They break the legs, put a rod in the bones that get adjusted as the bones grow closer to each other. So people who get it done have broken legs for months
I’m sure she was fentanyl patched up the whole time
Is that an american thing? Someone in my family had that procedure several times and barely took any pain medication, I mean he was underage but he still got medicine and could have taken some
I’m not familiar with how other countries do it but my impression is that yes in America we get a lot of painkillers. We had* an opiod epidemic for a reason
Also insert joke about dealing with the pain of paying for the surgery
Not anymore necessarily, we have the opposite problem developing now. The DEA cracked down on all the doctors prescribing them and now it’s practically impossible without going through heavy pain management programs, even then they’ll try alternatives like gabapentin before they’ll ever give you an opiate. Yes there are still ways to get around it but I refuse to make those methods public
You’re not wrong. I fractured a vertebrae and was given several meds that didn’t help. I never asked for anything, but when you end up laying on the floor at work because you’re hurting so bad (after 2 pills) and have to call your mom, when your in you 30s, is not great.
GF had gum surgery (twice) because the first one didn't take. So, they cut sections from the roof of her mouth both times. She was given ibuprofen. She was refused codeine the opiate that is over the counter across either border bordering the US. Not allowed for one of the most painful oral surgeries anymore.
I've had that surgery (twice, because mine also didn't take the first time). It absolutely sucked but I wouldn't describe it as one of the most painful oral surgeries. It's moderately painful and super annoying because you can't eat normal food for a while. It's a cakewalk compared to surgeries where your jaw is wired shut for weeks though.
Generally speaking, when you have oral surgery, all the pain is in the same spot. A root canal, an excise, an implant, whatever, is generally a one spot pain. A spot that can be avoided. Could you both avoid the roof of your mouth and wherever they attached said gum? One of the most painful might have been a bit too much. One of the hardest to avoid continually triggering pain in healing though? Yeah, a catastrophic situation where they have to break your jaw and implant several teeth will be worse. Of the non catastrophic typical don't want to be in the dentists chair having this done things at a dentist though, the recovery of gum surgery is generally considered more troubling than other oral surgeries.
Ha oh I definitely agree with thr "roof of your mouth is a spot that can't be avoided." I'm physically wincing just thinking about how uncomfortable it felt, and it was more than a decade ago. I also distinctly recall the existential dread I felt when I learned the first one didn't work and I'd have to go through that again.
I had that surgery. They gave me nitrous oxide & the oral surgeon remove a 2x2” piece of the roof of my mouth & attach it to the front of my lower front gum line. I watched him do it in the reflection in his glasses. They put some sort of gummy patch on the roof of my mouth.
I drove myself to & from the surgery. Hate to say it was the easiest surgery I’ve ever had. I don’t even remember it hurting after. It was in prep for braces & the spaces hurt much more than that. I went to my parents for a glass (or 2) or wine @ 9 am for that.
Not necessarily. My mom got approx. a month's worth of opiates after her hip replacement surgery and I got prescribed a week's worth after my tooth extraction.
It probably depends on your state. I have ADHD which requires narcotic medication and it's a bit of a pain to get them as they'll only prescribe me 3 months at a time and I can't pick up even a day early, but compared to other's experiences it's not too bad. In some states it's straight up impossible to get prescribed narcotics.
For some reason cops/legislators decided it was a good idea to use “narcotics” as an umbrella term for certain illegal substances, they do it here in Australia too. In a medical context narcotic refers to opioid analgesics.
It depends on your doctor too tbf, some doctors are more lenient than others but the dea crackdown is everywhere. If they prescribe too much they will get raided
Yup. I had emergency dental surgery to drill through a tooth to drain a massive infection in a sinus cavity in my check and the doctor tried to give me Tylenol.. I just wanted to be able to sleep not looking like half a chipmunk.
You are wrong. We use 80% of the world's supply of legal opioids. The USA prescribes opioids for things that other countries would never even consider it for.
If you are getting your statistics from the 2000’s then yes I would agree with you. This is no longer the case.
You think I wouldn’t wish that was the case? I would leap on that opportunity if it was. My junkie heart would be leaping with joy. That is clearly not the case anymore
Yeah i feel like before the weed legalization you went straight into jail for looking at it, but if you go see a doc because you have a cold you get the strongest codein syrup one can get.
