LindaHP

The sea snail venom is a good idea. My view is that in this day and age there should be some better drugs out there that are non narcotic. This is not a black and white issue, there are lots of gray areas. I cant make a blanket statement like ALL people should have their pain down to a 1 or 2 because that might be impossible for some. It is important to put our personal feelings aside about pain control issues and look at the patient at hand. Just as I cant look at my patients and think, "oh he's going to od someday like my sister, lets not get him any pain med." Other nurses need to put their own chronic pain aside and look at the patient that is before them. Their pain might not be able to be totally controlled. Or they MIGHT be an addict. In which case they are going to have a lot of other problems besides pain. I, as a nurse, can only go through the options that are available at this time for this patient. If I see signs of addiction, (not tolerance, but addiction) then I can address that at the time. I cant go out there as a nurse and insist that each and every person with pain have it completely eliminated. I do home health and I see a lot of chronic pain patients. My experience is that some need some changes in the type of pain medicine they are using. Some get good results with things like tegretol, for example. Some get no results with demerol and good results with vicodin. There needs to be better non narcotic drugs out there. And maybe that is coming since there is more of a market for it now. Hmmmmm....where can I buy stock in Sea Snails : )

Hi all, still a very good topic. Yes, my sister was labeled as a "drug seeker". She was taking the pain meds as instructed to my knowledge. There were other factors with her, but the main thing is that she would be needing pain med for the rest of her life, since no one seems to get better from fibromyalgia. My main concern and what I still dont understand is do long term pain patients have to continually increase their doses of, for example, oxycontin? And if so, where does that leave them in 10 years? I agree that pain management is very important. I have had my share of back injuries and even though I thankfully get better, those weeks of pain are horrible. It effects every aspect of my life if I am hurting.

I agree that patients need their pain addressed. A terminally ill patient needs all their pain addressed. But someone who is in their 30's with chronic pain should not be given pain meds that are going to need increasing doses due to tolerance. There is such a push to medicate people with chronic pain. Yet where are these people going to be in 30 years? This is where I get confused and am wondering what the LONG term plan is for chronc pain patients. I write this with a certain amount of anger. My sister had fibromyalgia. I suggested she go to a pain clinic, thinking they would address her ever increasing tolerance to narcotics. No, they gave her ms contin, plus ms quick release for break through pain. She was in her 30's. She overdosed by the time she was 39. So I have a notion that there is not much out there still for a long term pain situation in a peson who is not terminally ill.

Thank you to both of you, that gives me some info to go on. The company I work for now, doing long term care insurance assessments allows me to dicate which zip codes I will work in. So I only work in the ones within half an hour of my home. So far most people are flexible. I am imagining that people applying for life insurance are younger and busier, though. I am going to follow up on all these ideas. Thank you so much. I simply have to find some work that fits in with my kid's school schedule.

Hi, thank you for all the good info. Wondering if that "paramedical" company utilized R.N.s or ? The company I work for now uses R.N.s and L.P.N.s. Mainly because we are assessing their risk for cognitive problems. I have also always wondered how I could do a physical that would include a blood draw without an M.D. order. How does that work within the guidelines of Registered Nurses? This type of work seems to pay the highest and yet still flexible within my kid's school times. thanks for any info. Linda

Hi all! I am trying to find a job doing life insurance or medical insurance physicals. (the kind where the nurse goes to the applicants home or business, and does a physical assessment, blood draws, etc) I cant seem to find out where these type of jobs are. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I already do long term care insurance assessments, but would like to do more of this type of work. Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated. I have searched the web but am unsure of where to look.

I agree. Hubby makes much less than I do, but I am the one who wanted to stay home with the kids. The nurses I know that worked all through their kids' childhood was due to pressure from their husbands and because they made more money than their husbands. I think the reason more nurses work is because it is lucrative. If we only had the ability to work at the local 7-11 then we would not get pressure to help support our famililes. I know a speech therapist who hates her job, yet she has worked full time for years because her husband and she want to retire early. Her retirement will come about the time her kids go off to college. She only sees them after 6pm and some weekends. She is not happy. .

This has been an issue for me. I loved my job until I got married and had kids. Now my family means everything to me. I love being a stay at home mom. However, I have had to work to make ends meet and therefore have been working every weekend since we had our kids , and only Saturdays for the past year. In just a few days my kids will be going back to school and the youngest will be in first grade full days. So I am lucky enough to be in home health and have a flexible schedule. I will be dropping the kids off at school, and then going to work for 5 hours, finishing in time to pick them up. I will probably work 3 days a week. Here's the dillemma: I have been a nurse since 1983 and I am really good at it. My heart just isnt in it. I look longingly at the gas station attendant and think, "what a great job" LOL. My nursing friends all admit to burnout, yet continue to "climb the ladder" into management. I hate the system. I am very lucky in one regard. I am a per diem nurse. I can spend as much time as necessary with a patient in home health. I dont care if my productivity is down because I know they wont hassle me too much. So the only redeeming factor in the world of nurse burn out, is knowing that I helped a patient figure out how to take care of themselves better or helped them figure out how the "system works" : ) As far as my family goes, it took a long time to make them my career. I still feel twinges of guilt but mostly I am deeply satisfied with my family life.