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Comment by sharkweek | Hacker News Reader

When I was 18 I had a pretty major surgery (Nuss procedure, to correct pectus excavatum, good times) which required an epidural in my spine.

When I was being prepped, the anesthesiologist joked "ready to feel the best feeling your body will ever experience?"

He wasn't joking - my entire body felt like it was floating, my mind cleared of every negative feeling, and for the 15-20 seconds I remained awake, I honestly thought I was in heaven.

I can totally understand how someone could get addicted to that feeling.

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I known what you mean. As a child I had an emergency appendectomy and they gave me intravenous Demerol (synthetic opioid) for the pain. It's literally the best feeling in the world and I can totally understand how people become addicted after prolonged use. So I recommend trying every other option for pain relief before letting a healthcare provider give you an opioid. It's scary how even dentists sometimes hand out codeine prescriptions after minor procedures like wisdom tooth extraction.

My dentist didn't give me Vicodin[0] unless I had more than one or two teeth out. Even then I never understood how people could like it. I got a little pain relief and a little bit of a relaxing feeling. It was probably a really low dose as well.

Might have just been mine wasn't into giving out prescriptions or they didn't think I would need them.

I have a friend who has so many pain prescriptions after his back surgery that I've lost count of and they either don't work or lose effectiveness or he can't deal with the side effects. The scary part to me is there will never be an end for him unless there is some miracle in medicine that his doctor doesn't know about yet.

[0]I know that's not the same as Codeine

This isn't that surprising. Drugs affect people differently and people seek different states of mind.

People talk about how addictive methamphetamine is. I know people who tried and never wanted to try it again. It was the most unpleasant experience. Like you drank way too much coffee and had all the anxiety and jitters to go along with it. For other people, it's like heaven.

This goes back to the idea of "self-medication" as a root cause of drug addiction. People get psychologically addicted to a drug because it solves a psychological issue for them. Depression? It goes away when I take meth. Anxiety? Gone when I take oxy.

Thinking about it that way, we shouldn't really be that surprised when people have trouble beating an addiction. Even with all the negative side effects, would you want to stop taking a drug that cured (imperfectly) a severe problem you've had your whole life?

"Even with all the negative side effects, would you want to stop taking a drug that cured (imperfectly) a severe problem you've had your whole life?"

I am not going to go into detail but that really resonates with me[0].

[0]I'm not addicted to anything don't worry!

That's interesting I had the same thing happen to me (around the same age). He phrased it as, "We're going to knock you out let me give you a bit just so you know what it will be like," and instantly my body flooded with warmth. I still to this day remember how good it felt... the mentally addictive properties are obvious even before the physical dependency.

And the mental one is likely to be the real problem to beat.

Anything from tobacco on up seems to be about getting that bit of relief from the demons of everyday living.

Would you recommend having the procedure? What was your Haller index/severity?

I'm 31 now - here are my thoughts.

I am so glad I had it done, but I would never have it done again, if that makes sense =)

It was the worst four months of my life after the operation, with basically my entire sternum broken. However, it was amazing what a difference it has made since. I don't remember my number, but the metric I do remember was that my heart was pushing into my left lung, causing about a 35% decrease in lung capacity.

I do miss eating cereal out of my chest, which always made my friends in high school laugh.

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