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by mybrid 1520 days ago
"The moral of the story is don't get addicted to opiates."

That's not how addiction works.

1 comments

What I mean is don't use opiates recreationally and use opiate painkillers sparingly.

As an aside, the US has a cultural problem with painkillers it seems. Like the expectation seems to be that painkillers completely remove pain but that's not how it works. Or at least if it does you're overusing painkillers. Painkillers are largely to make pain bearable and manageable not remove it completely.

This attitude seems to be a factor in the overprescription of opiates. I think I read once that if you're still taking painkillers 2 weeks after whatever incident led you to be taking them, there's a 50% chance you'll be taking them in a year.

I've had knee surgery and basically just got given oxycodone and valium. I took them for 2 days and then just used Tylenol (you don't take ibuprofen after surgery apparently).

That's really what I mean by "don't get addicted to opiates". Treat them as dangerous because they are.

I agree. Its important to remember that some types of pain have the biological purpose of preventing you from overusing an injured part of your body. Masking that with painkillers can give you a fall sense of confidence to continue using parts of your body that in reality should be at rest.