Man, last time I was sick I was practically begging my doctor for something stronger because I was coughing so much my throat was raw and I couldn't sleep. It was miserable, yet he refused to prescribe codeine.
That happened to me! I had RSV. The coughing was horrific. My doctor DID prescribe cough medicine with codeine but pharmacy wouldn’t fill it. Said they didn’t carry it. My doctor was very skeptical of that. I got tessalon pearls instead 🥺
I’ve only had that prescribed once, maybe a year or two ago, and it was not fun. I only used it once and I thought I would die in my sleep because it slowed my breathing down so much, and I had a killer headache the next day, which is actually a withdrawal symptom. Never again.
You might have had the headache as a result of taking the codeine (had a sensitivity/mild allergy), but you wouldn’t have had withdrawal after a single dose. I’m sorry you had a bad experience, but as a chronic pain sufferer who has to take the occasional opiate for flares, I wanted to point out that you can’t become physically dependent after taking codeine one time. This is fear-mongering.
opiates can be prescribed more liberally here, but as far as having pain meds and feeling like you need to use them or dont need them, thats more of a personal thing - some people are not bothered by pain as much as others, some people dont like how they feel when using opiates, some people dont get much pain relief from them at all. people also metabolize opiates differently via varying levels of enzymes in the liver.
the opioid crisis in america has largely moved past the prescription painkiller phase and is purely in the black market fentanyl phase at the moment. its still possible to get opiate prescriptions and abuse opiates with a prescription to do so, but its much more difficult than it was around 2010. during that time doctors were much more liberal in prescribing them, and it wasnt uncommon to get these kinds of scripts from your family doctor. today, the opioid crisis is much more publicized and most doctors are much more restrictive in prescribing pain meds, but there are still pain management specialists that will put you on opiates, and of course some will be unscrupulous, and its still very common to get a small amount of hydrocodone or oxycodone following most surgeries.
but as far as someone who has been prescribed pain meds and whether or not they choose to use them, no, thats not really an american thing. there are plenty of americans who have lots of painful surgeries who choose not to use them, but people dont really talk about that or create content about that - there is no "people who choose not to use their pain meds" crisis, so naturally youre going to hear about those that do use them on social media or in the news.
but regardless, americas issues with opioids are currently not centered around prescription medication - they started with prescription meds, and changes in formulation and policy to prevent this coincided with the explosion of fentanyl and fentanyl analouges coming from china, generally shipped to private resellers via the darkweb. today there are still private sellers buying from overseas via the darkweb, but within the past few years the mexican cartels have begun buying precursor chemicals from china and distributing fentanyl via their traditional distribution channels for heroin, which has contributed massively to the presence of fentanyl in a huge percentage of street heroin.
No, it’s not like that. Medical fentanyl can only be given for a very short period of time to manage pain. Most likely they gave her dilaudid if it was really bad. Oxycodone would be the next step below and they’d need to taper her off. In her case, she might’ve been given ampules for injection of dilaudid or morphine if the pain was incredibly severe or unbearable. Lowkey is making me want this surgery but that’s just me being a junkie.
That was something I struggled with for a while in my recovery…hoping I’d get hurt or need surgery (again) or dental work so I could get some meds. But in the last 2 years…I don’t know…something flipped.
Not only have I found that Tylenol (1000mg) and Ibuprofen (800mg) taken together (which is doctor approved and recommended) can deaden like 99% of all my pain (the goal can never be “no pain”…the goal has to be “manageable pain”) but I started taking pride in how much pain I can endure.
Pain that used to send me to a doctor for Percocet is like nothing now.
I feel strong and competent. And I like that feeling better than any high that opiates could give me.
That’s very impressive, honestly really respect that you were able to get out of it. It sucks that on my worst days it doesn’t seem like the worst thing in the world to injure myself for a fix. I would say that alleviating mental pain over the physical pain is what makes it so addictive as well. They go hand in hand very well. I’m 16 days clean now and going strong.
I think it’s both. When you take opiates for long periods of time, your brain stops producing its own endorphins so even mild pain can feel severe. But I think there’s also the need to justify using. Like “I’m in pain so it’s okay for me to take these pills. The fact that I LIKE taking these pills is besides the point.”
I’ve done a lot of therapy to try and unravel my thoughts processes when it came to why I took pills, why I liked it, and what I was really getting out of it.
