Lets please try and be civil here. Victim blaming is not-ok (by policy no less). You want to discuss the finer points of pharmacology, psychology, physiology and the healthcare system, feel free.
More on-topic: Someone close to me has Ankylosing Spondylitis, and received Fentanyl by dermal patch, and has done so for years now. It sucks. The recent crackdown has made getting the meds themselves a chore. But they manage to function and be a productive member of society every day regardless. Never underestimate personal will and motiviation in the face of adversity.
I just got around to reading through the majority of the comments and i think it’s been quite civil, but definitely doesn’t hurt to have a reminder. No one except those closest to Oswalt’s wife know her particular circumstances and why she was taking what she was taking.
Even if she were inappropriately using prescribed meds having the disclosure from Patton Oswald is definitely brave. I don’t take any medication because they scare the shit out of me, but i suffer from anxiety and depression. It’s not severe… most of the time, but it has been a few times where all i wanted was sanity and relief. If it was something i had to deal with more often i think i would want to take something but the side effects and health risks really do bother me. I’m not keen even on taking Excedrin for my migraines but i’m forced to because it works.
You missed what was deleted before you got to the thread. Believe me, it needed to go. Unfortunately, I made some points in my response that I think would have added to the discussion had it stayed, but I made the mistake of quoting directly from an offending post.
And yet, I have a pathological liar acquaintance who got a Vancouver doctor to prescribe him the Fentanyl patch for back pain. He shopped up from Oxy. I have never seen this guy complain of pain. He walks. He drives. He doesn’t use a cane. He isn’t dying. If I ever see his doctor, he better run.
That explains it i suppose, i only just looked at the thread this morning. I think it’s easy to be a bit jaded and bash other people for their choices, whether those choices are good or bad. Patton Oswalt doesn’t have to share about his loss and how it happened but he is. Hopefully this will help someone avoid a similar fate, regardless if it’s a case of medication abuse or a missed health diagnosis.
The main thing that I avoid is pain medication, partly because I find pain useful. If my knee hurts when I’m running, it’s probably because there’s something wrong in my knee. If I just take analgesics until I can run again, I’m probably going to make things worse, not better.
So, I try to use pain as an indicator of when I’m pushing myself too far, which is hard if you turn the pain off.
On the other hand, if I know that what I’m doing will not exacerbate an injury, and the pain is interfering with my concentration when I really need to be able to concentrate (say, a really bad sinus headache at work, or any kind of pain that’s keeping me awake at night), I will take something at that point.
But then, I am incredibly lucky in that I am able to manage the small amounts of chronic pain that I have (knees and wrists) through exercise. My mother, on the other hand, has been swapped between different NSAIDs so many times that I wouldn’t be able to guess what the number is, looking for one that doesn’t give her horrible acid reflux. She was thrilled to be put on Vioxx (which was much better in that respect), until it was withdrawn from the market because there were indications that it might result in increased heart and stroke risk.
I don’t respect my mother any less because she has to use pain medication to get by (quite the opposite, in fact; I don’t think I could have dealt so well having been given half of the physical pains and problems that she’s had to deal with). But, seeing the number of pills that she has to take on a daily basis, some of which seem to be for side effects of drugs of drugs she’s taking to deal with side effects of the painkillers), I think that part of my own stubbornness is trying to avoid ending up needing to be prescribed that kind of daily regimen.
I’m due for a pulmonary valve in the next year or two. I’ve always known I’d need some other surgery eventually - most people with Tetralogy of Fallot have had at least two surgeries by my age. That kid from the Volkswagen “use the Force” commercial a few years ago has it, and he had like 2 surgeries and a pacemaker and he’s maybe 10 years old? To have made it to 44, with one surgery done in the 70’s, is something my cardiologists find pretty amazing.
Chronic pain sucks, for me i’m probably in your camp. Minor pain that i can manage and use as a gauge that i’m not doing something properly or that i should be more careful. My mom on the other hand has been dealing with a more severe and chronic pain from the waist down for the past few years, it’s been worse lately and i genuinely feel bad for her. I don’t think she’s taken any of the more potent forms of pain killers yet but i know she’s been desperate enough lately that she would not mind.
This is part of why I don’t take many pain meds ever for my back, beyond ibuprofen at times. If I’m doing something that causes my back injury to hurt, I should probably stop.
For me it’s usually sleeping on it a certain way as well, and sitting a certain way when at the computer at home. Takes a few days for it to stop hurting
