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Good point regarding the weekend/after hours availability of pain meds at the hospital, Zeke. Of course they must have access 24/7/365. Traumatic injury follows no set schedule, defying even the most self important beauraucrats' authority. Imagine that.
We do reach a point, however, where it can become extremely counterproductive to even have a discussion with the attending physician or nurse regarding the effectiveness, frequency, type, or any other aspect of their "pain management". My wife, a retired nurse, tells me that they can and will flag your medical records to label you as a "drug seeker". God help you if you ever earn that distinction. Pretty much any care provider that sees that (and with modern electronic medical records that means all of them) will refuse to provide anything stronger than Tylenol or Advil, no matter how severe your pain, no matter the cause of your pain. So it's best not to argue with them.
Pain management is a vital component in the healing process. Any first year med student will tell you that. Yet here we find ourselves, with bureaucrats and politicians who have no medical training whatsoever making the rules for how doctors are allowed to approach this.
I, for one, would rather not resort to booze to control pain. That just can't be good for the healing process. We have developed far more effective means. I very much resent that the rest of us are now beholden to the abuses endemic within the lowest rungs of our society, which clueless bureaucrats and politicians use as their excuse through which they have wrested control of yet another aspect of our lives. They need to get their noses out of our health care (and not just this aspect of it) , leaving it to our actual trained professionals.
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