Avoiding Pain Killer Addiction

I think avoiding pain killer addiction begins with education. People who are aware of, and respect the possibility of becoming addicted have a reduced chance of becoming so.

Unfortunately, in many cases education isn’t enough.

While in the hospital, and fully aware of possibly becoming addicted, I kept asking for my hydomorphone (and extremely powerful pain killer). Oh, I really liked this IV push. It seemed like I was glad I had the pain so I had an excuse to het another dose.

But then, in the back of my mind I knew I didn’t want to be hooked. Eventually I was discharged from the hospital; sent home to deal with my pain with a few bottles of two other pain killers.

You can help keep from becoming addicted by remembering why you began taking the medicine. Do a self-diagnostic. That is, do an internal check; like say, Robocop. Try to assess if you are really hurting. Ask yourself, “When do I hurt the most?” Then you can control when you take your pain medication, and can better decide when you can cut back.

Another idea for avoiding adiction is keeping an accurate check on your dose times.  Make them at obvious times, like the top and bottome, or left and right sides of the click(12 and 6, or 3 and 9).  Keeping up with when you should dose yourself will help you avoid overmedicating. 

Cutting back on your pain medicine as soon as possible is another way to keep from becoming addicted. This way, you are not stopping cold turkey before you are ready.

Another thing to remember is that many medications cause constipation and ceasing the use of those meds can result in some uncomfortable diarrhea. Your body has to get used to not having the drug.

Even if you don’t feel any pain, you might feel irritable when you stop taking pain medicine. Remember these feelings will pass. Don’t use them as an excuse to keep taking them.