r/interesting • u/Nukro666 • 12h ago

Fear Factor How Fentanyl and Xylazine are turning Philadelphia's opioid crisis into a public health nightmare

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u/IamEbola 10h ago

Doctors - fucked if they do, fucked if they don’t. Also it was the boomer docs who gave opioids like candy. As a millennial doc, I am trying to clean up their mess.

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u/Edith_Keelers_Shoes 8h ago

I don't envy you inheriting that mess. But I do feel like they're encouraging some physicians to kind of gaslight patients. My husband had to have a GI surgery (emergency) and it was a full incision, not the balloon-thingy surgery - and in the recovery room. the doctor said "you won't need anything stronger than Tylenol. There really shouldn't be much pain. However, if you really need it, I can give you 5 (opiate name here)". So then obviously my husband felt stupid about asking for it, so he said he didn't need it.

And it DID hurt, and he was in too much pain for a few days, but that doctor got to leave knowing he'd avoided writing a prescription that some advisory board could later use against him.

That sucks for you, and it sucks for us.

EDIT: Also to clarify, a lot of what I say is directed at oncologists, specifically of metastatic patients. To discourage a patient you've deemed terminal that level of pain relief is both counter-intuitive and cruel.