[wendyjreichert]

I have no doubt that pills are overused, and Europe is a rather ahead of America in terms of natural remedies and a less pill-pushing approach. That said, doctors should take care: the only thing worse than overprescribing necessary medications is underprescribing them.

[freyir]

> the only thing worse than overprescribing necessary medications is underprescribing them.

There are only three categories: overprescribing, underpresribing, and prescribing the correct amount.

In the case of opioid-based painkillers, overprescribing leads to unnecessary addiction, in turn leading to heroin or fentaynl abuse, breakup of families, overdose, etc.

If you’re underprescribed opioid painkillers, you just feel temporary pain (or not, since non-opioid painkillers exist).

So, they’re not even really close in terms of long term consequences.

[serf]

>If you’re underprescribed opioid painkillers, you just feel temporary pain (or not, since non-opioid painkillers exist).

Without taking a political stance on regulated pain killers, I'd like to point out that the concept of 'temporary pain' is largely a myth. There has been much work done (mostly with chronic pain sufferers) to show that pain (and more generally over-excitation of nerves) can cause permanent nervous system damage, brain chemistry changes, and CNS rewiring/plasticity-like changes.

Much of this research originated from the correlation between chronic pain sufferers and un-treatable (or difficult to treat) depression.

[pantalaimon]

> Much of this research originated from the correlation between chronic pain sufferers and un-treatable (or difficult to treat) depression.

How do you conclude from results involving chronic pain to the effects of temporary pain?

I think there is a pretty obvious difference.

[mantas]

Is temporary pain, while stronger painkillers are given, on the level of chronic pain?

[flukus]

> In the case of opioid-based painkillers, overprescribing leads to unnecessary addiction

So does underprescribing in a world where extremely effective yet more addictive illicit painkillers are easy to come by. I've had to resort to this for a few days after a wisdom tooth removal and would much rather have had access to better regulated options.

[hitchhiker999]

This is just a guess, but I would imagine (based on a glance at U.S. stats) over-prescribing accounts for a lot more pain and death than under-prescribing ever could?