I'm deep diving into some blogs and journal articles to figure out if I should still be on opioids—am I a wimp or am I trying too hard to tough it out? I have no idea!!

My personal opinion (ie, not rooted in evidence-based guidelines) is that pain is highly variable from patient to patient, and while the average patient might be off opioids by now*, not every patient will be. I think cutting yourself a break is called for, along with sufficient pain management, even if that means opioids.

My knowledge based on evidence-based guidelines is that they want you off them as quickly as possible, and that non-opioid painkillers (ie, Tylenol [aka NOTHING BUT A PLACEBO FUCK YOU TYLENOL YOU ARE A LIE**]) work as effectively as opioids for mild to moderate pain.

Honestly? Take them if you need them, since you have them. Be honest with your clinician about your pain level, and maybe they won't prescribe a refill of as many as before, but they might prescribe some.

*(Some patients don't need painkillers even in extreme circumstances. Exhibit A: my mother, who had open-heart surgery and didn't take any opioids after the first day [when she was mostly unconscious and wasn't able to decide whether or not she needed them]. People like this are outliers and ruin data sets. Ignore them.)

**(No, seriously, Tylenol might as well be M&Ms for all the good they do me. They do help with Tim's arthritis pain, though, so YTylenolMV.)

(Also, my browser doesn't know the word opioid??)

Mine doesn't, either, which makes me like O_o, browser, do you know what I do for a living? (My Google search history makes me look like the most confusing junkie in the world.)

Lol! Opioid...mine knows it now?

To be clear the study was comparing people in the Netherlands (who took few or no opioids post surgery) to those in the US.

I don't think I'd want/need as many as they prescribed the first time—it's been two weeks and I've been tapering off by 1-2 per day as the prescription recommended, until the last couple days. And yes, they also have me on 3000mg of Tylenol and some gabapentin, in addition to those. (Plus blood thinner, which I super hate injecting).

they also have me on 3000mg of Tylenol

3000 mg of M&Ms!

Whining to ignore. I am just exhausted! It could be that the tea was not a good coffee substitute, and I could actually drive a mile and get coffee. I took 3 days driving back to Florida and it was about as perfect a trip as it could be. No vehicle issues, the dog was well behaved, not a drop of bad weather, slept okayish for hotel sleeping. Yet can barely stay awake today.

The son of the GOP candidate for state rep just stopped by to seek support. I was polite. He wore a pink t-shirt with a pink ribbon and talked about working to protect the everglades and stuff he knows my blue neighborhood wants to hear. Not getting my vote dude, but go you for knocking on doors.

Not getting my vote dude, but go you for knocking on doors.

A few weeks ago, Tim's aunt passed away, and at the visitation, this older man walked in who looked super familiar, but I couldn't place him. Tim's family is HUGE, so even after 12 years, it's not uncommon for me to see a cousin and think "Dang, I know I know you, but I sure can't remember who you are."

Well, it was actually Republican US Rep. Steve Chabot, who I cannot fucking STAND (who is NOT a member of Tim's family). And when I realized it was him, my eyes bugged out like a cartoon character. I made my way over to Tim and muttered "Why the FUCK is Steve Chabot here? I'm not going to cause a scene, but seriously, what the fuck?"

I forgot (because I did know this at one point) that one of Tim's cousins works in Chabot's Cincinnati office, and apparently Chabot was friends with Tim's granddad. He was just there to pay his respects, and also sent an enormous floral arrangement.

I didn't cross paths with him, so I didn't have to figure out what to say to him, but I grudgingly admitted that it was very kind of him to come to the visitation and send flowers. From what I could overhear, he truly wasn't crass enough to use it as a campaigning opportunity; he was just paying his respects. So, fine.

But I'm still not voting for that motherfucker.

I've done opioids for pain in the past, some more efficacious than others. For a long time Tylenol with codeine was the most efficient at knocking back pain for me, but it no longer works.

I rarely take painkillers, but when I need something OTC, a doc's rec was two max strength (500mg? I think?) Acetaminophen and two max strength (300mg?) ibuprofen. And most times, it does lower the pain, if it doesn't knock it out entire. The odd thing is, the combo works as well on headache (usually sinus-eyestrain involved, if not caused) as it does on body aches. Go, Ibunol!

We have a programable thermostat, but we, well, don't. It's in a jog in the wall that held a line of coathooks when we moved in, but was the *perfect* place for a Billy bookcase (and the only place it would fit, actually), so now we can't easily access it to change settings. Sometimes it doesn't do its job and the periphery of the house gets colder than it should, so H applies the remedial bag of frozen peas (or corn), which triggers it on. He did go in there armed with a headlamp and long skinny tools to extend his reach to reset it a few degrees higher last winter. It's been okay since then.

OMG, I just had a flashback to the building I lived in where the one thermostat was in the front hall. We almost died of the heat one winter day when someone was moving, or they were doing some work in the building, whatever the reason was, they had propped the door open so the thermostat was very cold and trying to warm up! I eventually went out there with a hair dryer.

Needless to say, I have an app-controlled thermostat and it's pretty cool even though it was just a return I got for free.

There was a very depressing documentary on PBS last week about how opiods work on the body and why they're so addictive. As said above, it does vary from person to person, but I would be careful. Particularly if you're already something of an addictive personality.

FWIW, the documentary was actually quite interesting. What was depressing was the how poorly we help people who are addicted. No health care, no hospital beds for people who need to detox, prison instead of medication for too many people, failure to use medications that actually do help, etc.