Britbike forum Forums General discussion The Rod and Tappet Took a real butt-kicking ....

That's a hard problem for sure. As soon as they come up with a good new pain treatment, immediately people are abusing it and make it difficult on the people who really need it to get it.

They offered me oxycodone and fentanyl my first couple days out of surgery, but I wasn't hurting bad enough to take it. If the pain were bad, I wouldn't hesitate, though. Good luck and hang in there with a good doctor....

Lannis

It's better not to use the opiods when not needed..
A good friend of 82 had a triple bypass recently. Was in great shape, good diet and so on...just bad luck...and the age factor.....I also had no previous risk factors ....So, take good care of yourself but don't stop living....

There was a time when I was hauled off to hospital, as the pain became 10/10 excruciating I was given Oramorph (oral morphine). Almost instant relief. Later when problem solved and I was more comfortable I said - that was great can I have some more please. It was tongue in cheek but it provoked a stern but gentle lecture on pain killer abuse. Quite right too.

OK here's a couple anecdotes from my experiences along the way...


I awoke in a recovery/ICU bed after a shoulder surgery back in the 1990s, and a nurse was immedaitely at my side asking how I was doing. She asked if I was in pain and I said, well sure! Pow, she put some stuff into my IV and I went right back out. Woke up again and she was there again asking if I was still in pain. Truthfully, I answered in the affirmative and again she hit me with what turned out to be morphine. When I awoke the 3rd time, she was also there and asked again if I was still feeling any pain, and I replied, Yes but who cares? It was like the pain was still in the room but had been banished to a corner- I could feel it but it was "over there". A couple hours later, in a regular hospital room, a lovely nurse came in and gave me a shot of demerol in one of my butt cheeks then immediately asked if she could give me a sponge bath! I politely declined, but did think how easy it'd be to get used to all the attention.

A few years prior, my dad went into the hospital due to shooting pains down one of his arms- and they stuck him in the cardiac intensive care unit! Turned out he "only" had a pinched nerve and not a heart attack but it took them a minute to figure that out. Meanwhile it seems they gave him some morphine as the pain must have been pretty intense. I popped in to see him and he had a big grin on his face. I was like what's up. He told me they'd given him morphine and he quite liked it! He also said it gave him some insight as to why I liked using recreational drugs!

When I was just out of high school back in the 70s I had my 1st shoulder surgery at Walter Reed b/c my dad was still active Army. I had access to pain meds pretty much whenever I needed them, and had made a couple friends on the floor we were on- the "ward" as it were- a massive, long room with beds lined down both sides. One nght the head nurse offered to bring me my pain meds at bedside but I was hanging out with one of my wardmate buddies, so I asked her to deliver them to me right there thinking I'd "party" some more... as you may imagine, that didnt go well for me. Instead of the dope, I got not only The Look- but also a stern lecture.

Another time I was very sick while at my folks place in Texas over Christmas and after a few days my dad took me to the hospital- where I was diagnosed with the flu or some such like - and the doc prescribed Oxycodone! I was like, wow, really man? WTF bro. Zero pain just sick as a dog. No idea what he thought I was gonna do with 40 pain pills- I never ate the first one of them!

But things have been and remain seriously out of control, with addiction deaths having been national news for a few years- but surging again RIGHT NOW in young people due to Fentayl being put into almost every "street drug".

A small group of us went to Matewan, West Virginia a couple years ago to trail ride. It's a pretty depressed former coal mining area that's hopefully beginning to make a comeback thanks to landowners opening up their property for an extensive off road trail system. Google Hatfield- McCoy. In talking to the locals, we found that Matewan and the surrounding small towns were ground zero for the Oxycontin debacle (crime). The equivalent of something like 600 doses for every resident were funneled into the area.

Here is an excellent (but ultimately, depressing) book an the subject.

Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opioid Epidemic, by Sam Quinones

https://www.naccho.org/blog/article...he-true-tale-of-americas-opioid-epidemic

More depressing stuff:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopesick_(miniseries)
Pretty good series examining how Purdue Pharma marketed opioids.

Acouple of riends and I rode down from Pennsylvania to Tennessee to a Roadrunner (magazine, etc) Touring Weekend a couple years back- spending a couple days riding small roads in West Virginia. Only place I've ever been where not a single head turned to look at the bikes as we rode thru tiny villages and past folks outside of their houses. Not even the little kids botherd to look. I honestly never saw nything like it, boggles my mind to this day.

Closest I ever came was a prescription to vicodin after a gout attack. Took them for a few days and had the strangest dreams I've ever had. Now I know where the term "pipe dreams" comes from. Ended up turning the rest of the stuff in because I liked it too much.

had the gout for years til started drinking small glass of tart cherry juice every day no more gout blood sugar also dropped from 200 to 85

but..........pain? want pain?? had extensive excisional hemorrhoidectomy three years back now that was pain....felt like Beezebub had blowtorch to my basshole for 10 days wow! TMI?

