http://enidnews.com/localnews/x227001781/Box-death-ruled-accidental
This article talks about a football player who was found dead and had five different painkillers and an anti-anxiety medication in his system. They spoke in the article about investigating to find out what physician prescribed the drugs, or how else he might have obtained them. Due to his many football injuries and surgeries, I am sure that he had a level of pain he had to deal with every day. Because he was on so many painkillers, it makes me wonder if he was just self-medicating because the medications he was prescribed were not doing the job. This brings me to our class discussion on doctors not knowing how to properly treat pain. Just found it interesting.
This is a discussion I just had with my father about self medicating. I have been dealing with depression since my mother's death (depression caused by my high level of stress and not because I am clinically depressed) I have expressed to my doctor multiple times that I wish to get off my antidepressants and to see how I do during the summer before classes start. He refused and told me I would relapse right away and would be allowed to go off in the fall around mid terms and stuff to see how I manage. This sounded awful as I would rather know now during the summer when things are not as difficult to relapse than to have a mental breakdown in the fall. Even with explaining all of my reasoning and beliefs, I was still rejected. And decided to self medicate and go off my anti depressants. I have been feeling fantastic and have been off for 2 months and have no issue returning to them in the fall if I need too. However, my argument is that doctors are refusing to listen to their patients, who are expressing their great desire to go off or get on medication. Instead of doing what the book says to do, the doctors should be in sync with their patients. I honestly do not think majority of people who self medicate( which is any drug, not just pain killers) do it because their doctors are not listening and understanding their concerns. This could all be avoided it doctors did not think they were big know it all and actually listened to their patients.
ReplyDeletei had a similar story with my mental health doctor. I went to see my normal family ohysician to tell her that my mother died of pancreatic cancer and so we need to document it in my file and keep an eye out for cancer and then she refered me to a mental health specialist so i went to talk to her to see what she had to say and with in 30 min of talking with her she diognosed me with bipolarisnt and severe depression.LOL and all i told her is that i was having a hard time sleeping at night. She perscribed me two different kind of pills for my bipolarism and deression. I received the pills and never took them, a refil came with out me ever seeing to doctor again. I was so disapointed in how she handled the situation. I just wanted to talk to someone not get medicated. Well to tae care of the sleeping thing i just started running again my 4 miles and now i sleep like a baby. It was a bad experience for me
ReplyDeleteMy Dad likes to self medicate or lack of medicating himself. Everytime that he goes to the doctor and is prescribed a medication, he comes bck home and looks up the drug on the internet. If he does not like the side effects he will not take the drug, even if it is being used to treat him. He has also taken himself off of certain medications without telling his doctors. I have tried to tell him that this is not a good practice, but he is every trong willed and will not listen to me.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to understand the pain another person is experiencing. This is a problem for doctors as well as patients. Sometimes doctors can prescribe too much or too little, as there is no way to measure the amount of pain a patient is having. Sometimes the patient might take more pain killers than is recommended. I know I almost brought myself to this point back in 2006. Back then, I had a tumor growing in my left ear. That tumor was causing me unbearable pain to the point I couldn't sleep for months. There is no way for me to describe how much it hurt. If there's anything I'm sure of, it was that the pain killers prescribed to me by the doctors were not enough. In my case, the medication took into account that I was working at the time. So I'm sure the doctors knew that it wasn't wise for me to take more than is necessary in the case that I was working. In the end, I never did take more than prescribed as I'd always held respect for medical practices. Just keep in mind that pain can get to the point where it will drive you crazy. Crazy to the point that you're desperate enough to do anything to get rid of the pain.
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