Dr. Bloomberg: Poor in pain must suffer

[ChicagoGranny]

Some of the most common and most powerful prescription painkillers on the market will be restricted sharply in the emergency rooms at New York City’s 11 public hospitals, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Thursday


“Here is my problem with legislative medicine,” said Dr. Alex Rosenau, president-elect of the American College of Emergency Physicians and senior vice chairman of emergency medicine at Lehigh Valley Health Network in Eastern Pennsylvania. “It prevents me from being a professional and using my judgment.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/nyreg ... .html?_r=0

[49er]

Some of the most common and most powerful prescription painkillers on the market will be restricted sharply in the emergency rooms at New York City’s 11 public hospitals, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Thursday


“Here is my problem with legislative medicine,” said Dr. Alex Rosenau, president-elect of the American College of Emergency Physicians and senior vice chairman of emergency medicine at Lehigh Valley Health Network in Eastern Pennsylvania. “It prevents me from being a professional and using my judgment.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/nyreg ... .html?_r=0

Thanks for posting that CG.

Words fail me regarding this insanity.

49er

[ughwhatname]

Some of the most common and most powerful prescription painkillers on the market will be restricted sharply in the emergency rooms at New York City’s 11 public hospitals, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Thursday


“Here is my problem with legislative medicine,” said Dr. Alex Rosenau, president-elect of the American College of Emergency Physicians and senior vice chairman of emergency medicine at Lehigh Valley Health Network in Eastern Pennsylvania. “It prevents me from being a professional and using my judgment.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/nyreg ... .html?_r=0

If the purpose of this is to prevent painkiller abuse, then address that rather than limiting the medicine available for doctors to prescribe. That final quote says it all.

[MidnightOwl]

Not quite.

Under the new city policy, most public hospital patients will no longer be able to get more than three days’ worth of narcotic painkillers like Vicodin and Percocet. Long-acting painkillers, including OxyContin, a familiar remedy for chronic backache and arthritis, as well as Fentanyl patches and methadone, will not be dispensed at all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/nyreg ... rooms.html

This is not quite the same as denying painkillers. And it's talking only about Emergency Rooms. However everyone does seem to be getting more uptight about prescribing these recently. I recently had to argue to get a painkiller after a dental extraction.

[fuzzy 69]

so we have to abuse alcohol and illegal drugs then??????????????????????????????????????????

[BlackSpinner]

so we have to abuse alcohol and illegal drugs then??????????????????????????????????????????

The nice thing about that is that they deliver to the door with no questions asked.

[chunkyfrog]

This beyond tragic.

[johnthomasmacdonald]

midnight owl wrote: "This is not quite the same as denying painkillers. And it's talking only about Emergency Rooms. However everyone does seem to be getting more uptight about prescribing these recently. I recently had to argue to get a painkiller after a dental extraction. "

no, it's much worse than that. There's some sort of campaign going on to stop prescribing all opioid painkillers to those with chronic pain. I guess they need to open another front in "the war on drugs" since the other fronts have been so successful. Here your GP or internist won't prescribe painkillers but will send you to a "pain clinic" where they make the point that they don't prescribe opiates at all - they inject nerve blocks and corticosteriods and if it doesn't help - tough luck.

[cosmo]

I recently had to argue to get a painkiller after a dental extraction.

I was given an RX with 1 extra refill from my dentist after a procedure. It pays to handle your share of the cost in cash. It was around $2k

I even got a 5 or 10% discount. But Target where I went to fill it looked at me like I was a criminal and called the dentist first. That is their policy anyways.

[zoocrewphoto]

I recently had to argue to get a painkiller after a dental extraction.

I was given an RX with 1 extra refill from my dentist after a procedure. It pays to handle your share of the cost in cash. It was around $2k

I even got a 5 or 10% discount. But Target where I went to fill it looked at me like I was a criminal and called the dentist first. That is their policy anyways.

I had my 3 remaining wisdom pulled out in November. I also had 11 fillings done during the same visit. My dentist was going to prescribe Vicodin, but I asked for a liquid as I struggle with small pills, and my jaw was also very sore from being open so long (I have a small mouth, so it was really a stretch, and I was there for 3 1/2 hours). I'm not sure what the liquid medicine actually is since it just gives some letters - Hydro/ACET. Unfortunately, I didn't realize it needed to be taken with food, so I got home, took it, and went to bed. I was nauseous all day and unable to eat anything. Once I realized it was the medicine making me feel sick, I waited until I was past the 6 hours and just took some regular tylenol. That worked great. My jaw only hurt for about 2 days, and after that, only one spot hurt (where one wisdom tooth was difficult to pull). The other 2 wisdom teeth holes didn't hurt at all. I was really impressed. Years ago, a different dentist did a deep cleaning, and I couldn't eat normal food for 3 days. My current dentist pulled the first wisdom tooth out a couple years ago, and it never hurt afterward. I didn't even turn in the prescription. It simply never hurt.

