hey gfp, have to sound off about the opioid "histeria."
in 1997, i was told I would never work again, due to no cartilidge left in my L5, lower back.
I told the pa to please not talk to me so negatively in the future, and I had every intention of finding a way to work.
I had what I consider to be the best bone man in Myrtle Beach, and he told me that with what I have, if it was him, he would absolutely NOT have surgery, as he had seen people back for 4-5-7 surgeries to try and correct the first one as bones continue to decay around first surgery. Common with my condition of DDD, or degenerative Disk Disease. (very common) He said no surgery until I was faced with a wheel chair and to come up with a plan with my doctor to deal with it.
SO, with my doctors help, I started 2 businesses, with 2-4 locations every summer, summer businesses, about 4 months a year, for 11 years.
I had been on opioids for 20 YEARS, always using my regular doctor, or one of his pa's that knew me and my history once my doctor retired/got sick/stopped practicing.
So I tried to keep that link back to my original doctor, actually that relationship reached back into the 1980's. But moved onto one of his employees that knew me from being employed by him. I made sure not to doctor shop, always using the same pharmacy.
I started on Darvaset, a drug that had been on the market for 20 years before being pulled. I was on it for years and could work the 12 hour days needed, standing, behind a photo counter, using tricks of bring 2 or 3 pairs of shoes and changing them throughout the night. Darvaset worked well for me for several years, then stopped working so well and they tried me on vicodin. I felt like I could not sell and interact with our customers on that so I went back to Darvaset and sucked up the pain.
I also went to physical therapy for 11 YEARS, two or three times a week, lucky for me they were located way to my main location that myself and 2 kids manned. In fact the daughter of one of those therapists worked for me for 4 or 5 years. I had up to 20 kids working for me every summer and paid them 10 bucks an hour when the min wage was 6.xx. It was worth it to me as I would have to close a location for the night, thereby risking my business with the owner of that location, so I paid them well with the understanding that I would fire them for just one mistake of not showing up. Only had to do that once or twice over all those years as 10-11 bucks an hour was good money back then for a 15 year old.
Anyway, it was great to have found a way to only have to work 4-5 months a year. When I no longer could stand up for such long periods, I tried and let the kids run the locations but kids will be kids, and that didn't work with out me there to growl at them.
So, working with one of the pa's that knew me and linked back to my original doctor, I went on a weak dose of vicodin. I bought this place out here, 4 acres, big house, lots of work, great life. Had it down so for years my pa would write a script for pain medicine with 5 refills, or six months total. I went to the doctor twice a year.
They never did have a replacement for Darvacet when they took it off the market, then they started this can only write a handwritten script for 30 days, and a max of 3 individual scripts at once, no more pa's, docs only. It was a pain in the ass, butt they kept writing them for me, now i was having to go to doc 4 times a year.
then my pa, moved to an urgent care place and I had the choice of trying the doctor over there with a meeting, or keeping the doc who had been writing my scripts for a few years, without knowing me but relieing on my 2 inch file that included info from the mayo clinic in jacksonville, fl, confirming my bone docs reports for 1997.
moving to her urgent care center sounded like doc swapping to me, so i decided to stay where i was. on my first visit with new pa, she came into the room with two pieces of paper stapled together, not my 2 inch file. she gave me a script for one months worth of vicodin and said this would be the last one i would get, AND HAD ALREADY DISCUSSED IT WITH THE DOC IN THE HALL BEFORE SHE EVEN MET ME. that's how crazy the whole thing is, they have been scared into NOT writing any scripts, and send folks like me off to "pain managment" centers so they don't have to treat us, just pass the problem off.
I should mention that once when I thought I might have a rare type of bone cancer, I want off all my meds overnight, for about 30 days and a trip to the mayo clinic. I lost a little sleep the first night and was fine after that. I am doing fine this time except my quality of life is about 50% of what it was been since 1997. I can barely cut the lawn without the pain being excruciating in my lower back. Simple pool chores have become impossible and darn hard. I feel like I have aged 30 years. For me those pills were life changing for the better, I once went a year using pills I had saved up in freezer when we couldn't locate where a pa had gone and didn't want to start over, or doctor shop.
I should mention that they have NO ANSWER for a replacement drug for pain, just nothing. We have had to consider moving to a med pot state, but I don't like that stuff, least didn't as a kid.
now it therabeads hot pack to start every day on my lower back, and all day trying not to hurt it, where if it started hurting before, I would just take a magic pill, and the pain would be gone.
the figures you see on tv include herion and lots of other nasty stuff, lumped into "opioids" you like offbeat stuff, look at how all this started when the THIRD most powerful man in the country lost his 20 something, just a guess, drug addict, son, to opioids. That's when they started the government war on medicines that had been on the market 20 plus years, first saying it was the aniceptimene that was mixed with the drugs, and then just going all out against them using every media outlet at their disposal, giving us ligitimate users, without dependcey issues, (remember a years worth of ones that I had frozen, not exactly like a dependant would do, they would take every last one they could, rather than when they needed it. Now I get what feels like an ice pick, same feeling I had back in 1997, sticking in my back 24x7. no way to live.
I have no interest in going to a pain management clinic, scam for pills, already know there is no cure, just managment between doctor and patient, that worked fine, my doc knew i don't drink so he didn't have worry about me mixing stuff with the medicine, until the government, after the speakers kid/blood dies did we start down this road where i already felt like a drug addict going to my pa the last few years, now they are getting letters from the fda and cdc, WITH NO OTHER OPTIONS FOR US.
hi, i am from the government and i am here to help,
Run the f away fast.
AI
