General Discussion

are afraid to prescribe opiates now.

I have a friend who is in an inpatient rehab now to detox from suboxone, a medication that his doctor prescribed to get him off opiates, which he needed (and still needs) because he had chronic pain. The anti-addiction treatment is worse than the pain medication.

Oxycontin itself is a good pain killer, although I've never tried it myself. My grandmother was taking it daily for the last 10 years of her life and it helped tremendously with her back pain and allowed her to enjoy her life. She was on the lowest dose and she never went to a higher dose the entire time.

I think the real issue was doctors were offering it to patients that could have taken a lesser pain killer like Vicodin or codeine. And the corrupt clinics that were just passing it out to everyone without any medical evidence of pain.