The current policies are pressuring doctors to reduce longstanding opioid prescriptions. The former regulatory policies encouraged the medical community to prescribe them in the first place.
These patients are having the rug pulled out from under them. Some of them just can't take it and are ending their own lives.
All to true the people who are abusing the opioids are the issue, now I get that they were over prescribed at one time, but people got smart to it and wanted to try it, therefore creating addicts who didn’t need the meds to begin with, so do we blame the doctors or the idiots abusing it? Now people like myself are forced to go to a pain mgmt doctor who is decent but doesn’t listen to a word I say. I live with 3 chronic illnesses and some days I just cry from the pain. I also see patients having massive major surgeries and sent home with only a 5 day prescription for Percocet? We are taking cancer patients who just had a Hipec or Whipple! It honestly disgusts me!
I would agree the pendulum has probably swung too far in some areas, but there are also totally appropriate changes that need to happen. One thing we know is that we have been prescribing excessive opiates at discharge from surgeries, and that these surplus opiates are a significant source of the beginnings of opiate abuse. 5 days of opiates after discharge from most surgeries is totally appropriate.
I am hospice nurse, who happened to have had an emergency appendectomy 3 yrs ago.... here's my 2 cents. I constantly have pts with unmanaged ( and often unreported pain). I think we have , as a society, mostly terrified people into reporting pain accurately. And I am Specifically talking about terminal pts . It's a terrible thing to see a pt in pain and they refuse pain meds as ' they don't want to be addicted'. I do as I much as I possibly can to alleviate that ( again these are hospice pts) and educate on effects both physical and mental on undertreated pain. It's very sad. But sometimes people listen
When I had appendectomy, I think I was given way too many pills at discharge. I think was percocet? Used about 5 and flushed rest.
I think docs give unrealistic pain management expectations. I used to work as a CNA on a neuro unit where we frequently got spine surgery pts. Almost all of them said " I didn't know it was gonna hurt".
I have trigeminal neuralgia and although I know that so many out there can suffer from way more pain than I ever endured, my TN is the most painful thing *I* ever experienced in my life.
I will never forget the mentality of the ED staff, the choice of words, and huge medical bills (I'm still getting new bills in the mail and I am still on payment plans seven months later) because of my hospitalization related to this condition. I will suffer in pain and would probably cut off a limb if I had to rather than turn to my own profession for help ever again.
There is good news! Fortunately, the experience led to lifestyle changes and I was able to reverse most of my symptoms with diet. I very rarely rely on medication for pain relief. I was never prescribed and will not take opioids as they don't do anything to alleviate this type of pain.
Does this change the way I approach my patients in relation to their pain and their experience? Yes.
Do I believe there are many ways to manage pain? Yes.
MunoRN, RN
8,058 Posts
I would agree the pendulum has probably swung too far in some areas, but there are also totally appropriate changes that need to happen. One thing we know is that we have been prescribing excessive opiates at discharge from surgeries, and that these surplus opiates are a significant source of the beginnings of opiate abuse. 5 days of opiates after discharge from most surgeries is totally appropriate.