I have little to add on pain management nor on the hell that is the medical system, but I do want to say it's been nice reading posts from all of you.

If you think about it, it makes sense. ita was one of the people who brought us here and she still has that ability. There's something beautiful about her building community still.

Yes.

Strix, I'm so sorry.

Hubby stopped filling his pain prescriptions because we had such a stockpile. He never took all the pills he was supposed to.

It sounds like something terrible, but he actually got better pain relief from booze. A slug of rum before bed would help him sleep better than three different kinds of opiates. And apparently that's one of the signs of alcoholism.

How do I meet grown doctors who don't know what CP is? A million Americans have it right now(admittedly we all have it our own way, sort of) and it's not fucking great.

I stopped the percocet cold turkey, because no one told me not to. I had no idea I caused myself withdrawal.

I remember that, and I almost said something to my mother after her mastectomy (and she's back on meds again after a knee replacement). But her doctors were very on top of things, so I figured it was better to keep my mouth shut rather than bring up another potential complication to her. And she's done fine both times.

But jesus, I want to punch your surgeon in the face, Steph.

My aunt's withdrawals after cancer treatments were a nightmare even WITH supportive doctors and daily IVs of whatever substances and fluids they were supporting her with. That people go through that not only unsupported but degraded? It's sickening.

This "good" drugs and "bad" drugs and "good" users and "bad" users paradigm is completely unproductive. Drugs can have undesired effects. Tolerance and addiction are among them. Here's some crazy shit - treat your patients as individuals and address whatever problems they develop.

::waves hello::

I've already delurked in ita's thread, but I just wanted to say how good it is to see everyone's pixels again (though I see many of you on FB), and that I'm thinking of sticking around, though with my current schedule I can't be a super-frequent poster.

But jesus, I want to punch your surgeon in the face, Steph.

Surgeons, they're like so damned single-focus. When I had my ear surgery last summer and I ended up puking for 36 hours, unable to keep anything down or even move, and in the most misery I've ever been in my life, the surgeon would quite happily have sent me home. It took my sister asking him bluntly, "Can't you give her a shot of something?" for him to decide to send me to the ER for anti-nausea meds and steroids.

They don't appear to have much interest in follow-through.

(Which sounds like a setup for a very dirty joke...)

We need to dig up the John H. Natter Diet and re-post it to help out everyone whose stupid day jobs are wrecking their Natterability.