[TangoTrotFox]

Your doctors are doing the right thing here. After a major surgery I was in rehab and on painkillers for the better part of a year. And when they finally cut the painkillers, it's not like the pain was gone. I thought I was in excruciating pain still, and by "thought" I mean it genuinely felt that way. But it's only now years later that I realized that the doctors were right. I eventually came to be perfectly fine without any painkillers, and it's not because the pain went away. The thing is that when you get used to the feeling of numbness painkillers create it exaggerates pain that's otherwise perfectly tolerable.

The whole experience somewhat ironically turned me sharply against drugs in general. In my case the doctor should have forcibly cut me off much earlier. He tried, I protested, he relented -- that was a major mistake on his part. These drugs change your perception of normalcy and make you lose context. And it seems like it's every other week there's yet some new discovery of a negative effect of drugs we thought (and many still think) to be relatively harmless such as paracetamol/acetaminophen/tylenol [1]. That link is just a google scholar search for paracetamol since 2014. Worth perusing if you'd like a reason to avoid that bottle or blister pack next time you have some sort of ache or pain.

[1] - https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=paracetamol&as_ylo=2014

[zilian]

With some chronic diseases we cannot function without meds, so please don't spread advice to avoid them (and I'm not even talking about opiods here).

[TangoTrotFox]

I genuinely and literally also thought I would be unable to function without the medication. This is precisely what I mean by losing context. In just the past few decades the US has seen skyrocketing prescription and use of everything from psychotropics/stimulants to pain killers of various sorts. And what do we have to show for it? Skyrocketing rates of mental illness (which are often side effects of said psychotropics), a drug addiction epidemic, and most tellingly of all - a decreasing life expectancy.

Our bodies are annoying creatures in that many things that make us feel good or even feel 'right' are in reality absolutely terrible for us. Add a profit motive into making us feel good, let alone paired with some rather less than ethical players, and it becomes a very twisted system.

[painstakingly]

I understand. I had prescription for Co-codamol, which is Codeine and paracetamol. I had been taking it for 8 months every day maximum dose. I have not had the urge to take more but I had become worried that paracetamol will destroy my liver so I stopped. It wasn't difficult but maybe because I substituted it with Kratom afterwards. I have been taking it daily for two years now. Sometimes it doesn't work and I have to resist the feeling to get more because that will change the tolerance even more and cause downwards spiral. I read a lot about addiction and how it works so I am careful. I guess I am sad that what I take now is illegal and another alternative is also illegal. I know that any day my life can be over, not because my illness, but because someone would like to punish me for wanting to help myself with my symptoms. Doctors tried all possible drugs that are prescribed for my illness (except stronger opiates) and none helped. At this point I probably could do something in the direction of suing the government for denying me the right to health, but I have seen previous case where that gone nowhere for the claimants. Basically the system is setup that the illegal drugs are bad and your illness is just an excuse to take them. Absolute madness!