[cosmo]

You could have broken the Vicodin pills in half for easier intake

I'm going for wisdom teeth removal soon. I will be getting an rx for Vicodin for sure I will be getting a referral to an oral surgeon at my next dental appt. 2 of my bottom ones are sideways I've seen an oral surgeon a few months ago but their xray machine was not working properly or film was bad and they had me go back to the xray machine 5 times. Each time the film did not turn out. I finally said enough, I'm leaving. But I did get to find out the cost and insurance will cover all but $250 from a $2k+ procedure

[zoocrewphoto]

You could have broken the Vicodin pills in half for easier intake

I have a really hard time with pills, so without seeing them, I wouldn't know if cutting in half will work. I usually ask if the medicine comes in a small pill or liquid form. Then I don't have to worry about it. Several years ago, the ER prescribed darvocet for back pain. I had to cut it into 5 pieces to get it down, and I choked on one of the pieces. It didn't help, so I never tried more than one. Once I could see my regular doctor, I was prescribed a mild muscle relaxer which is a small pill and works much better than a pain reliever since it actually stops the cause of the probelm. For pain relief, I normally use the adult strength liquid tylenol, or the tablet form of Aleve. Or an ice pack.

The day I had the teeth out, I could barely get my mouth open enough to get a spoon of mashed potatoes in. My jaw was so sore. So, I actually skipped all my blood pressure medicine for a day and a half. And those are small pills that I can normally take without any problems. I felt guilty not taking them, but I just didn't want the pain of opening my mouth.

[archangle]

Sorry to repeat this again, but failure to follow it can be a real tragedy.

Acetaminophen (paracetamol, Tylenol, APAP) is very dangerous to your liver if you overdose. Be careful not to take more than the recommended safe dose of acetaminophen tablets, and watch out if you're taking more than one med at a time because both meds may have acetaminophen. For instance, Tylenol, Vicodin, and NyQuil all have acetaminophen.

Worst of all, they may use different words. For instance, generic "Vicoden," may refer to acetaminophen as "APAP." (APAP for N-acetyl-p-aminophenol, not Automatic Positive Airway Pressure.)

The US government makes drug manufacturers put acetaminophen in many strong pain relievers so that the acetaminophen will kill you if try to use them to get high. Better dead or liver damaged than getting high.

I do NOT consider acetaminophen to be harmful unless you take more than the recommended amount, but the safety margin is less than many other common drugs, and even a single overdose can do lifetime dame to your liver.

If your painkiller has acetaminophen and it's not working well enough, don't exceed the recommended safe dosage. Don't combine painkillers, especially without checking to see if they both have acetaminiphen.

[zoocrewphoto]

Sorry to repeat this again, but failure to follow it can be a real tragedy.

Acetaminophen (paracetamol, Tylenol, APAP) is very dangerous to your liver if you overdose. Be careful not to take more than the recommended safe dose of acetaminophen tablets, and watch out if you're taking more than one med at a time because both meds may have acetaminophen. For instance, Tylenol, Vicodin, and NyQuil all have acetaminophen.

Worst of all, they may use different words. For instance, generic "Vicoden," may refer to acetaminophen as "APAP." (APAP for N-acetyl-p-aminophenol, not Automatic Positive Airway Pressure.)

The US government makes drug manufacturers put acetaminophen in many strong pain relievers so that the acetaminophen will kill you if try to use them to get high. Better dead or liver damaged than getting high.

I do NOT consider acetaminophen to be harmful unless you take more than the recommended amount, but the safety margin is less than many other common drugs, and even a single overdose can do lifetime dame to your liver.

If your painkiller has acetaminophen and it's not working well enough, don't exceed the recommended safe dosage. Don't combine painkillers, especially without checking to see if they both have acetaminiphen.

Very good warnings. I was told that the liquid medicine after the dental work had tylenol in it, so I made sure I was past 6 hours before I used the regular tylenol. I think I was actually at 8 hours by that point as it was overnight. I do try to go past the normal time frames so that I am not using too much. If I don't know if I can mix medications, I will wait until the next time to retake the medication before I switch to something else. Several times, I have asked the pharmacist if I can take two things at once. Recently, I had to use cough medication with codeine, so I had to make sure I wasn't mixing anything bad while using it.

When I was taking the tylenol for my jaw pain, I stopped taking the aleve for my hip pain. I didn't want to be on both at the same time, I chose which pain I wanted to eliminate and most and went with that medication.

Before my dental work, I asked the dentist if it was okay to take certain medications before the dental work since I didn't know if it would be a problem with the medication they would be using.

Strangely, I have found that narcotic pain killers seem to have no effect on pain for me. I have no idea why, I but I am reluctant to try anything new as I always have to wait for the time to expire before I can take something useful. Codeine helps reduce my cough, but it did nothing for back pain years ago. Same with darvocet. And whatever I was given for the dental work. No pain relief at all. I've had better luck with an ice pack.

While those things seem useless to me, tylenol usually kicks a headache within 10 minutes. And Aleve has totally stopped my bursitis pain. If I skip it, the pain returns. But I went from months of daily pain and waking up all night, to no pain at all, as long as I take one before bed.

My back pain is actually a pinched sciatic nerve due to clenched muscle. Pain relievers don't help at all, but a mild muscle relaxer will release the muscle and relieve the pain.