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Comment by wanderr | Hacker News Reader

They gave me opiods after an invasive surgery that had me on crutches for a month. That stuff was strong enough that I could not safely crutch to the bathroom, I was too dizzy. Switched to low dose edibles and had no problem falling asleep, they didn't make it impossible to get to the bathroom safely, and I didn't have to worry about addiction.

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I got sent home with opioids after a collapsed lung surgery many years ago. I was in a lot of pain, so I took one, felt great for a half an hour and then things started to spin and I felt nauseous for like 4 hours where I just stared at the ceiling. Even a sneeze hurt like hell where I'd been stitched up - I really did not want to barf.

After that, I took over the counter painkillers and just kind of dealt with the pain, as it was better than feeling all wobbly and dizzy.

I have kidney stones from time to time. NSAIDs + "deal with it" are an underappreciated pain approach - it's ok to be in pain. It's not OK to be in so much pain you're going to blind and writhing, but those are totally different things.

Unfortunately, there are a ton of incentives from insurance companies and Medicare for patients to be pain-free. Part of your hospital and surgeon's reimbursement is determined by their patient satisfaction score, and uncomfortable patients provide low scores so docs overprescribe and steer clear of uncomfortable topics like behavioral changes, etc;

https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Res...

It can get worse than a bad satisfaction score. Look up "Saint Francis Health System shooting".

Really, the problem is prescriptions that say ”take 2 pills every four hours” instead of ”take max 2 pills every four hours as needed for pain”

I had to take oxycodone + NSAIDs every 6 hours when I had my stone, but I had complications that required a stent and I did not react well to it. In fact, on both medications I was still in so much pain that it was barely manageable.

I can imagine a stone being less painful, I don’t think my experience represents the mean. It definitely makes me a bit shy of being anti-opioid, though. As miserable as they are, it would’ve been absolute torture without.

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