Pain Relief Medications - A Blessing, A Curse Or Some Of Both?
Drugs and medications abound in today's world treating almost every imaginable ailment, pain and disease.
Some save lives and extend life expectancy as in the cases of high blood pressure, heart conditions and diabetes medications.
Other medications improve quality of life for an individual suffering from depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder.
Pain medications make life bearable to those suffering from accidents, injuries, surgeries and degenerative diseases such as arthritis.
Unfortunately there are many addictive medications that can have very disastrous results if given over to them.
Pain medications are one of the most common types of medications that can develop into an addiction if not carefully monitored by your health care professional.
Although very useful in combating pain and possibly allowing healing and mobility to a suffering individual it must be heeded that sometimes a person begins taking these medications and has a hard time stopping even after the need for the pain relief drug has subsided.
What can happen is that the person taking the pain medication actually realizes that they are dependent on it and that it is unhealthy for them but their desire and craving for the medication overrides their common sense and find they are unable to stop taking the pain medication.
Often and unfortunately this can lead to the individual hiding the addiction (and the medication) from loved ones so that it is very difficult for people that care about them to detect that something is amiss and a very dangerous addiction has developed.
There are preventive measures to becoming addicted to pain relief pills, the biggest one being openness and honesty between loved ones.
Also an accountability system could be implemented with your doctor so that he is your only health care professional and person to prescribe you your medication.
A loved one could attend doctor's visits with the patient and be involved in the accountability.
Pain relief medications are one of the amazing advances of modern medicine and are extremely useful and helpful if given and monitored in a correct manner and abuse does not develop.
Loved ones of those taking pain medications should educate themselves to be able to see any warning signs that the patient is becoming addicted to the medications designed to help them heal.
Being educated on the many different warning signs of pain relief medication addiction could save the life of your loved one taking the medication.
Some of the more common signs of addiction will be discussed below.
One sign that sometimes appears with a person who is becoming addicted to pain relief medication is that the patient will discover and utilize ways of heightening the effects of the medication being taken.
Often the taking of other un-prescribed drugs, illegal drugs, other medications or alcohol along with the pain relief pill will begin to occur.
This often strengthens the effect of the 'high' of the pain relief medication but it is an extremely risky and dangerous move for a person to start mixing up their own drug 'cocktails', if you as a loved one see this develop in the patient taking the medications it is highly recommended to seek professional help immediately! This is a very life threatening practice and is a sure sign of dangerous addiction.
Another often occurring sign of addiction is the patient going to see more than one medication prescribing doctor at a time to make it possible for them to fuel their addiction.
This is where a previously set up accountability program between the loved one(s), the prescribing doctor and the patient could prevent an over abundance of medication being available to the patient.
After you have educated yourself on the signs of addiction, discovering that your loved one is addicted to pain relief medication is very a difficult, but necessary realization that must occur for your loved one to receive help.
An addicted person often lives in denial that they have an addiction and that they are in real danger.
It is a difficult subject to approach a loved one with and must be done with some caution as you do not want your addicted loved one to begin hiding that fact that they are addicted.
Obviously the faster the addiction is treated the better as a pain pill addiction can easily turn into a more dangerous addiction to heaver narcotics.
There is help for both you and your addicted loved one, the addicted individual needs to come to the realization that they need help and you as the loved one needs to stand by them until they are freed from the addiction.
Contacting organizations like Narcotics Anonymous can give support to both the addicted and the loved ones of the addicted.
We hope that you will plan now to avoid a future disaster and set up an accountability program with your health care provider and loved ones before taking any strong narcotic type pain medication to treat what ails you.
Some save lives and extend life expectancy as in the cases of high blood pressure, heart conditions and diabetes medications.
Other medications improve quality of life for an individual suffering from depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder.
Pain medications make life bearable to those suffering from accidents, injuries, surgeries and degenerative diseases such as arthritis.
Unfortunately there are many addictive medications that can have very disastrous results if given over to them.
Pain medications are one of the most common types of medications that can develop into an addiction if not carefully monitored by your health care professional.
Although very useful in combating pain and possibly allowing healing and mobility to a suffering individual it must be heeded that sometimes a person begins taking these medications and has a hard time stopping even after the need for the pain relief drug has subsided.
What can happen is that the person taking the pain medication actually realizes that they are dependent on it and that it is unhealthy for them but their desire and craving for the medication overrides their common sense and find they are unable to stop taking the pain medication.
Often and unfortunately this can lead to the individual hiding the addiction (and the medication) from loved ones so that it is very difficult for people that care about them to detect that something is amiss and a very dangerous addiction has developed.
There are preventive measures to becoming addicted to pain relief pills, the biggest one being openness and honesty between loved ones.
Also an accountability system could be implemented with your doctor so that he is your only health care professional and person to prescribe you your medication.
A loved one could attend doctor's visits with the patient and be involved in the accountability.
Pain relief medications are one of the amazing advances of modern medicine and are extremely useful and helpful if given and monitored in a correct manner and abuse does not develop.
Loved ones of those taking pain medications should educate themselves to be able to see any warning signs that the patient is becoming addicted to the medications designed to help them heal.
Being educated on the many different warning signs of pain relief medication addiction could save the life of your loved one taking the medication.
Some of the more common signs of addiction will be discussed below.
One sign that sometimes appears with a person who is becoming addicted to pain relief medication is that the patient will discover and utilize ways of heightening the effects of the medication being taken.
Often the taking of other un-prescribed drugs, illegal drugs, other medications or alcohol along with the pain relief pill will begin to occur.
This often strengthens the effect of the 'high' of the pain relief medication but it is an extremely risky and dangerous move for a person to start mixing up their own drug 'cocktails', if you as a loved one see this develop in the patient taking the medications it is highly recommended to seek professional help immediately! This is a very life threatening practice and is a sure sign of dangerous addiction.
Another often occurring sign of addiction is the patient going to see more than one medication prescribing doctor at a time to make it possible for them to fuel their addiction.
This is where a previously set up accountability program between the loved one(s), the prescribing doctor and the patient could prevent an over abundance of medication being available to the patient.
After you have educated yourself on the signs of addiction, discovering that your loved one is addicted to pain relief medication is very a difficult, but necessary realization that must occur for your loved one to receive help.
An addicted person often lives in denial that they have an addiction and that they are in real danger.
It is a difficult subject to approach a loved one with and must be done with some caution as you do not want your addicted loved one to begin hiding that fact that they are addicted.
Obviously the faster the addiction is treated the better as a pain pill addiction can easily turn into a more dangerous addiction to heaver narcotics.
There is help for both you and your addicted loved one, the addicted individual needs to come to the realization that they need help and you as the loved one needs to stand by them until they are freed from the addiction.
Contacting organizations like Narcotics Anonymous can give support to both the addicted and the loved ones of the addicted.
We hope that you will plan now to avoid a future disaster and set up an accountability program with your health care provider and loved ones before taking any strong narcotic type pain medication to treat what ails you.
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