Day: 08/10/2015

Vegemite is a ‘Precursor to Misery’ in Australia

http://time.com/3990019/australia-vegemite-alcohol-abuse/

Vegemite—the seemingly innocent, salty spread that elicits both patriotic worship and vitriolic hatred in the food’s native Australia—might be being used to make moonshine…

Many Australian indigenous communities face high addiction rates, and booze is banned in these communities to combat alcoholism…

But what if I actually need painkillers?

https://edsinfo.wordpress.com/2015/08/09/but-what-if-i-actually-need-painkillers/

http://www.salon.com/2015/07/27/but_what_if_i_actually_need_painkillers/

When I visit my pain management doctor, he hands me my monthly prescription for a small number of an opioid called Tramadol. He also offers an anecdote.

“I just met a dancer with New York City Ballet. Or maybe it was American Ballet Theatre, which one is at Lincoln Center?” he asks. His area is sports medicine, not the fine arts.

“They both are,” I reply.

“Anyway, he was a star with one of those companies. He used narcotics to get through performances and now he is having a bilateral hip replacement. He’s 40. Be careful.”

I gaze out the window at Second Avenue. People leave the bodega across the street carrying ice cream sandwiches, packs of cigarettes, tabloid magazines. There are so many ways to slowly kill the human heart, all in an effort to get through the day.

Dancing is not supposed to be one of them…

Under comments:

Xanthro Jul 27, 2015
@StarMusing

Thank you.

One time literally all the pharmacies in New York just literally…ran out, were on back order, of all hydrocodone, I have no idea why

I experience the same thing in California. 16 pharmacies, before I could fill a prescription for my wife. SIXTEEN, and non could call another branch of the same company to see if they had any in stock.

I finally ended up getting 4, then having to come back for the rest.

It’s insane. And all this is taking place while a person is writhing in pain.

For those who don’t have another person to pick medicine up for them, it’s literally a form of torture.

And the lack of refill that you mentioned is a huge issue. It takes time, effort and money to see a doctor on a monthly basis, and serves no medical purpose.

People who are in lifelong or year long pain, don’t need to be told monthly that they are in pain.

Scott66 Jul 26, 2015
I have something called “Chronic Lower Back Pain”

A generic term for chronic pain in the lower back due to nerve damage I take 2x75mg Welbutrion, 1x75mg Cymbalta, 3x600mg Gralise, and 2X15mg ER Morphine Sulfate over the course of a 12 hour day. It’s not enough to keep the pain down to a manageable level, and I’m so tired from both the the pain and the meds, but because there’s nothing that shows up in a MRI or X-ray, I just have to keep working. I need the insurance and the paycheck so I can keep getting my prescriptions, even though I hurt so bad that the meds don’t do enough for the pain, but my pain management doctor won’t prescribe stronger meds.

After 3.5 years of dealing with chronic pain I’ve pretty much given up. My health is starting to fail and I’ve decided not to do anything about it. Sometimes it’s best to just let nature take it’s course. There comes a point where you just don’t care anymore

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/17/my_slide_back_to_oxycontin/

Eleven years later, I find myself wondering what it means to stay “sober.” I suffer from migraines, the variant known as cluster headaches — also known as “suicide headaches” — and as I lie in dark rooms, waiting for the headaches to pass, the question I ask myself is this: How much pain can I tolerate? Or really: How much should I tolerate? …

In the Middle Ages, prior to the adoption of Roman law, guilt or innocence could be established by undergoing an Ordeal. The Ordeal required one to agree to be subjected to something extraordinarily painful and to come out the other side not having capitulated to the pain. Thus, one could prove one’s innocence…

I tell myself that the cluster headache will break sometime. It has to. My job right now is to bear the Ordeal. I am innocent, I say. I am innocent.