On Thu, 30 Sep 1999, Beth Benoit wrote:
> I think this discussion fails to take into account
> a very real problem that seems especially
> severe for older people: They're given
> prescriptions for potentially addicting
> medications
> by physicians who are tired of being "bothered" by
> patients who complain of pain.
My personal input (N=1) here is that we had an extremely
difficult time getting adequate pain medication, even having
made a choice for addition for my 87 year old mother in law
who was completely incapacitated by pain by severe, advanced
degenerative arthritis of all of her major joints. We felt that
as a quality of life issue it would be better if she were addicted
to something that at least relieved her constant, all over pain,
for a while, even if it meant during that time she would be a
zombie, than to have her suffer 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
It was practically an act of congress to get a morphine patch
prescribed, along with other addicting medications as a supplement.
So that at least in our case the docs were MOST unwilling to make
that decision for her, despite her constant calls and pestering.
Is she "addicted to pain" Gosh, I don't know--all I know is that
the doctors all concur that she has the worst case of degenerative
arthritis many of them have seen, and for the rest of the docs, she's
right up there with the worst. As long as I have know her she has had
constant pain--about 20 years now.
Interestingly, she has difficult coping with health problems
overall and my husband tends to be the same way--as soon as he has
a sniffle, a headache, a tummy ache he goes to bed for a couple
of days!
I've just always assumed this was the coping mechanism he learned
growing up, from his mom--or has he learned to be addicted to his
aches & pains? Anyway, intersting thread.
annette
> After
> many refills, with little or no follow-up from
> overburdened physicians, they are (not
> surprisingly) addicted to pain medication. (Not
> addicted to "pain" as the subject of this
> thread seems to suggest.) This from a first-hand
> scenario I've been battling (unsuccessfully -
> what do _I_ know about medicine and addiction??)
> with my mother...
>
> Beth Benoit
> University of Massachusetts Lowell
> (Prophet Without Honor)
>
>
>
>
>
Annette Taylor, Ph. D.
Department of Psychology E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
University of San Diego Voice: (619) 260-4006
5998 Alcala Park
San Diego, CA 92110
"Education is one of the few things a person
is willing to pay for and not get."
-- W. L. Bryan
