60 Minutes last night

PINKdogWOOD · ‎05-13-2010

Did anybody watch 60 Minutes last night on the featured story on heroine addiction? The reporters came to the suburbs of Ohio, this is my back yard. My husband and I never watch 60 Minutes but the tv was on the channel who did this story. We were amazed that it featured well to do families with mostly high school students addicted to this drug. We watched and listened intently. We do not have children but we fully understand and GET this impact on just how this starts.

Unfortunately it starts with our doctors and surgeons who have gone to what I call the dark side in how many prescriptions they write out oh so easily for pain KILLERS to get everybody started on after having a procedure done for whatever. We see this first hand based on the 'scripts my husband gets from his own surgeons after his cancer surgeons hand to him for pain. They're all for oxicodone and it's derivatives, percoset and the like. Thankfully, my husband takes only - I said ONLY ibuprofin IF he feels the need. The minute we get home from any procedure we go directly to the shredder and destroy the oxy prescription. Doctors write out this one like it's the lollipop we used to get.

In any event, the story was a true eye opener to what seems to be happening to our many high schoolers here, student athletes especially who get hurt playing sports. Our physicians not only here in the Columbus suburbs but EVERYWHERE USA need to be held accountable for what they prescribe for pain.

There are a zillion different pain remedies that are readily available. Why do our physicians go straight for the hard drugs no matter ther age of who they divvy out to?

I also must ask where the parents are in getting these prescriptions filled for their children? Parents are or must be just as responsible for their kid's health and well being. I don't care what the pain is - and yes I've suffered my own pain now and again, but I don't at all think the hard stuff is the drug - oxy - the one to start with.

conlt · ‎03-16-2010

I watched it and yes it is a big problem, but many people need pain medication for various reasons, after surgery most times, ibuprophen will not cut the pain. Many Cancer victims are in tremendous pain, as well as with a fracture, herniation of a disc. How about blaming the kids who start the drug abuse? There are many who don't start drugs, so what is their secret? I think the home environment has a lot to do with starting drugs. There ares some who get addicted after a procedure too, but some of the kids featured in the story did not have a procedure. Every addict has the choice to use or not to use, whatever is his or her drug of choice, the addict has to admit responsability and be willing to change.

millieshops · ‎03-09-2010

@PINKdogWOODThere's big heroin addiction here on Long Island, too. And it starts all kinds of ways.

I didn't see 60 Minutes, but I'm wondering --there are lots of good descriptions of the problem around here, but really no ideas to eradicate the stuff. What did their report suggest?

NickNack · ‎03-10-2010

@conlt wrote:
I watched it and yes it is a big problem, but many people need pain medication for various reasons, after surgery most times, ibuprophen will not cut the pain. Many Cancer victims are in tremendous pain, as well as with a fracture, herniation of a disc. How about blaming the kids who start the drug abuse? There are many who don't start drugs, so what is their secret? I think the home environment has a lot to do with starting drugs. There ares some who get addicted after a procedure too, but some of the kids featured in the story did not have a procedure. Every addict has the choice to use or not to use, whatever is his or her drug of choice, the addict has to admit responsability and be willing to change.

I agree with @conlt. I've had several surgeries and definitely needed pain medicine afterwards. I also agree with the OP that it's prescribed too freely, although now I think it's regulated much better than it used to be. I know that my regular Internal Medicine doctor has quit prescribing it altogether. If her patients need it she refers them to a pain clinic.

I didn't see 60 Minutes last night, although I have seen shows about this.

The Bluebird Carries The Sky On His Back"
-Henry David Thoreau

ValuSkr · ‎03-15-2014

I didn't see it, but without a doubt drugs are over-prescribed. Doctors bear some responsibility for abuse, but abusers themselves are primarily responsible.

PINKdogWOOD · ‎05-13-2010

@millieshops Honestly, they didn't really offer a cure to this problem. There was a nurse on the show among a number of parental couples who had high school children addicted to heroine. The nurse's own daughter was badly addicted - in and out of cure centers and jail in fact.

The nurse said some years ago the big push by physicians was to help paitients with their pain after surgeries or accidents that created pain. The philosophy is to help with pain management. So they go big in this but IMO their approach in what they prescribe is all wrong.

We've never said anything to any of my husband's dr's about this. Maybe we need to.

Lacey1 · ‎03-09-2010

Actually, the MDs are heavily watched with their Rx writing habits. We have a very bad heroin problem here, and it's illegal street drugs, not prescription meds. It's being imported by various gangs. People are using heroin because it's cheap and easy to get. The pharmeceutical companies changed the oxycontin pills, so it couldn't be crushed-so heroin had a resugence in popularity.

I do not blame the doctors. It's the criminal element bringing it to the streets.

reiki604 · ‎03-09-2010

I do not want the government telling a doctor how to practice medicine and what to prescribe for a patient's pain that is individualized to that patient. I believe that it is the individual who makes the decision to recreationally take drugs and graduate to heroin that bears the responsibility. Blame the addict not the professional educated to help. There needs to be more education, counseling and rehab available for those addicted and at risk. Addiction has always been seen as a poor persons issue. Now that it has migrated to the middle and upper classes it is seen as a problem to be dealt with.

'I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man'.......Unknown

PINKdogWOOD · ‎05-13-2010

@conlt You're joking right? Don't get me started about the pain cancer patients endure. I spent 22 months from Jan 2012 through Oct 2014 curing my husband of rectal cancer that left him with a permanent colostomy bag as well a almost non-functioning left kidney due to excessive scare tissue whereby his kidney has only 25% function and 75% in his right kidney. Due to this, every 4 months like clockwork he goes under the knife with his (thank God) excellent team of urologists to have his stent changed out so that he gets any function from his left kidney.

And within these 22 months a mere 8 months after his rectal surgery he had the liver cancer removed from the back side of his liver. They had to lift out the entire liver in order to get to the tumor that metastisized from the rectal to the liver to cure him of his liver cancer.

I know, realize and fully understand what cancer patients go through so please do not talk to me about pain endurance.

And something as 'simple' as ibuprofin will work and does work. However I will also say that on my husband's behalf he was not at all pain free and that was the only 'drug' he was prescribed. The list was LONG during his 22 months, drugs we had no idea of, barely could pronounce in fact. I was his caregiver and FULLY educated myself on EVERY SINGLE prescription we were given to get him through killer toxins he was given not only to shrink tumors to ready him for surgeries but for his side effects as well. He took some drugs that I watched him have horrendous side effects while he sat on the edge of the sofa rocking back and forth because in his brain made him feel like someone who knew nothing about who he was or where he was at. His Dr was 'surprised' and baffled by what we told him when my husband took this particular drug that was prescribed to him by his lead oncologist. WE chose to not use this drug after only taking ONE pill. AND it took a few days to get it totally out of his system in order for him to become himself again as best he could while we worked at curing him of his cancers.

And my husband is only ONE of a A MILLION who endure what they endure throughout a cancer curing process. So again, please don't talk to me about pain endurance and the need for drugs that apparently easily lead to becoming a herion addict. As I said, there are a zillion pain relievers out there - oxy is not the only answer.

ladyroxanne · ‎03-09-2010

my husband takes vicodin occasionally and if he needs a refill he must go to the doctor's office to pick it up. the doctor will no longer call it in for him. this is something new and i guess it's because of this terrible problem with addiction.