Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Codeine and Children, Even Worse Than You Thought

The problem with opiates is pervasive and unanswered by Washington except exacerbation via endorsement of Big Pharma.  The result is a top-to-bottom saturation of the population with highly-addictive pain killers and a great many cannot resist the temptation of abusing them.  One of the least-identified areas of the problem is the extreme over-prescription of codeine-based medications for children.  (Science Daily:  Codeine too risky for kids, experts say, urging restrictions on use)

This article has started out telling you something you already know (i.e. giving narcotics to children is an exceptionally bad protocol) but you may not have been aware of how much it happens and how little good it does.


There's not much we can do with sci fi since someone needs to invent better pain medication because the punishments from those which work at all can be extreme relative to the benefit.  The only non-narcotic of any particular benefit is aspirin and doctors almost universally advise against it but you know for yourself nothing else works.

Headaches have been a lifetime problem for me and these can be full-bore migraines.  I've tried everything over the years and nothing but hammering it with aspirin can deal with the problem.  That situation has existed for the last several days and some of you know the sickness of it.  Regardless of how nasty that gets, narcotics will only make it worse and some of you know that truth as well.


There has been more discussion percolating in news of various sorts regarding the analgesic effects of marijuana and I've extolled that benefit at times but perhaps did not take the thinking deeply enough.  There has been substantial need for pain relief due to a substantial number of bones which were, in more than one case, splintered.  My use of marijuana in my life is something I have dismissed as largely recreational / philosophical but I don't think I have credited the therapeutic aspect of it enough.

Don't jump forward to take that to mean we need to give ganja to children since that's not my point, it's only that existing analgesics aren't satisfactory so what alternative will you use.

I'm sorry for us all there's not a good answer and there's no immediate sci-fi solution.  Pain is part of life and we all know the song but there sure doesn't seem to be much which can be done about it.  Doctors can handle the extreme situations which we need to get spiked with dilaudid but that's an extremely powerful medication and of no use whatsoever for a migraine.


There's a whole lot more science needed to understand about pain management and one thing we know categorically:  Big Pharma is not doing it.  Some of the biggest opposition to legalization of marijuana comes from Big Pharma political arms for fear ganja will undermine the slick salves they sell.  Note:  it will. 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are many useable medications for migraines. Your tatic of of mass asirin assualt seems futile.
Immetrex or Maxalt are very good against migraines. Immetrex is best before the migraine get rolling. Maxalt will stop one if it has already started.
The new Pot companies will fall right inline with Big Phama as they spend all thier R&D money on developing a designer high. I have only seen a few small tome players that spend time or money researching true medicals benefits. But the are just doing what companies do best make money.

Unknown said...

I'll ask Ms Kersa next time I'm out at VA. 1000 mg of aspirin at the first sign of visual distortion will usually head off getting whacked, maybe with a 1000 mg more to finish it. When it goes beyond that there's sickness from the headache and the aspirin and that will likely take days to resolve.

Unknown how reefer can fail when it's got to be one of the highest-profit weeds on the planet. You're right about designer crap making a mess out of things and the science isn't making enough of a statement of research with valid scientific method, research protocols, etc. Meanwhile Harry the Harebrained Hipster comes up with all manner of bizarre claims and there's not much to say he's right or wrong.

The more anything comes down to children, the more it frosts my ass. With addicts it's different since there's choice involved in it but the kids don't have any choice when they're giving opiates. At one time it was ok to give paregoric to crying children and we look at them as such animals for doing it. One day future people may have the same perspective about this.