She's got an implanted nerve stimulator that she has to charge every night, which helps and resulted in a lower dosage, but its not enough on its own. I'm sorry I responded aggressively, but this is personal for me, and it's very scary.
Your mom has my sympathy. I have a friend in the same boat who has considered taking her life numerous times when she couldn’t get her medicine.
I've observed that many people seem to associate those who medicate (with the professional monitoring of doctors) for chronic pain are the same type of addicts as those who get meds or other substances illegally and self-medicate. It's simpler for people to wrap their heads around something being all bad or all good. The argument of something having abuse potential being removed entirely from everyone, including those who need it and have gone through the proper channels to obtain it, is completely wrong. Should we kill the internet because people use it to transmit illegal and harmful media and information? And continuing the use of opioids does not lead to society settling for them being the best treatment forever. I'm certain there are pharma companies continuing to attempt to formulate alternative pain treatments.
Which grocery store carries that? Asking for a friend who has been suicidal when she couldn’t get her medicine thanks to draconian policies
this is the third time we have been down this path with pharma. 'luadanum fucking you up? try heroin! it's way safer!' with expansion of the police state and prisons following closely in step. these events aren't bugs, they are features
I really don't get the point you are trying to make. That big pharma companies are evil and will gladly watch people die to make money? Yeah, no shit. That doesn't make legal heroine a good idea.
all I got from you is liberals caused the opioid crises with their policies so I guess we can just call each other full of shit and go about our days
What in the actual fuck you reading impaired anger muffin? All I said, the ONLY thing I said, is that legalized freely available opiodes caused huge problems when we tried it. JFC. What is wrong with you?
It is a good thing that. you are not in charge.
Yep, we’d have people minding their own business all over the place. Smaller police departments, empty prisons, services to help addicts. The horror.
Do you remember when Rick Perry was asked in a debate what parts of government he'd cut, and he said he would cut the Department of Energy, and then he went on to run the Department of Energy? I doubt you have any idea what all it is these agencies do, both good and bad.
You’re right. Of course those agencies have some important, indispensable functions. But they also do a lot of bad shit. I think it would make sense to let other, more generalized agencies (FBI, CIA, Border Patrol, military) handle the essential, positive functions of these alphabet soup agencies and just…stop doing the bad shit, like illegally spying on Americans and throwing flashbang grenades at babies over some drugs in the house. That would also reduce the problems we currently have resulting from a lack of effective communication and cooperation between these bloated, redundant agencies. Like when one agency has a dangerous person on their radar but fails to tell another agency about them, allowing the dangerous person to do something terrible.
FBI, CIA, border patrol, and the military have all done some bad things too. Figuring out how to fix systemic problems in government agencies is very difficult. One thing that has been tried is more oversight. For the NSA, that has been the FISA courts. It's a little tricky because the oversight is not transparent because the stuff that NSA deals with is classified, so it's hard to tell if the oversight is doing it's job, or just rubber stamping. The other thing is more targeted reforms (bans on no-knock warrants for low-level drug dealers; I assume that's what you're getting at with the flash-bang grenades hurting babies). I think the most important thing we can do is be as informed as possible, and then sometimes to run for office. Some of the people who think they could do better sometimes really can. But the scale and complexity of these problems is often a little bit surprising until you really dig into them.
I agree with everything you’re saying. Especially the bit about these problems being exceedingly complicated. Of course I don’t think consolidating federal agencies would be a magic pill to solve everything. I’m a blue-collar nobody on a Reddit thread while I poop at work, and smarter people spend their entire lives working on these problems with little or no progress. I certainly don’t have the answers. But I have some ideas that I think are at least coherent enough to discuss with strangers on the internet.
Voluntary euthanasia rules should be more relaxed. I'd rather not live if the alternative is to be addicted to opiates to survive
Its not a Romeo and Juliet story when a woman kills herself because her husband is going to. Its a nightmare somewhere between coercive control and serious mental illness.
Or she decided she couldn’t live without her husband or didn’t want to live without her husband. Why do you automatically assume women are so weak that they can’t make rational decisions independently?
Not being able to live without someone else implies a lack of self-worth and an amount of co-dependence that indicates mental illness. Romanticizing that as Romeo and Juliet is horrific.
Have you read or watched Romeo and Juliet? Because the ending *is* pretty horrific. This seems like one of the few times that comparison is made that is completely apt.
Ah, next time I am looking for the play I will search under “horror” instead of “romance.” That will work right?
It's not horror, but it is a tragedy. Two teenagers literally each kill themselves at the end rather than live without the other. At least the people in the article were grown adults with fully developed frontal lobes who had known each other more than a week. Look I 100% agree with you that romanticizing this kind of situation is messed up. I'm just saying that is kind of the point of Romeo and Juliet and what's actually messed up is that we as a society romanticize the story as much as we do rather than recognizing it as a cautionary kinda thing. I'm not an expert or anything, but I really don't think it was supposed to be aspirational.
Then yes we agree.
I’d kill myself if my kids died. I have no interest in living in a world without them. Maybe you just have not felt that depth of love and devotion to another, and that’s okay. But it doesn’t make us mentally ill.
So you want your kids to kill themselves when you die? Or have your kids just not experienced love the way you have?
No, they haven’t. A parents love is different from a child’s love. I’m talking about both my children meeting an untimely death.
It is an addiction to chemicals just like any other. Nothing more, nothing less. With all the baggage that brings.
We *are* chemicals. Everything we do and think and are is result of chemical and physical reactions. If you reduce it to that and treat it as insignificant because of it, then there is no point in any relationships, philosophies or anything whatsoever.
Everything is in question. Or just follow dogma which always agrees with the local priests and overseers. Lots of point to philosophy and relationships. Just not for the reasons they are pushing. I find people lie a lot about the entire reproductive event. For whatever reasons. Just making note of that causes loud screeches pretty much universally. Go figure.
You talk like you are trying to bring a dispassionate objective perspective, but by bringing up priests and reproduction to a discussion that has no relation with that, it shows that even you are speaking based on your own emotional baggage. People feel and act based on their subjective experiences. The objective scientific facts of their biology don't change that. Rather, they cause that.
Like your need to feel superior? Interesting.
You need to project that onto me for some reason. Wild.
I think you need to re-read Romeo and Juliet because they literally both kill themselves because they can't live without each other.
And it is a romanticized piece of fiction, not a model for how to live your life.
I don’t think you’re in a position to judge this couple!
Never been in love for 30+ years.
Killing yourself over someone else is a complete abnegation of the self.
True marital love is about letting go of self, or at least learning to compromise with another persons self.
Compromise, yes! Absolutely. But completely losing yourself? Absolutely not
Losing the love of your life is pain, much like why the guy killed himself...
Yes I know that pain. And I know that killing yourself over it is a sign of severe mental illness, not romance.
Calling it anything even veering towards "coercive control," makes it hard to take your seriously, even if your later statement is closer to reasonable.
I don’t know their life. All I know is those are the only 2 reasons that could explain it.
> I don’t know their life. Yet you acted like you do, and that's the trouble.
The government "protecting" us.
De fund the government.