Okay, madam, you're a medical professional. I feel obligated to explain my rabid hostility about pain-killers; it goes back a long way. Pain-killers have a purpose, and not everybody who takes them can be faulted, but on the other hand, they're promiscuously overused by those who really don't need them.
When I was a little lad, maybe abour 5-7 years old, one of my older brothers hurt an ankle in high-school football. It was really bad; I remember standing at the doorway to the large bathroom, watching him, all red, retching into the commode.
One of the family physicians came to our home to look at it; it sounds like one of those now-extinct house calls, but really, he and his famly lived just down the street from us, and so it was convenient for him too.
I was too young to understand what was going on, but someone took the time and trouble to explain to me--oftentimes "explaining things" to me was a long, complicated, drawn-out process, because I'm deaf--that the physician had given him a pill. The pill wouldn't heal the ankle, but it would ameliorate the pain.
It was also explained to me that my brother had to stay off his feet for two weeks, for the ankle to heal.
And hence my confusion when, the next morning, my brother was running around as if nothing were wrong.
It was explained to me that the ankle hadn't healed; it was just that he wasn't feeling any pain.
Before the day was out, he'd re-injured his ankle, this time even worse, and the pain-killers weren't enough.
Again, the physician came to our house, looked at it, and gave him more pills; pills to mute the pain, not heal the ankle.
The next morning, he was running around as if nothing were wrong.....he re-re-injured the ankle.....the physician came to our house a third time.....my brother was given yet more pills.....
A great deal that goes on, goes on out of my sight, and because I can't hear, I have no idea what's going on; I have no memory of how this ultimately resolved itself, other than that this older brother was laid up for a very long time.
If he'd felt the pain, probably he would've settled down, giving the ankle a chance to heal.
But n-o-o-o-o-o-o; like a primitive, because he wasn't feeling any pain, he kept stressing his ankle, making the problem worse and worse.
Pain is
useful; it tells us when to
not do something.
- - - - - - - - - -
Throughout my life, I've acquired a rather impressive list of broken bones, some of which required surgery, but at the same time, what'd been predicted to take, say, six weeks to heal, was healed in half the time. I follow doctor's orders; if the doctor says "stay in bed" or "don't use it," I stay in bed or don't use it.
And since I don't take pain-killers, I behave when the pain surfaces, giving whatever it is a chance to heal.
I have severe arthritis, yet about one-third of my work involves heavy, arduous manual labor. I do good because simply using pain as a guide, I avoid doing things in such a manner that causes pain and further injury. If I wasn't feeling any pain, I'd surely by now be like so many of my people, bent, hands and feet claw-like, in constant pain, and in a "not here" haze from pain-killers. And over time, taking more and more of those damned pills.....