Everyone loves a good story!
Especially with evocative alliteration.

ha! what allillerashun mean?? hey i got another one about my vasectomy if anyone is interested......anyone? huh?

You've got too much time on your hands NOW and you're still working!

No telling what kind of horrible things we'll be hearing about once you've really retired ....

Lannis

i wuv you too lannis you ole virginia blatherskite

The first gout flair I had about crippled me. Could not even stand the weight of a sheet or blanket on my right foot. I've done the black cherry juice bit and its helped. I also found out what foods triggered it and avoid them now.

Reading all this I realize how boring it is to be healthy.

Or maybe you guys are just that much older than me.

That's a good part of it, I'm sure.

Your turn's comin' ......

Lannis

Long may we stay that way.

No worries, it can change in one second and you too can experience the wonders of modern medicine...lol...
Oncologist looked at my most recent scan and said I'm very healthy except this crap inside of me...

Walked out of the Cuban restaurant (West Jefferson, NC) today just before noon.......they are remodeling the space next door. I notice a man running down the street towards me.....he passes me and up to another man who's lying on the pavement just off the sidewalk. He's not breathing and there's no pulse. Chest compression's start and a fellow (co-worker?) runs up and says he'd just called the ambulance. The first guy was a volunteer fireman and had heard the call......and just happened to be right there. Seemed like it took forever for the ambulance to get there....but probably less than 4 minutes. This poor fellow had blood running out of his mouth and ears. They still had the chest compression machine on him when they drove away.

Bad Friday for him..........you NEVER know.

It was said on the John Healy thread.........."as long as there is life......there is hope"

Be grateful

My first experience with serious pain killers was after a bad accident. I spent two weeks in the ICU, getting IV morphine every four hours. They worried about it, but I never got dependent.
Once upstairs I had a recurrent pain in one ankle. If I felt it coming they would crush up a Percodan in some juice and it never got bad. If it came on while I slept and was bad they gave me a shot of Demerol. I felt great after that for about five minutes before I passed out. I told the nurse to cut the dosage so I'd feel great for longer, but she couldn't do that without doctor's order and I forgot to tell him.
They released me with scripts for Tylenol 3 and Percodan, but I never needed the strong stuff. I sold the Percodans. Somehow after being doped up for six weeks the thrill was gone.
When I broke my ankle a few years later they got the Demerol dose just right. Talk about some wonderful dreams.
That was an interesting experience. I was in a 4-bed ward and one of the other inmates had gotten drunk and gone riding when his horse fell on him. He was an alcoholic, so every four hours they brought him a shot of whiskey. He hated that, said, "Dammit I drink beer!"
When I had shoulder surgery there was a button on the IV which gave me a small dose of morphine when pressed. Once released I had a script for 60 Percocet. I filled it, but didn't take many of them. I still don't know why they gave me that many.

As mentioned, the current opioid crisis means that one doesn't even get the traditional script for five Lortabs after a root canal.

Perhaps but on a percentage basis we get closer to the same age every year .

It is funny how we look at things
5 years ago at a club meeting some one mentioned their Wolferin was no longer working so the dose had been upped substantially
Of the 15 people at the table I was the only one not on permnent medication which in a funny way made me feel really good
A year latter after bushfires triggered chronic RA I was on steroids & Methotrexate with the latter being "forever ".
I lothe taking any medications so went to work on the Arthritus and after 3 years managed to come off medications .
When I managed to rip the right hoof off back in the 70's I was given an open ended script for pain killers & told I would never ever have a pain free day again.
Whatever I felt I wanted all I had to do was ask & it would be prescribed
However as mentioned before I hate the idea of my life being ruled by pills so after 4 years I managed to accept the pain and mostly ignore it .
The very idea that we should feel no pain which is what a lot of people subscribe to and even more worrying way too many doctors believe is fundamentially flawed.
Had I accepted the "feel no pain" idology by now I would be a total addict with a gut full of ulcers , with destroyed liver & kidneys and it would have been so easy to follow that route rather than have pain all day every day .
But eventually it just becomes a background and you learn to ignore it and carry on as normal .
No 2 people feel pain the same way but we get the "feel no pain" message rammed down our throats on a daily basis as if pain was the secret weapon of aliens trying to take over the planet and every day we should feel like we just won the lottery .

Opiates are OK for the "drifitng away" and general relaxation, but these benefits are far outweighed by the resulting constipation.

"Work it out with a pencil" , as someone else once said.