Opioid Epedimic!

Got constipated and didn't sh#t for three days. It was awful

My number one job is to get "kneebar pads" and become a Rifle turd again..

No sh!t

sounds like many of us would rather tolerate major pain than become constipated. ;)

The three bottles of pills I was given after my release I ran through the garbage disposal

NOW. My beef is this. Even though I take it a bit more easy, I'm still cranking tough, pack burro racing and making the occasional BASE jumps and NO Doctors will prescribe anything. Where are all these over-prescribing doctors I can't stop hearing about?? And by the way, life is a bitch sometimes and people have chronic pain. To be clear, I have fantastic health insurance and do have a moderate monthly supply of Percocets from my Dr.

side effects may include rectal bleeding

I work in some of the worst parts of Los Angeles as a firefighter paramedic and have for the past 30 years and I haven't seen real life mirror what the news portrays. What I see on occasion are heroin overdoses but OD's due to taking too many pain meds are very rare at least in the areas i have worked, South Central, East LA and more recently the Sunland Tujunga area. Alcohol is far and away a bigger issue and more abused than pain meds but you don't see a huge public outcry reigning in alcohol abuse. Same with pot, the only calls I have been on concerning pot are first timer kids freaking out. Alcohol use creates a myriad of problems, domestic abuse, DUI, long term health issues, and just plain old acting like a d#@&%ebag. Not saying pot doesn't do the same but I just haven't seen it.
Back to the opioid issue It is a real problem but I don't think it's as bad as the press makes it out to be, at least not in LA where I work.

It is a real problem but I don't think it's as bad as the press makes it out to be,

Middle class are involved, but "prime" users I'm not seeing it from the things I've been reading and my own family involvement. The difference in why it's getting more attention, in my mind, is that the addicts and overdoses are almost all white people. If it were POC, country would collectively shrug it off.

There's little outcry over the same numbers of traffic deaths.

Outcry is not a good metric to measure societies attention to a problem

D#@&%ebag response Ken M, you're obviously one of those dipshits that doesn't read the OP and just likes to listen to yourself blather.

I'm not out seeking more meds. Just asking what ST folks have to say about this supposed epedimic. I'm doing just great.. thanks.

Just why do opioids — painkillers that run the gamut from codeine and morphine to oxycodone and the fentanyl patch — lead to dependence, or in other cases become so stubbornly addictive?

First, let's look at how they work.

When ingested, the drugs bind to opioid receptors on the surface of cells, primarily in the central and peripheral nervous system — much like keys fitting into a lock — and block the transmission of pain messages to the brain.

But opioids also work on multiple systems in the body, including the one that controls emotions, giving rise to feelings of pleasure, relaxation and often euphoria.

What's insidious about the medications is that they create physical dependence: over even a short period of time, patients build up a tolerance and need increasingly higher doses to achieve the desired effects, says Dr. David Juurlink, head of clinical pharmacology and toxicology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto.

"Let's say I put you on opioids for a week or two and you suddenly stop them," he says. "You would feel very unwell. The symptoms vary from person to person, but they include pain — generalized pain, pain in the abdomen, pain in the legs.

"When you resume the drug, you feel better. And so you can see how a patient would construe that as evidence of effectiveness and even ongoing need for the drug, even after the pain-relieving effects have waned with time."

While short-term use of opioids can be a godsend for people with acute pain related to cancer, accidental injury or following surgery, many doctors now realize the narcotics aren't really beneficial for long-term treatment of chronic conditions such as arthritis, nerve damage or back pain.

"In fact, they cause pain," says Dr. Mark Ujjainwalla, co-founder and medical director of the opioid addiction clinic Recovery Ottawa. "So you get this hyperesthesia thing," he says. "It's actually a paradox. So the more opioids you get, the more painful everything is."

Physical dependence is pretty well a given for the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have been prescribed an opioid, most of them for chronic pain.......

Physical dependence is pretty well a given for the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have been prescribed an opioid, most of them for chronic pain.......

Is there really and epedimic?