Mandatory Madness

[ericisalive]

What happened to a man whose only crime, it seems, was trying to ease his chronic pain. "You know when you have a toothache and the pain is so severe that you absolutely have to be seen immediately by a dentist?" says the man in the wheelchair. "Imagine if you had to grin and bear it for an undetermined period of time. You can't see straight. You

Comments

[ex_ilk]

Stuff like this drives me absolutely mad. I had an experience with this not too long ago. And it wasn't even pain, it was severe bronchitis. And the doctor refused to treat the cough, which had already taken 3 night's sleep from me and driven me to near madness with it's persistance and non-reation to over the counter meds, with anything but more over the counter meds. I was a mess. I had lost so much sleep. It was clear I was sick, for real. She knew it. But when I asked her for anything, anything but what had already not worked, she got anger in her voice and told me sternly that it was "the only thing she prescribed" for cough. She would not look me in the eyes. She knew she was both abandoning her oath and a patient. When I went to the pharmacy, I related the experience to the pharmacist. He shook his head. He explained to me that there were non-narcotic alternatives she could have tried for me, and that this was a kind of story he was hearing more and more often. People in obvious excruciating pain being prescribed motrin, dentists sending people home with plain tylenol after dental surgery.

What many doctors describe as "drug seeking behaviour" has expanded now to a wide range of behaviours including, of course, asking for drugs. If you ask for relief, you're a drug seeker. If you don't "spruce yourself up" before going into one of those "doc in a box" clinics, you're going to look like a druggie to them. Of course, when you're truly sick, the last thing on your mind is your appearance.

Now this.

The drug war is a plague.

http://www.november.org

And what is it with Florida, anyway?