Hey, pain patients: You've got company. Me! Thanks to a herniated disc in my neck I'm going through some of the same stuff I have been writing about for years. Stuff that you're well aware of. With one exception. You did not wake up with a bowl of blueberries in your bed.
tramadol
I've been writing about the barbaric war against pain patients since 2013. Despite the hundreds of desperate emails I've received, and the stories I've read, it has never entirely hit home. Until now. My very elderly mom is being put through the wringer, in order to get some tramadol for back pain. If this doesn't demonstrate the colossal stupidity of our drug laws, nothing does.
Opioid prohibition spares no one, but the elderly are especially vulnerable. If they're in pain, chances are that they will be sent out of their physician's office with nothing more than Tylenol, which is just about useless. It almost happened to my mother. Yours may not be so fortunate.
A four-time Iditarod champ has been accused of doping some of his dogs with a painkiller. Tramadol, an atypical opioid, has some properties in common with the traditional opioids like morphine, which makes this interesting both medically and scientifically. How does it work? It is not as restricted as Vicodin, nor should it be. Here's why.
The Food and Drug Administration is cracking down on the use of opioid-containing drugs for children. Is this an overreaction? Maybe.