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Tim, I think prescription drug advertising is problematic. Right now we constantly see blood thinners being advertised with the provision of ask your doctor. Xarelto and Eliquis are certainly different than Coumadin, but are they necessarily better?

Thank you for the insight on opioids.

The sample practice is **** too. Just not under this topic.

Hope you get better soon.

ask your doctor if cannabis is right for you.

What's everyone's opinion on the best over the counter drug for back pain..?? Cannabis would be cool if I didn't have to work...

And I have no idea. I ain’t that smart.

That’s unusual

They also don't mind wasting your pain and the doctor's time trying out alternative drugs when they decide to drop one that work from their formulary. It happened to me for migraine fixer, MAXALT (rizatriptan benzoate) was removed after my provider was bought out by another company.

I have an inversion table I used to use a couple times a week..of course I can't use it again until my knee is cool...
I've got 5 levels fused now and they want to another... I've just accepted pain..but I'm starting to think fighting it is futile...

TW,
I appreciate your insight. I've read everything you wrote and understood some of it. However, while I get that the 'problem' is complicated, nothing I read convinces me that drug companies, health care complex and insurance industry aren't complicit. I take everything I see on TV with a huge grain of salt....but, I gotta say that watching Megyn Kelly's story on FLA rehab communities was downright alarming....takes a lot to get me outraged anymore, but holy ****...

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/megyn-kelly/florida-s-billion-dollar-drug-treatment-industry-plagued-overdoses-fraud-n773376

This doesn't happen with some fringe ineptitude or a couple bad players....this is systemic ass **** by the same industries that everyone seems to feel needs government help and our tax dollars to keep us all safe, insured and healthy....


I fully agree that we've been WAY over antibacterialed and antimocrobed...to our huge detriment. But even that isn't purely slick marketing and healthy capitalism...if it is indeed a strategic health concern, then our providers and insurers failed to protect us ....with their silence or complacency or assistance, even.

Of course, all illegal drug addicts weren't directly hooked by our corrupted health care/insurance complex, but a lot are...and the market supply is aided by demand resulting from those we pay to keep a healthy society.

I don't want to assess 100% blame on health insurers and mega-health-provider systems, but I don't want to let them off the hook....and I want some accountability assessed....and I want some transparency in the system, especially with regards to costs before one more tax dollar goes into that corrupt meat grinder that spits out a few healthier people at great expense right along with addicts and other societal deficits

Good. Because nothing I said was intended to do so. I’d never say they are not. But it’s just one (or more) facet and there is much more to the issue. I’m just saying it’s going to take a multi pronged approach. Don’t get too bogged down on one part of the problem or one approach, but don’t ignore it either. It’s a complicated critter.

I had similar experience, age and bad genetics gave me crappy disks. I ended up getting some disks cleaned up and some relief cuts around the opening where the nerves are located. Back spasms are a mofo, I've been in the ER and had shots of demerol and morphine that didn't do a thing. But, once I learned my back pain was just muscle spasms and was not causing damage, I was able to deal with it and keep moving. I still get phantom pain in my legs, like someone is holding a hot iron on my leg. It's startling, but endurable because I know its just nerves. I haven't tried an inversion table, but avoiding things that piss off my back are the key to survival, best advice ever, "Never pick up anything heavier than a sixpack."

I do not recall that term, but after looking it up, yes. The doc did a laminectomy and some other things he described when all I was wanting to hear was success or something else.

Said it before and will say it again.
If you ask for guberment controlled health care and insurance in cohoots with big pharma, then don't be surprised by a guberment and insurance created drug epidemic on prescription drugs with support of big pharma. They all make money on both ends of the candle - starting the addiction, then treating the symptoms. And tax-payers are footing the bill. All while being forced to buy into the broken system and supporting it.

Plus the guberment would rather have the sheeple stoned, drunk and stupid instead of questioning the guberment's decisions about their health care and life choices. As the guberment and insurance companies keep telling us, they know what's best for our health care.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8JfxP1Bv5c
offered with no disrespect to pain management or mental health issues. IMHO the song is still relevant today.

Great! Now all we need are the actual treatment centers instead of more prisons, and the Federally run health care system and insurance companies to cover the same services for those in need of treatment BEFORE they are incarcerated. And without more taxes or increased premiums.

Opioid commission: We need drug courts, not prisons, for abusers
http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/01/health/opioid-commission-final-report/index.html

Sitting in a collaborative right now. Heard an interesting statistic I need to verify.

In pain patients opioids only work 50% if the time. In the 50% they work on they provide 30% relief. That 30% relief deteriorates over time.

Columbia... but I'm not sure they were first..

Um ya, manufactured right here in our own ghetto and suburban kitchens across the good ol' USA.

You should know this, you got beat up in the hood for years!

LMFAO, even though I've never done cocaine myself (in any form), I've met a few chefs in my life.

Think about it logistically, what's easier to ship... raw powder or manufactured rocks.

It's stupid AF to ship rock when you can ship compact powder.

And I don't believe I stereotyped it just to the ghetto, re-read what I wrote.

Oh... and jokes!!! Learn to detect them ;)

Love hearing the rhetoric from someone who has never used coke. let alone been involved in the import and distribution. LMFAO! That is a funny chef joke.

It's easier and less expensive to create crack than traditional powder. It also "compresses" more than powder, meaning that a kilo of crack is smaller than a kilo of powder. Crack is pure and faster to sell as it isn't "cut" before distribution. Crack can be made at home but is a PITA, especially when you've been up for 3 days. Ask Richard Pryor. But the USA probably is the biggest consumer.

At the end of the coke-boom during the 80's, it was easier to acquire crack than powder. The buzz from crack is more intense compared to powder. But not as intense as injecting coke. But you can't inject crack, only powder.

When you're raised in State institutions for being incorrigible, you learn a few things.

My crack used to smoke, but I cut back on the Habaneros and it's not so bad now

Why would cannabis affect work?.......they have all the edibles now, so you don't even need to smoke it.......if your taking pain meds now and working, cannabis wouldn't be much, if any different.........unless it's the drug testing, I'm not sure how that works in your state.

Well, they wouldn't let you do it if you had a legit license for it?

I'm sure glad that opiates exist. They are legitimate pain-killers. I had morphine for two days after knee replacement surgery, then a week of oxycodone, then a few days of novocodone.

But I remember the awful dreams I had after the first few doses of oxy at home, after the morphine wore off...can't imagine anyone wanting that side effect. But declaring war on opiates is useless...it basically is a narrowing of the "War on Drugs": a failed attempt to criminalize non-violent anti-social behavior. Maybe some form of treatment, including safer alternative drug therapy is the answer, but wasting money on putting people in jail for simple drug abuse aint it...