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People who recreationally used prescription opiates, or people who got hooked following a doctor's pain management directions? The ones who got hooked listening to a doc are a small minority, but the ones who started off recreationally using prescription opiates is a vast majority View Quote Heroin had the stigma of being a dirty drug, with dirty users. Now, so many people are doing it, that stigma is gone. |
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A brother of an acquaintance just got sentenced to prison for meth. Straight A student from when they started giving out grades to high school. Was given pain pills for a football injury and never came back. View Quote |
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I had my jaw sawed in half in 4 places. I have more screws in my face than most contractors have in their truck. I took some serious pain meds for that. I stopped taking them as soon as I could. I can't imagine living through that without them. I'll admit I really enjoyed the Valium they gave me one time pre op but a rational healthy person knows all this shit is bad for them and they push to get off it. I only wanted the pain low enough I could sleep a few hours if I didn't move. I fear more for people like me being restricted than some junkies overdosing. View Quote I had a baseball-sized lipoma removed from my right sciatic nerve last year that left a 6 inch scar on my hip. It was the most painful recovery I've been through, including my two back surgeries. But the surgeon who did it prescribed a few low-grade hydrocodone and sent me on my way (after geeking out about this being the biggest one he's ever seen, and said that he nearly had to call in a neurosurgeon to get it off of there). The next five weeks were pretty hellish for me. He said "I don't do pain pills". I told m referring regular physician not to ever send me to him again. |
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odds are that turned recreational long before it was an addiction. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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A brother of an acquaintance just got sentenced to prison for meth. Straight A student from when they started giving out grades to high school. Was given pain pills for a football injury and never came back. Most of the injured kids would rather have the cash than the pills. |
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All I know is I don't mess with the pain pills given to me for a doctor unless I'm actually hurt
Too scary, I can barely fight off the BRD so its obvious my will power is not strong |
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I've only known one heroin user, and he used because of the crack down on prescription pain killers that happened a couple of decades ago. Doctors feared getting in trouble for over prescribing them and ended up under prescribing them to avoid problems for themselves. This guy was in a car accident. He was ejected from the car and the car rolled over him. Lucky to even survive, he had multiple broken vertebrae in his neck and back. Ended up having one vertebrae removed, three fused and a rod placed in his back. What was he prescribed for pain? Tylenol 3s. He supplemented that with pain killers he bought on the street, but since his injuries prevented him from working, money got tight and heroin was much cheaper. He didn't inject it, he snorted it. Don't know if that makes any difference or not. Ended up addicted, lost pretty much everything. Haven't seen him in a long time, but a mutual friend tells me that after many years he finally did get clean. |
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I don't have time to type it all out right now, but I am very good friends with the director of a local NICU unit. We had a long conversation on the "Opiod Crisis" a few weeks ago. Her opinion is that it's because people are being prescribed opiods more and more, due to the "Patient Satisfaction" component of Obamacare. All of that is tracked by .gov via contractors and they're rating on each component can affect how they are paid. She deals mostly with Medicaid patients and says the vast majority of them have some form of drugs in their system when they come to the Hospital to deliver. Some of her stories are almost unbelievable. That's the short version.
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Also, how long do most people have to do opioids before they start to get dependent? I took them every day (two surgeries back to back) for a month straight and when I ran out I had no issues. View Quote |
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A certain percentage of humans have always enjoyed drugs. Could be some weird root, a mushroom, alcohol, anything that gives them that escape, it's happened since we've been able to find that kind of stuff. I always think it's interesting when I watch the little clip about the alcoholic monkeys of the Caribbean. https://youtu.be/pSm7BcQHWXk The percentage of monkeys that avoid booze matches the percentage of humans that also avoid it. Humans are the same way, some just can't help but get smashed by any means. View Quote ![]() |
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Victims of painkillers? ![]() Their are victims of their own failure to respect themselves. View Quote |
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The vast majority got started on opioids illegally, either bought on the street or stolen from medical cabinets.
