Sitemap

health advisory Hospital Doctor Yu 2007-11-8 19:09:39

Were you with this person each time he went to the doctor? Narcotic pain medicine is relatively safe when used as prescribed and for a short term. If the patient abuses the medication and is constantly asking for early refills then the problem needs to be addressed.

The narcotics are masking the true problem and that is the back injury. Correcting the injury through surgical or physical therapy methods would decrease the need for the narcotics. There are also some good non-narcotic pain medicines, just ask the doctor to prescribe one.

Sometimes you have to weigh the pros and cons of giving a narcotic. The MD is treating the pain with the narcotics; this is kind of a double edge sword. On thwe one hand you get narcotic pain relief on the prescription of a board certified MD and risk addiction, then on the other hand if the MD did not treat the pain aggressively then you run the chance of the patient obtaining illicit drugs on the street and if caught will spend time in jail and the back injury would likely be swept under the rug so to speak.

I hope this helps. The best thing is to support and encourage the patient. Be positive and reassure.

---

I sympathize with the heartache. There is probably no way to know what the doctor was thinking about other than relieving pain. It is also true that NA and AlAnon, along with Rational Recovery all teach that if you allow the user to not be responsible for their actions, recovery will not be possible. It's harsh but they seem to know what they are talking about.

---