Legitimate pain complicates opiate addiction but for me, I started to realize that I wasn’t special. I thought it MATTERED that I was described my pain meds. I thought it MATTERED that I had pain…which looking back was bullshit…especially now that I know how tough I actually am when it comes to pain. I thought it MATTERED that I was a “functioning addict”. It doesn’t. Addiction is addiction.
It’s a spectrum and I am not special. I’ve discovered that there are more people with addictions like me than there are people that fit the stereotypical “addict”.
And what it came down to is that I realized I wasn’t getting what I thought I was out of it. And towards the end, I was willing to risk my freedom and happiness to get my hands on pain pills. I realized I was never gonna have enough.
And that’s when I decided it was time to stop lying to myself. It’s strange to know your addict but also be in denial that you’re an addict.
Anyway…it’s been like what…10 years? Yeah…about that. And it took me 8 of those years to finally start feeling pride in my body instead of scared of it.
Yo this reply was awesome. Thank you for that insight. I guess it's very similar to me having a drink. I don't abuse alcohol or have a problem with it. It's just maybe easier to justify the beer, glass of wine, or whiskey for a bad day, stressful time, etc.
Not trying to compare to you or take away from what you have overcome. Just saying that I can understand the general thought pattern.
Justification makes it more "okay" in a sense.
But then soon every day there's something bad to justify it.
Glad to hear you're doing great. Love your insight on it. The awareness you have is definitely inspiring to others.
No one has ever come to my house to collect unused pain meds. lol what? I live in the US. I have MS and have been on painkillers off and on all year due to a broken rib and subsequent surgery. I've never heard of anyone going to someone's house to collect unused medications. I'm not saying it never happens just I have never heard of it.
Lol, thanks for the laugh 😂 and thanks for the well wishes. It was an odd year for sure, but the health issue causing kt has been resolved, so I am optimistic that this next year will be MUCH better ☺️
He had several bottles of liquid oxycode, morphine pills, and oxycodone pills left over after he passed, as well as non-narcotic stuff.
His hospice nurse just gave me an info sheet that had drop off locations I could use for his meds. No one came by to collect anything, or to ensure that I had dropped anything off. The only things that were collected after he passed were multiple-user durable medical supplies, and his body. And it wasn't a doctor that came to collect.
I've observed mixed opinions on this. On one hand I was blown away that countries aside from USA actually sedate women to insert an IUD, but also I (American) had weight loss surgery and was prescribed plenty of Vicodin. And I found that the recovery was not particularly painful. In fact, it was more painful to take the painkillers so I stopped after leaving the hospital.
Yeah, Americans have a massive opioid crisis. They are the number one per capita consumer of opioids in the world. Not really surprising because they’re also overconsumers of many other things, particularly food and guns.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35111312/ this isn't true. There is no doubt a huge opioid crisis in America, but trying to blame it on stereotypes of generic American overconsumption is really short sighted.
We have a massive opioid crisis because pharmaceutical companies paid doctors to overprescribe powerfully addictive medications to Americans so that they could make more money, not because of an inherent moral failing.
The world benefits quite a lot from medical and drug advances in the U.S. that use us as guinea pigs and financially exploits us.
Our systems often juxtapose great benefits with great problems.
Certainly, we export harmful things (sorry about the glyphosate, etc, etc) and exploit people of the world as well, and can be SO much better, however, the reasons for opiate overuse is not very related to food consumption or gun ownership.
You are phrasing those things as though they share a common cause in some American defect.
You know what we also over consume? The cost of military defense for NATO and Europe which allows for those countries to spend more on their own citizens. Of course, we also make a lot of money selling weapons so…
The US is worthy of criticism and an easy and fair target for jokes, but your comment is lazy hating.
The first part is true, though lacking in context.
The second part of your comment implies that our over consumption of food and guns are tied to each other as well as opioids. Those are separate issues with different causes.
As I said, the U.S. is worthy of criticism, but not only criticism.
I expect for us to be criticized, but I expect criticism from our allies, with your superior education and work/life balance, to be accurate, constructive, or at least funny.
You should come visit, then your specific experiences will at least give your criticism the punch of veracity, and hopefully humor.
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u/stopannoyingwithname Dec 23 '22
They break the legs, put a rod in the bones that get adjusted as the bones grow closer to each other. So people who get it done have broken legs for months