New face of addiction in America

sheilagh · Sep 19, 2009

I could have told you that! I was a "pain clinic" customer for a while till it didn't meets my needs and I started diverting. The Doc gave me a 10 min exam and then I never saw him again,but the pills kept coming....

sissiesmama, ASN, RN · Sep 19, 2009

I could have told you that! I was a "pain clinic" customer for a while till it didn't meets my needs and I started diverting. The Doc gave me a 10 min exam and then I never saw him again,but the pills kept coming....

Me too! The pain clinic doc I saw gave me the 10 min. exam, and I knew him from the hospital where I was working. When I tried to see him again as the pain mgmt policy stated, the staff said, "Oh, no. He knows you from the hospital. Are the meds still adequate or are you hurting more? He said he will just start calling your rxs in."

After just a little while, I was in TROUBLE, meaning I couldn't go a day without my narc pain meds or muscle relaxers, and he had been "run" out of town and isn't a practicing MD anymore.

Anne, RNC

Thunderwolf, MSN, RN · Sep 20, 2009

I find it interesting that the prescription overdose trend also tends to show some parallels to JCAHO's goal in improving a patients alleviation of pain. I would really like to see some studies that may demonstrate or not a correlation between the two...JCAHO and rising prescription drug overdoses. I wouldn't be surprised that a correlation exists, proving some iatrogenesis.

LilRedRN1973 · Sep 20, 2009

My addiction also started with pain medication, first prescribed for my numerous oral surgeries (for which I was easily able to obtain refills, long after the surgeries were over) and then for my rheumatoid arthritis (for which narcotics are not the ideal medications). I could go to my primary care doctor and tell him I was in pain....he would quickly write out a prescription for 90 Norco's with 2 refills, no questions asked. If I called up within a month or so, he would call in more. There came a day when I had decided enough was enough but wasn't ready to go cold turkey. I went to him and told him I wanted to get off the narcotics for my arthritis pain. I think I was hoping for a clonidine prescription and anything else that may have helped my withdrawal symptoms. Instead of asking questions or having me go more in depth as to why I wanted to stop taking the narcotics, he wrote out a prescription for 75 Norcos. I had no problems getting benzos written for me, especially when the docs knew I was a nurse, etc.

What's sad is that in our town, you can ask around and be "referred" to the doc who will write lots of pain meds/benzos without hardly examing you. It's common knowledge which docs do it. I found my PMD through that very same route....because I was an addict who wanted an endless supply of my drug of choice. I wish doctors were educated more or took the time to care about what they were prescribing and how much they were prescribing. My mother was never warned about the dangers of Xanax...I had to tell her. And my mother-in-law didn't understand how addictive Klonopin could be and thought they were harmless "no worry" pills. I still sometimes think it would be nice to have that quick fix, but I know that quick fix rapidly turns into a downward spiral of hopelessness and self-hatred....somewhere I'm NOT willing to return to. I'm coming up on 15 months of sobriety and have felt better than I ever have in my life...without the use of any medications, including anti-depressants. I've become more aware of the destructive thoughts that tend to gather in my mind and have the tools to work on those, turning them into positive actions. Today, I am grateful and thankful for my sobriety. I feel for those who are still struggling and their struggles made more difficult by the false sense of security some become lulled into by their doctors.