You’re in excruciating pain. Your body seethes with sharp muscle spasms and headaches that disrupt your train of thought. You can barely function, and the only way to move forward with your day is sitting right in front of you in a small prescription bottle. You want to reach for the painkillers, but you’re afraid of the consequences: using them as a crutch, leading straight to addiction.
But the road to healing is rarely so cut and dry. Depending on your own medical history and your family’s health background, it’s entirely possible that painkillers could be just the short-term prescription you need in order to get back on your feet. Often, avoiding painkillers can even be detrimental to one’s healing; waiting to take them until the pain becomes unbearable can cause a patient to take more than they need at a given time. So how do you know if prescription painkillers are for you? The first step is consulting your doctor.
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During your assessment, be sure to share your family’s medical history; those genetically predisposed or who have a personal history of addiction to narcotics or opiates should most likely steer clear from painkillers of this nature, as they are more susceptible to addiction or relapse.
If you have a long, chronic pain issue, such as a condition like fibromyalgia, you also might want to consider taking a non-narcotic form of pain treatment. Likewise, if a patient already uses drugs recreationally, there is a higher probability that he or she will turn to prescription painkillers for uses beyond healing.
It’s always best to start off with the most unaggressive form of pain maintenance. Begin with low dosages, or medications without highly addictive properties.
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The timeline of your healing is nearly always a factor; should you find yourself ingesting prescribed painkillers, try taking them for two to three weeks, maximum, then taking stock of the amount of pain you are in. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend doctors prescribe painkillers with addictive properties primarily for short-term healing only. Track your progress over time; if you are still in a tremendous amount of pain at the end of a brief, set amount of time, a more long-term approach should probably be taken, and not one utilizing prescription pills. Help heal without developing an addiction by limiting your ingestion, and see the pills as a short-term solution, not a lifelong one. Ingesting painkillers for an extended period of time will only increase your tolerance and make withdrawal that much more difficult when the time comes to stop taking the pills.
Once you’ve been prescribed painkillers, it is crucial to adhere to your doctor’s advice; opiates especially have a short shelf life, and those who take them often build up a tolerance quickly. This means patients will often increase their own dosage in order to maintain the same painkilling effects, which alters the way the brain receives pain signals. Should you find yourself developing this habit, return to your prescribing doctor and be open and honest about the increased dosage. Be aware of how quickly you run through a prescription; if more pills need to be called in prior to your next fill, or if you attain prescriptions from multiple doctors, there is probably a problem, and an addiction is most likely forming. Discuss next steps if this is the case, as well as if you are still in a relatively similar amount of pain as when you began.
There are a number of other, non-narcotic pills that one can ingest to help heal without pain, though those can often also contain addictive qualities and tendencies.
Non-narcotic pain management doctors can help strategize a healing plan, and the truth is that much of your addiction or reliance on painkillers could be all in your head. Many who find themselves addicted to painkillers rely on the substance not only because it dulls pain, but because it can quickly fix anxiety or depression. Simultaneously addressing mental and emotional health through therapy or other, non-substance-related methods can help one achieve mental health as well as physical healing, and lower the likelihood of addiction.
[See: 7 Health Risks of Binge Drinking You Can’t Ignore.]
Always consult your doctor at length when undergoing a new treatment, especially when considering prescription painkillers. They’re not recommended for everyone, but they should by no means be avoided by all. Careful monitoring of your progress, as well as an approach that incorporates emotional and mental well-being, can help a patient overcome pain and discomfort without creating an addiction. Each patient is unique, and a prescribing doctor can help determine if painkillers are the right fit for you. The most important factors are self-awareness and honesty.
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Should I Avoid Painkillers? How to Recover From Injury Without Addiction originally appeared on usnews.com
