EOTF
Then, the CDC came out with their non-evidence-based guidelines, and things took a sharp turn for the worse. I’ll tell you a secret. Doctors don’t like to prescribe pain or anxiety medications.
There are several reasons for this, but one of the greatest is that people are judged by their ability to “take the pain”, “man up”, and “deal with it.” It is considered shameful in our society to admit that your suffering is too much, to ask for help.
Plus, there is no benefit to the physician to treat pain, addiction, or anxiety/PTSD these days. We get paid the same to give you something that we know won’t work if it’s safer for us. The party line these days is that NSAIDs and perhaps gabapentin are enough. Those of us on the frontline of the pain war know that this is simply not true.
of law or medicine, pain a ten-thousand-year protocol
Pain has been around since the beginning of time, and at the time of the creation of life, it is nearly ubiquitous with all life forms. Dog, cats, horse, bear, grizzly bear, polar bear, Chicago bear. Pain is real. Opiate medications have been used for pain for thousands of years for a simple reason: they work. Yes, they increase your risk of death by addiction and overdose, but less than leaving the pain untreated. And that’s the critical point.
The DEA and federal prosecutors act like simply not treating with opiates makes the problem go away. It does not. It leaves our patients with nowhere to turn to ease their suffering. For every pain and addiction doctor destroyed by the blindness of our system, thousands of patients are left without adequate medical care. And they are dying by the thousands.
