Hacker News Reader

Comment by star-castle | Hacker News Reader

> You think horrifyingly painful medical conditions are extremely rare

Yes. In particular, they are much less of a concern than the epidemic of people killing themselves with opiates. This is so blatantly the case that I see this piece as simply axe-grinding of a certain agenda. The author is distressed and annoyed that sympathy is going towards this suicidal population. The author wants to direct your sympathy towards people like this guy.

And this guy's problem is not 'pain'. There's medicine for that. This guy's problem is that doctors are skeptical of his pain. And that is way, way, down the totem poll of things I care about, vs. an entire population group killing itself by whatever means are handy.

When I was eight I was worried about people not believing that I was really sick.

View on HN

>> You think horrifyingly painful medical conditions are extremely rare

>Yes. In particular, they are much less of a concern than the epidemic of people killing themselves with opiates.

Wow. The only thing I am slightly comforted by is the fact that if you or someone you love lives long enough, you will likely come to regret those words. Because almost all of us will eventually suffer from severe, horrifying pain if we live long enough. I don't want anyone to suffer from severe, chronic or acute pain, but I do appreciate the compassion and enlightenment that usually results from such suffering.

By the way, I do agree that he picked a bad example patient, since there are thousands of people with horrific diseases, organic diseases, who are being denied adequate pain relief at the present.

Finally, in case it's not clear, it's completely possible to be compassionate to both people with severe chronic and acute pain, as well as to those people who are dying from addiction issues. But as we'll continue to see, eliminating prescription pain medication will do nothing to lower the opiate death toll, since most addicts are dying from illegally manufactured heroin, carfentanyl, etc.

I have some friends who fall into this category. They end up using stuff like Kratom, which I guess is fairly effective. The DEA almost made it illegal recently, but I guess enough are helped by it, a letter writing campaign ended with a rare reversal. I've tried it for fun (and back pain); seems pretty effective to me. Suspect it's hard on the liver.

It is messed up how the medical profession is with its incentives. ~15 years ago my doctor wanted to give me oxys for just about any complaint ("doc they canceled Star Trek Enterprise" here have some oxys). More recently, a nurse ex-gf informs me half her job is saying no to people who are trying to get opiate handouts.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com