AP analysis finds pain medicine use has skyrocketed 88 percent

reply to post by Damocles


Off topic - Said a prayer for you. Hope you come out the other side stronger or on the other side at peace.

Here's another headline for you.

South, Appalachia beset by rapid rise in abuse of prescription painkiller hydrocodone

When his craving for painkillers got to be too much, Steve Dotson lay down and let his wife drive a car over his leg. It hurt, but he could dismiss the pain with thoughts of the medicated bliss that would follow.

Soon, he lost his house, the state took his children away and he was spending nights under a bridge, where he hoped to die.

On a recent day, Dotson pointed out the spot under the bridge where he lived and pointed to the spot in the Guyandotte River where he was baptized after getting clean. Not all of his friends were so lucky, he said.

"You've got three choices," he said. "You either die, go to prison or get saved. Mostly, people around here are dying."

source

Is it a predilection for addiction amongst the populace, or a form of mental conditioning due to media hype via commercials of the benefits of painkillers, or a combination of the two? Are we falling victim to our own weaknesses, or are we being victimized and exploited via a media contrived, pharma lobby driven mechanism?

Does the government want us all doped up and docile? What are we avoiding contemplating as we focus on our collective navel?

Originally posted by Damocles
my dr actually laughs when she writes out my Rx's anymore, she says anyone else she knows would be near comatose. but ive been building this tolerance for well over a year now so yeah...


[edit on 17-8-2007 by Damocles]

[edit on 17-8-2007 by Damocles]

i've been building my tolerance for 11 years...i get the same thing...my wife and my mom and such, they can't believe that i even function on all the meds i am on.

at one point, i was taking 120, 10 milli vicodins every 12 days(that was post surgery)
i take morphine and muscle relaxors....i was on 600 micrograms of fentanyl for a long time.....

i took neurontin a few years ago...it didn't really work for me...
i will be on medicine for the rest of my life and it sucks.....

@kosmic: thank you, every bit helps and i appreciate the thoughts. my relationship with god is a bit strained at the moment but im always forced to consider a gem of wisdom someone once told me, god answers all prayers its just that the answer is often "no".

@icarus: first thanks for the comments u made via u2u gave me food for thought. but the guy in taht story is the exact reason every few days ill spend a day or two without the narcs just in an attempt to stave off a hard addiction becuase my real goal is to someday not need the pills, its going to suck if i develop a drug problem over all this, though my wife will argue that while i AM sick it hardly matters if im addicted, she just hates to see me in more pain then neccessary.

@boondock: if the surgery is unsuccessful im in the same boat. really theres no "cure" for my condition so i have to really hope and pray they are right about its cause beign repairable because if it is, then the condition causing my pain will go away on its own within 6 months or so and i may even end up being able to rock climb and so forth again next year. if they are wrong, im looking at a much bleaker outlook.

I have Meclizine, sometimes I feel the urge to take it, but I refuse and only use it as prescribed. If I weren't as strong of a person and had seen first hand, the effects of drug abuse, I would not hesitate in taking it. It makes you feel really sleepy, I wonder if it even helped my spells of nausea, it just knocked me out and that was it.