Community Chat

[gazelle77]

scary thing is that when someone is hooked on heroin, they can act normal as long as they keep it in their system.... so teachers, doctors, police, etc can work HIGH.

[Allegheny]

I heard on a newscast last night (can't recall if it was local or national news), that 95% of those addicted to heroin got there because they got addicted to prescribed prescription pain medication. This statistic sounds way too high to me.

I am on prescribed a medication for a back condition, only taking it when absolutely necessary. A while back I asked my doctor how he determines if a patient may have an addiction issue, and he says they do a profile on the patient. I didn't explore it any further.

I just worry that so much pressure will be placed on physicians that they will refuse to prescribe needed pain medication all together. So where does that leave the patient? Probably will have to go to specialists and jump thru all sorts of hoops.

[stilltamn8r]

On 4/8/2014 gazelle77 said:

scary thing is that when someone is hooked on heroin, they can act normal as long as they keep it in their system.... so teachers, doctors, police, etc can work HIGH.

Many already DO.. they are taking prescription drugs which do basically the same thing as heroin...

[151949]

On 4/8/2014 gazelle77 said:

scary thing is that when someone is hooked on heroin, they can act normal as long as they keep it in their system.... so teachers, doctors, police, etc can work HIGH.

When a person is high on drugs it is pretty obvious to anyone with a brain - they look high and act high.

[azterry!]

On 4/8/2014 happy housewife said:

On 4/8/2014 gazelle77 said:

scary thing is that when someone is hooked on heroin, they can act normal as long as they keep it in their system.... so teachers, doctors, police, etc can work HIGH.

When a person is high on drugs it is pretty obvious to anyone with a brain - they look high and act high.

I would disagree.

People who are addicted pain killers behave "normally" because you never see them without the drugs in their system.

I know people who were hooked on Oxycontin and you couldn't tell they were "high".

[stilltamn8r]

taking medication doesn't neccesarily make one "high"... We tend to think that those who use drugs that are currently not legal in this country, like heroin, as being "high" when they take them, but you might run into one taking heroin, just like you might run into someone taking vicodin and never know...

[151949]

On 4/8/2014 Allegheny said:

I heard on a newscast last night (can't recall if it was local or national news), that 95% of those addicted to heroin got there because they got addicted to prescribed prescription pain medication. This statistic sounds way too high to me.

I am on prescribed a medication for a back condition, only taking it when absolutely necessary. A while back I asked my doctor how he determines if a patient may have an addiction issue, and he says they do a profile on the patient. I didn't explore it any further.

I just worry that so much pressure will be placed on physicians that they will refuse to prescribe needed pain medication all together. So where does that leave the patient? Probably will have to go to specialists and jump thru all sorts of hoops.

This is already happening - PCPs don't want to prescribe pain meds so they send their patients who have pain to pain clinics where they do indeed have to jump through hoops to get any meds at all. A lady moved into our plan a few months ago has spinal cancer and was on oxycontin for her pain - she went to a doctor (PCP) as a new patient explaining she would need pain meds - despite her diagnosis he refused to write for anything - he consulted a pain clinic - she had to wait 4 weeks to go to the pain doctor who then prescribed her methodone instead of the oxycontin for her pain. She phoned her doctor where she had moved from and he said he can't prescribe her anything because it is a different state, and he's not licensed here. So she is in terrible pain and unable to get medication for it. She called the pain doctor back but he will not give her anything else - he told her this is the system he uses - first everyone has to get methodone then he evaluates if they need anything else. I know all this because she called last evening and asked us if we would drive her to the ER because she could not stand the pain any longer. They admitted her and gave her IV Morphine - thank goodness.

[151949]

On 4/8/2014 stilltamn8r said:

taking medication doesn't neccesarily make one "high"... We tend to think that those who use drugs that are currently not legal in this country, like heroin, as being "high" when they take them, but you might run into one taking heroin, just like you might run into someone taking vicodin and never know...

Obviously, you are not familiar with people who are using heroine !!! You are answering something you don't know anything about.

[stilltamn8r]

On 4/8/2014 happy housewife said:

On 4/8/2014 stilltamn8r said:

taking medication doesn't neccesarily make one "high"... We tend to think that those who use drugs that are currently not legal in this country, like heroin, as being "high" when they take them, but you might run into one taking heroin, just like you might run into someone taking vicodin and never know...

Obviously, you are not familiar with people who are using heroine !!! You are answering something you don't know anything about.

Don't ever assume....

[Irshgrl31201]

On 4/8/2014 azterry! said:

On 4/8/2014 happy housewife said:

On 4/8/2014 gazelle77 said:

scary thing is that when someone is hooked on heroin, they can act normal as long as they keep it in their system.... so teachers, doctors, police, etc can work HIGH.

When a person is high on drugs it is pretty obvious to anyone with a brain - they look high and act high.

I would disagree.

People who are addicted pain killers behave "normally" because you never see them without the drugs in their system.

I know people who were hooked on Oxycontin and you couldn't tell they were "high".

I would also totally disagree. I have a good friend who was prescribed pain meds for a while because of a painful medical condition she went through. She worked for the same company for years and years and had an excellent reputation. She was embezzling money from the company for over a year after she had already cleaned our her and her husbands savings. No one had a clue she was addicted to drugs even her brother who was a doctor. It happens everyday in America and I found it disgusting that HH keeps on saying that no one who is truly in pain who is taking the prescribed dose cannot become addicted because that is an absolute lie. The pain management doctor who helped me when I was suffering horrible pain for Crohns told me this and he is head of anesthesiology at Duke.

That is why anyone taking pain medication for chronic pain should be seen by a PM clinic and not a regular GP because often GP's cut off the pain meds immediately and do not allow the patient to be slowly weened off of pain meds.

Please stop telling people that they can't get addicted to pain meds if they are taking them for legitimate pain because it is a lie.