@gman007 actually it's not 20 per year, my PCP generally gives me an Rx for 10 and that is about one time a year. I know I do not have a problem but he is a real gnat and very reluctant to prescribe much of anything of that nature.
When I was in significant pain after a knee replacement in the fall, I needed one of the medications that cannot be called in to the pharmacy. My doctor was more than an hour away, in Boston so he called my PCP and asked him to give me a prescription of enough to get me through the weekend. My PCP would not. Thankfully I had some pills leftover of the same type from an earlier problem and I was able to use them to get through the weekend until the prescription arrived in the mail. I really did not feel that my PCP had my best interest in heart when he said no to that. He knows me well enough to know I am not at all an abuser of drugs.
JK

@contentandwell, I rant about physicians treating to FDA/DEA statements and not their patients on a regular basis. I have a new psychiatrist who feels that if she is reasonably confident that medications will be taken as prescribed, she is going to treat patients with the knowledge she worked so hard to acquire and not base treatment on what government agencies suggest. I do believe there are some continuing ed. requirements for opiate prescription writing and additional oversight that a lot of PCP's don't want the added hassle needed to write opioid scripts.
Blessings, Gary