What do you do when you need to take pain meds and work?

[Kaye]

This may seem like a no brainer, but when your Dr. perscribes a pain med for you and you have to work, what do you do? We are always tought not to work impaired, and each month in the state news letter, there are names of nurses losing their liscence for being impaired by drugs. So my question is this, what do you do if you have pain bad enough that you can not make it 8 or 12 hrs with out meds. Do you work and not take meds? Do you go on and take your meds and work? Do you stay home on the days the pain is really bad?

[duckboy20]

That may be the results of that study but those results will mean nothing to the jurors while you are in a courtroom due to the fact that a patient of yours died on your shift while you were wearing a fentanyl patch.

[elkpark]

ditto, Duckboy20. The issue is not really whether you would actually be impaired, but that, in case something did actually go wrong (whether your own fault or not!), there would be little you could say to argue that the narcs were not a factor ... I would never consider it a risk worth taking.