Older Patients and Pain Meds

I don't deny there is prescription drug abuse -- especially with stolen prescriptions or some small percentage of doctors who are sleazy and will write scripts for profit. But there is also the legitimate need to treat real pain. I broke a rib last fall -- #11 in my back. The pain was off the scale of anything I have ever experienced--especially when trying to get from a laying or sitting position to standing. I don't know how I'd have gotten through the first 3 or 4 days without the Oxycodone the ER doc prescribed for me. It brought the pain down from an 11 on a 1-to-10 pain scale to maybe a 6 or 7 -- back within the bounds of bearable. The good news for me was that after about 4 days the pain ramped down to a point where I could stop the Oxy and switch to Ibuprofin. I never needed to use all of my Oxy pills -- but I'm hanging on to the few that remain just in case I do something again that brings back that kind of pain.

I worry about the political leaders who want to make an issue of prescription abuse. I don't support abuse. But it worries me that in the effort to prevent abuse, real patients with real pain may end up denied the medication that will enable them to cope.

Jim

Here's another article that points out opioid abuse as an urgent problem with baby boomers:

www.medscape.com/viewarticle/776128