Saturday, November 14, 2009

Dopes


According to a new item in this morning's Globe, Canadians are setting new records.

At using and abusing pain killers and other prescription drugs.

Half a million doses a day.

Nice.

And just to complicate matters, the geniuses who respond to these problems are sending such addicts to...wait for it...yes, methadone clinics.

So they can get even more addicted.

Sweet.

The culprits in this epidemic are Big Pharma and your local family doctor.

The drug companies are no different than GM, only way more ruthless.

And your local MD is a lazy, thoughtless ass, who is constrained by system payments to give you exactly six and a half minutes per visit.

Remember,

You must be your first and own best advisor.

Doctors will be of enormous help...if first, you are responsible and intelligent about your own care.

4 comments:

Phil Evans said...

David - unless you're being facetious, I don't it's fair to characterize doctors as thoughtless lazy asses. Easily led, perhaps, by a populous that believes everything must be cured through medication -so that's what doctors deliver.

I don't ask for antibiotics to cure a cold, or believe that every hiccup in the way my body operates requires a prescription, but we have been led to believe that everything requires chemistry to fix.

Jeff Taylor said...

with the continuous push of 'pills' by drug companies and many of the doctors they promote and sell to, it's no wonder people always believe that a pill can and will fix them up. As long as I can remember, I've never understood why so many people think that someone beating an addiction to heroin only to be addicted to another drug - methadone. I've always thought that being 'drug-free' is the way to go. I really, really believe that in both Canada & the US, that the various BIG drug companies are in the pocket of the political parties. Seems to me my belief comes from earlier comments I made on David's blog posting on hungry people, health care and the connection between those issues and politicians and doing the right thing(s).
If only money wasn't EVERYTHING these days.

Anonymous said...

I have Glaucoma and take prescription eye drops to reduce the pressure in my eyes.
So far so good, but there is an odd side effect.
My eyelashes have grown longer!
I wonder if it would do anything for my bald spot.

Anonymous said...

As the population ages, the use of pain control drugs will increase. Pain is a very preventable and treatable condition in the aged (especially the "very old" which are usually considered age 85 plus).

Often small doses of hydromorphine are very effective in controlling pain (small doses don't carry the same risks of constipation and other side effects).

As the population ages, every effort should be made to use lifestyle to help minimize and eliminate pain (gentle excercise, healthy diet), but to say that it is somehow bad that people are "using pain killers" is a real disservice.

Unfortunately, there is still many doctors who refuse to prescribe adequate pain control (with unrealistic fears of addiction, even when the patient is in obvious pain and discomfort). Pain killers, when indicated and used with close monitoring, can be very life enhancing for someone who would otherwise have poor quality of life and limited activity due to chronic pain.

It is one thing to be against giving out heroine to addicts and faulty methadone treatments to addicts - it is quite another to imply that someone who is using pain medication (including those derived from opium) are somehow doing something wrong or being done a disservice by their doctor. (BTW - morphine and other morphine derivatives are cheap - not much profit for big pharma - so that conspiracy theory just doesn't apply in this case.