mstevens wrote:
Where you are getting tripped up is in terminology, which in medicine is pretty important. Dependence and addiction are different things.
That's the problem. They may be different things - but many Dr's don't really think about the consequences if someone is
not an addict. Actually most Dr's don't think about that at all.
So you have Dr's prescribing totally legitimate medicines with huge physiological dependency issues. In trying to help one problem, they end up making a bigger problem. Now much of this is because people generally take their physicians to be correct all the time - something that is rarely, if ever true.
Addiction is important to Dr's because they are legally liable for
not preventing it - if the patient is a potential addict. Physical dependence is not a problem to them because they are not liable for what is determined to be "normal medical practice". Of course, it matters a whole lot to the rest of us - but we aren't nearly as important to prevent the feeding an addict!
So we have Dr's routinely under medicating pain patients taking on the attitude that the less that is given to people the better. Even more sick than that is that they still tend to give less than adequate pain medicines to dying patients. We wouldn't want Charlie to die while dependent on Morphine would we? On the flip side, they will give lots of medicines that form physiological dependences because they are not responsible for the end result. Klonopin for sleep - no problem - Suzy isn't an addict! Oh, she can't get off the medicine? That's odd!
So "addiction" and "dependence" are critically important to Dr's for all the wrong reasons. They give so much power to the addicts that they let the addicts rule what is "normal medical practice". The rest of us are let to get miserable because the Dr's can't prioritize what is critical to
us - not them. And no - I have never personally nor heard of anyone be told that they are being given a medicine with high potential for physiological dependence.
I disagree with some that this discussion is irrelevant. As I said earlier I know of tons of people waling around "tired" all day not understanding that it is likely the 4mg of Klonopin they take every night.