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How responsible medication use can help
Depression & Anxiety | Last Active: Mar 11 5:51am | Replies (23)Comment receiving replies
The tragedy of opiods was not development of a drug that was beneficial for many. It was the over-prescribing, over-use and over-dependence on the drug to be the solution for every pain that ails you. Same with psychotrophics. The drugs themselves are a force for good, but handing them out like candy so that people have to deal with the nasty task of getting unhooked is the problem. Go back and read the posts about the difficulty these folks have kicking the habit. Even a tiny dose causes some to have a life-long battle to get free. I maintainn it's not worth it. I wonder how many of these people who get hooked were ever asked by a doctor, "do you have an addictive personality?" or explored that possibility before prescribing. And how many share that yes this drug will give you a bit of energy and help you sleep, but one day you're going to have to kick the habit and it's going to be the toughest thing you ever do.
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The flip side of your observation is that there are many of us who suffer with very real, debilitating medical problems, such as severe intractable chronic pain or major depression or organ failures/transplant, and the list goes on, whose lives are made even slightly more bearable because of medication.
My own experience with various medications is fairly complicated, and I'm grateful for my doctors who always take my history into account, and begin any course of treatment as conservative as possible.
20 years ago I found myself spiraling downward into what seemed to become a deeper and deeper dark hole of depression and suicide. After spending 3 weeks in a suicide watch, with some good therapy, I was discharged, but far from being safe. The psychiatrist I saw prescribed Clonazepam at .5mg, and had me continue taking Wellbutrin.
Clonazepam will probably wave a big red flag in your face, but it has treated more than anxiety for me. It's also very helpful with my RLS. I tapered off it last fall, but I needed to restart it this week because I had spontaneous bilateral Achilles tendon ruptures caused by Levofloxacin, an antibiotic that I was given after surgery. Because of RLS, the tendons haven't healed after six weeks - my feet, ankles and legs are always moving - so I'm trying to calm them so I can heal.
Yet another health issue I face is CIDP, with severe burning pain beginning in my feet and moving upward. I have tried many, many medications over the past ten years and almost nothing has helped relieve the pain, except for a few that had bad side effects. The only medication that has helped is MS Contin. I took it for a number of years, then stopped to try 3 new medications (which didn't help at all), so my only option is to return to an opioid. And don't think for a minute that I haven't tried alternatives - pain therapy, spinal cord stimulator, cognitive and dialectical therapy, and ongoing mental health therapy weekly.
For many people, an opioid is the only treatment for their severe chronic pain. Every other option has failed. Now, those people are being demonized because of a medication which they take as prescribed, never abusing, never selling, only finding relief from the pain that could otherwise kill them, or at the least, pain that would cause all kinds of torture. Not having any pain medication on board right now leaves me in tears and is causing an increasing level of anxiety and depression.
My experience has been that every one of my doctors prescribes as conservatively as they can when they begin the process of finding a treatment. Every doctor takes opioids very seriously, and patients have to sign paperwork, prescriptions can only be given every 30 days, and doctors recite the scariest case scenario before they begin prescribing.
It has become a nightmare for those who legitimately need an opioid for intractable long term chronic pain, and that is a crime against innocent, responsible people.
I agree that many people are prescribed medication they don't really need. Not only do we live in a litigious society, but also a drug crazy one. I read articles every day about the huge quantities of meth, cocaine and fentanyl that are seized. Unfortunately much more makes its way to our streets. And another unfortunate effect of cutting people's appropriate prescriptions of opioids is that many people resort to finding it on those streets.
It's not a pretty picture.
Jim