We’re Thinking About Pain All Wrong, NYT

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/24/...e_code=1.Ik0.tZLV.Sl5LJHqWgxA0&smid=url-share

 

If you're in pain, they should just give you as much opioids as you need. It's better to be addicted to drugs than in intractable pain.

 

I take an opioid (Tramadol). I was prescribed a very high dose (up to 8 capsules per day) in the beginning, and I rapidly dropped the dose in the first month I took them. I can't remember the exact details now, but I ended up on 2 or 4 per day for quite a while. Then the pain got worse. I discussed raising my dose with a member of this forum who suggested to me that taking too high a dose of pain killers can make pain worse. So, I experimented and dropped my dose to 1 - 2 capsules per day and it helped a lot. I haven't taken more than two in a day for quite a few years now. I'm still prescribed 8 per day.

One problem I had with the Tramadol is that I didn't realise in the beginning that my doctor thought she had to treat occasional severe pain (that she obviously didn't really believe in), when really I had pain every day, all the time. It was a life-altering level of pain, but having the means to manage it myself allowed me to reduce it quite dramatically, and has improved my quality of life a lot.

 

As with pain noted in the article, there is also othering done in searching for a harmful habit, that may have contributed to another's death.

Finding a suspected cause or causes of another's demise, that do not reflect our own lifestyle may falsely reassure us we are not at risk.