I honestly don't care if someone is addicted to prescription painkillers if that's what it takes for them to function without pain.
This puritanical idea that we should not use or have access to medicines that work because "drugs bad" gets people killed across multiple types of care.
America is making people eat useless Tylenol and other NSAIDs by the handful until they get liver damage because god forbid we give them something potentially addictive THAT WORKS.
@gwynnion I got the impression that doctors were a bit more free about prescribing opioids during that period. I got a prescription once for mild pain I chose to manage with acetaminophen. But, it wasn't like they prescribed a painkiller for no reason. Another time I did have serious pain, and I don't know how I'd have got through it without pain relief.
I kept wondering why all the articles about opioids never discussed why so many people were in chronic pain.
Back 2018, I had a badly broken arm - titanium plate - the full monty! The hospital in Thailand who did the surgery completely botched it to the extent that, two years later, surgeons here in Luxembourg were debating whether or not to strip out all the work that the Thai surgeon had done, rebreak the arm and redo the job properly!
For three years, I was in severe pain and my GP would only prescribe NSAIDS. Finally, one day my orthopaedic consultant asked me what pain relief I had been prescribed and when I told him he said "you must be in agony", I admitted that I found the pain difficult to cope with and he put me straight on Tramadol - he said "this will stop it" - it did. One dose and "pain what pain".
However when I went to my GP to get my prescription repeated she when crazy - that stuff is really addictive I don't want you getting hooked on it..." She did give me a scrip for it just the same!
