Alas, the 'topic' of pain medications and how or if they are prescribed is ongoing on every forum.

Doctors, pharmacists and drug insurers are all very carefully monitored by the DEA. Having the DEA on 'your back' is truly frightening. Each part of the prescription process is on high alert, as a result.

The current 'accepted wisdom' about most prescription pain medication is this:

1. Opioids are only effective for short term pain.
2. Opioids lose their effectiveness beyond this short term period, requiring either greater amounts or a switch to something stronger.
3. The black market for opioids is a major problem in our country, part of the current opioid crisis.
4. The leading cause of death for Americans under 50 is opioid overdose.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/overdos...cans-under-50/
5. Manufacturers of prescription opioids carried out an intense campaign to encourage doctors to prescribe opioids, starting about 25 years ago. Now the effects have created a major crisis.

So what those of us who rely on pain medications must deal with is the 'blow back' from the attempts to curb the epidemic.

The way to deal with this is to have ongoing and frank discussions with your doctor(s). The sense of persecution that those who rely on pain medications are often experiencing can be intense. I have found that anger doesn't serve me well when dealing with any part of the prescription process, or any medical service.

By the way, the reason that opioids became so popular in the US (they are completely banned in some western European countries) is:

1. Doctors were encouraged to prescribe them.
2. Doctors prescribed them because their patients found relief from pain.
3. Pharmacists filled the prescriptions.
4. Drug insurers liked opioids because they are much cheaper than most other medications for pain.

However those who become addicted often finally resorted to Heroin, since Heroin in even cheaper than black market opioids.

And finally, the reason some people become addicted is that they are lacking a neural connection that most people have. The addictive substance closes that connection, and the person lacking that connection suddenly feels great.

The drugs to fight opioid addiction (Methadone, Suboxone, and others) bridge that gap in the neural connection, reducing the craving and 'bouncing out' the opioid or heroin if taken. Patients must have urine tests at each visit to the prescribing psychiatrist to insure compliance.

Only once in my experience with opioids did I stumble across a medication that 'made me high'. I was astounded, and finally 'got' why addicts like opioids, but the second dose sent me into anaphylactic shock (what happens when I take an opioid). It had a piece of torn meniscus stuck in my knee joint and was in agony.

When I finally had the arthroscopic surgery to remove the piece, I was sent home with Tylenol for pain. I have learned to deal with many many kinds of pain, relying only on Tylenol, Gabapentin (not an opioid) and Cymbalta (an antidepressant on label for pain, which I now have to give up due to disabling side effects).

I recently fractured my lumbar spine in a hard fall backwards. I am waiting out the healing (no surgery required) and become somewhat discouraged. Pain is a terrible thing.

We need better medications for pain, and we need to insure that those in pain can have the currently available medications that they need.

Regards, ElaineD