Taking prescription pain medications daily is how many of us dealing with chronic pain and chronic illness function and make it through the day. Doctors, pharmacists, and even us as patients have been brainwashed to believe that we are addicts because we need something stronger than Tylenol or Advil to survive the pain, sometimes excruciating and unbearable, that are a part of our chronic illnesses. After a couple of encounters myself with pharmacists, I have started to question if maybe I have a problem with prescription pain medications. But I am not falling for that crap any longer – especially after seeing what true prescription pill addiction is.
This week there was a woman on the Dr. Phil show who takes in two days what prescription pain meds I use in an entire month! This woman is taking anywhere from 30 – 50 pills a day – I go through a prescription of 90 Vicodin every 30 days. This show really got me thinking about how unrealistic the medical profession and pharmacists can be if they think that those of us with chronic pain can possibly go on a couple of pills a month. I realize now that I was giving in to their thinking and their brainwashing and I know that I do not have a problem.
Someone who is an addict has to have their pills. They will go through withdrawal, steal, beg the doctor, do whatever they have to to get their fix. If I happen to run out before my prescription is filled, which can happen occasionally because there are days when I might have to take 4 pills, I do not have withdrawal, or have to steal to get them. I may suffer from the pain but I wait until the insurance will refill the medication.
On the Dr. Phil show, the addicted woman admitted to taking 6 Vicodin at ONE TIME – that is two days worth of pills for me. It’s a wonder she is even still alive.
So the next time your doctor or pharmacist accuses you of being an addict because you need a prescription refill for your monthly supply, remember to put into perspective what an “addict” really is. More than likely it is not you.
My worst critic is myself on this issue. Some days I actually tell myself that even if I am an addict I just can’t seem to care. Because it is better than the constant pain that no one seems to understand but myself. I do give my husband several to hang on to for me. I am always terrified to run out.
Obviously, my doctor finally understands because he has increased my monthly allotment of Fiorecet from 60 to 100 pills. And is sending me for another brain MRI.
Thank you for supplying some reassurance!
Thank you for this post. Right now I’m stuck in the house because my neighborhood streets are flooded, which I found out as I was going to Target to fill my Percocet prescription. I was feeling guilty about 1) mildly panicking and 2) having gone through 50 pills in 36 days, which is a lot for me. But you’re right, it’s all a matter of perspective. I don’t take them to escape or get high, I take them to function.
Hi Tricia, I’m glad that this post helped you to realize that you are just doing what you need to do to function and to get through life with less pain. Take care and please stop back and visit again!
I’m a nurse, and I have done addictions nursing during my career. Here is some more information that might be helpful.
Everyone who takes opiates or opioids will develop tolerance, whether or not they are an addict. Tolerance simply means the body gets used to a certain medication, and it takes more to get the same effect as before.
Tolerance is not a sign of addiction, though. Addicts develop it faster because they increase their intake faster.
Addicts take medication to get a buzz, to get high; they don’t really need the medication if they are just addicts, so they develop tolerance faster.
People in pain take medication to end the pain, or more likely, to bring it under better control, to bring it to a level that is tolerable. A person with chronic pain who starts taking prescription pain medication has 2 reasons to need more. One is tolerance. The other and more likely reason is that pain syndromes rarely get better and almost invariably get worse.
Many people who use street drugs are pain patients who could not get treatment through regular channels, or who have no insurance but live in an area with a ready supply of drugs. They become desperate for pain control, so they use street drugs. Some of them don’t touch drugs but instead become alcoholics, just trying to survive the pain. These people may become addicted to strong street drugs, but once detoxed from them and started on a pain regimen, they don’t continue their street behaviors.
The Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and other quality organizations have mandated that pain is the 5th vital sign (temperature, pulse, respiratory rate, blood pressure are the other 4) and that pain must be treated in all patients and assessed or status update requested at regular intervals. Yet the DEA has focused lately on trying to get all extended release narcotics discontinued due to Oxycontin abuse, plus, the DEA investigates every pain prescription written and will investigate doctors who are compassionate in their treatment of pain. If you go to the website of the American Pain Foundation, you can find contacts to email in protest of this action by the FDA.
You could stop manufacture of every fentanyl patch and every oxycontin or MSContin pill in the US; the addicts would still be able to get them because the pushers and dealers would just get them from Canada and Mexico and put them on the street. The ONLY people who will suffer as a result of this action are people in pain. Without extended release formulations, some people would have to take pain medication every 2 – 4 hours. If you waken someone that frequently, they will never enter REM or dream sleep; that takes 4 uninterrupted hours. Long enough without REM sleep and you will go into psychosis from sleep deprivation. Many of us already have difficulty sleeping due to pain even with medication; we don’t need more help; CFS and fibro fog are due to sleep deprivation and pain fogging up how we function.
While illegal drugs pour into the US, the DEA is focused on prescription drug abuse due to high profile celebrities who have chronic pain syndromes and have been talked into believing they are addicted. This has raised an alarm in the US house and senate, and lawmakers who would never be questioned if they needed strong medication to function are telling the DEA to make sure there aren’t any prescription drug addicts.
I’ve seen Rx drug addicts; they are the most hard core addicts to treat; their excuse is that it was prescribed for them. But they usually go to multiple doctors, sometimes driving several hours to get treatment and prescriptions from different doctors, and going to different drugstores to get the medications. They use exhorbitant amounts of Rx medications. And when they take vicodin, no matter how much hydrocodone is in it (the dose of the narcotic can be 2.5, 5, 7.5, or 10 mg but they all have 500 mg of tylenol), they are going over the max limit for tylenol which is 4 gm (8 extra strength pills) a day, and some are even saying 3 gm should be the upper limit (6 extra strength pills a day). Acetaminophen (generic name for tylenol) can destroy kidneys and liver; people have ended up needing liver transplants or kidney transplants; have died from damage to those organs; have been on dialysis from using too much tylenol. Taking medications like this for abuse is very risky. On “House,” they show the main character popping Vicodin like candy, but he wouldn’t be alive if he took more than 8 a day! This gives people the wrong impression. If standard Vicodin (5 mg hydrocodone, 500 mg acetaminophen) is not helping, ask the doctor for the formulations with more hydrocodone in them, don’t try to take more than 8 a day.
Rx drug addicts want to appear respectable while overdosing on medications and claiming to have problems they likely don’t have and never did. But they give people who are really hurting, or who really need anxiety medications, for example, a bad name; we are all tarred with the brush of “drug seeking behaviors,” without reference to the reason for the seeking. For people in pain, it’s NOT about the high; it’s about trying to live a better quality of life.
In closing, I worked oncology for a while. One reason I left was how sick I got of hearing, when asking for pain relief for a dying patient, “Oh, if I give them that, they’ll become addicted.” I always asked them what the problem was; if they are dying, can’t they have a little comfort for the last part of their lives? And I’d also say, “If you find a miracle cure for their cancer, I’m sure they’ll be happy to go through rehab.” It was a constant fight, and one I was tired of losing. So are the patients, the ultimate losers in the struggle to make the DEA and JCAHO happy – an impossible task and a fight that can get you blacklisted and fired very easily.