When I was a senior in high school, my mom fell and hurt her back. This was 2000, and to treat her pain, my mom got a prescription for Vicodin, a bottle of dozens of pills, and refills. She used them responsibly, thank goodness, and never became addicted.
Unfortunately, many people did. In response to the opioid crisis, the government stepped in and made the problem even worse. The reactionary restriction of pain medications impacted everyone, including chronic pain users, who struggle and have to jump through hoops to adequately and appropriately treat their pain.
The messages for healthcare providers are mixed, too. In nursing school, we were told pain was what a patient told us, and we were to respect that. But when I worked in hospice, where people were literally dying and in pain, we still had to follow government-mandated protocols before we could administer pain meds that actually made my patients comfortable. And no, I'm not talking about terminal doses of pain meds. But enough to make sure the patient with cancer of the everything wasn't screaming out. Was the government afraid my dying patients would get addicted to morphine in the final hours of their lives?
When my youngest was born, via c-section, in 2013, I was given a short course of Percocet for the pain. And there was pain. It's hard having a baby when you're 30 and even getting out of bed was a challenge. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way I was allergic to Percocet, or at least the Oxycodone portion of it. After breaking out in hives, I was told to take ibuprofen five days postpartum. The pain was excruciating for about two weeks before it became tolerable.
Now researchers are proposing that women who have hysterectomies should not have opioid pain meds.
This s**t is getting out of hand. I know a woman who was told she wouldn’t get opiate pain meds after a double mastectomy for cancer. She had to refuse to do the surgery in order to get them to agree to treat her pain. Now they are pondering if women need pain relief after a… pic.twitter.com/rNEVGSPOAJ
— Buffy the misogynist slayer (cervix haver) (@Opiumbrella) August 5, 2026
This needs to stop. Either pain is what the patient tells her provider it is, or the provider gets to determine what the pain is.
Honestly, I needed benzos more than opioids after mine. I think the opioids made me kinda sick. But that's why we need individualized management.
— Heidi (@HeidiBriones) August 5, 2026
Part of the reason why my mother didn't take too many of her pain meds was that she didn't like the side effects, the lightheadedness, the lethargy, what she called the "brain fog." I don't either. But being in pain is worse. And being in chronic pain without appropriate treatment can lead to patients seeking alternate forms of pain management, including the illegal drugs that these opioid laws were meant to discourage.
When I had a nearly 8 hour spine surgery, they tried to send me home the next day with no pain medication. I live about 2.5 hours from the hospital. They thought I would let them send me on 2.5 hour drive home where nobody here would prescribe pain meds if something went wrong.… https://t.co/XOV3KxbERf
— Ale (@Alecaticus) August 5, 2026
"It is inhumane what they’re doing to women. Now they don’t want to give pain meds for full hysterectomies?? We give dogs we’ve just neutered pain medicine ffs," the user wrote. "They’re going to push people to street drugs & alcoholism is what they’re going to do. Ask them before you agree to surgery. Demand a prescription up front. I understand some people are substance abusers but collective punishment is unethical."
I've had clients with documented physiologically sourced excruciating chronic pain still denied monitored & titrated necessary pain meds.
— ci2twit (@ci2twit) August 5, 2026
'cause the drug epidemic, ya know?
Meantime he could've just gone downtown & OD'd
Politics by tribe & propaganda is acme of evil stupidity.
That's what government does when it gets involved in anything. It makes the problem worse and innocent people suffer.
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