But there isn't graft money or power to be had from advocating for more control of illegal heroin. The whole thing with prescription painkillers right now is because that's where the money/power is. There is an issue with over-proscribing of painkillers in this country, as with drugs in general, but it is not driving a heroin epidemic like the scaremongers are claiming. |
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Often It's a combination of factors victims of poor parenting poor genetics and top that off with prescription medications who seem to take hold of these types of people without warning
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Also, how long do most people have to do opioids before they start to get dependent? I took them every day (two surgeries back to back) for a month straight and when I ran out I had no issues. View Quote I've also been treated at a pain management Dr for a couple years. I took them as needed. I had left over pills to take as needed for probably a year after. I honestly don't know any pillhead that became that way for any other reason than being a pillhead. I blame the "clean needles" exchange and "safe place" to shoot up for the so called opioid/heroin epidemic. They've glamorized and enabled addicts to the point of creating this "epidemic". Let them suffer and die and it will go away, just like it did in the 60's. |
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Pill heads, at least the ones I have experience with, were pill heads while perfectly healthy. Meaning they tried some at a party or something one time, decided it was fun, and kept doing it until it got out of control. Some people just can't control themselves. View Quote |
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More people over dosed in 2014 from Rx opiods/pain meds than heroin. Same in 2015. Over 20K died from Rx pain meds, and only around 13K from heroin. View Quote Pain meds were easier to get decades ago, why wasn't it a problem then? Now thanks to liberal junkies people have to suffer with pain. Doctors won't take the chance in prescribing them. Can't really blame them. |
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This is the dumbest shit I have ever read. You’re making America weak. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Lots of people just need to nut up and quit being dependent on shit. I honestly think in a lot of cases it's nothing more than being mentally weak and lacking self control, or maybe even self esteem. I'm sure there are plenty people that were given prescription drugs without any kind of plan or program in place, and did end up becoming hooked, but I also believe they are the minority when it comes to drug abuse. ![]() |
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The percentage of people that painkillers / opiates have been pushed on is extreme. Its all by design....most people didn't even know that a physical addiction was possible by the stuff their doctors were prescribing them. I have always wondered why Big Pharma is never criticized. Especially after a shooting. Between that and psychology/ psychiatrists its all a big scam. View Quote |
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Older people that now take heroin most likely started on prescriptions. During Bush years, .gov started pushing a 5th vital sign, pain. Rules were put in place so that we would have to control pain or doctors wouldn't get reimbursed. My ER had a hard on for pushing to make sure pain was controlled. Our doctors gave out narcotics quite often. You would also be able to see your dentist for a tooth ache and get Percocet if the decay needed a root canal or extraction to fix and if you got an extraction you would get Percocet. It wasn't until we see the problem we have had for a few years that now, narcotics are finally being curbed by prescription. This is what you get when .gov makes rules for people to jump through to get reimbursed for services provided.
Drug companies have also given out misinformation. This is what the lawsuits are going with. I've seen a few things, not following closely, but what I've seen there is a case to be made with this. I'd say if you are in your 40s doing heroin, you probably started with prescription drugs from an injury. If you are 30s or younger, you probably raided your parents medicines and got hooked that way unless you had a legit medical problem like a broken leg/arm or other injury. You don't just start using heroin. They all started by prescription pills, how they got them is something else. Everyone is different. Some can take medications and not have any problems. I've broken bones myself but narcotics will cause constipation and even with a bruise across my butt cheeks the size of the curb I landed on when I got hit(also had a lumber fracture,) I didn't want to take them because I didn't want to sit on that toilet longer than I needed. Other people are just pussies. |
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Most of the people I've known that are heroin addicts or dead because of heroin, started by using opiate pain killers recreationally when we were in high school. They either got them illegally (the majority) or faked an injury to get them.
I know a couple who OD'ed on just pain killers before they got to heroin. |
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Google how many veterans are addicted. Lots came home with broken and damaged bodies and went to the VA and the docs there were too busy or didnt care and just wrote scrips for oxy. It's a huge problem.
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Why haven’t we heard anything about the high grade H coming out of Mexico laced with fentanyl? My bet it is a big part of the problem.
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I think many are victims of fentanyl and carfentanyl.
I believe these synthetic opiates are 1000-10,000 times more potent than heroine and vastly less expensive. They are mixed along with inert cutting agents to make an extreme profitable heroine-like drug. A couple micrograms of pure carfentanyl can kill you. It's an elephant tranquilizer. If it's mixed improperly the street "heroine" becomes a lethal injection more or less. Most of the synthetic opiates are made in China or in Mexico using Chinese base chemicals. These synthetic drugs only appeared on the street in the last 10 years but really became widespread only in the last 3-5 years. |
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From personal experience I’ve seen my brother in law start down the road of addiction after being on pain pills for a month following several dental procedures. He lucklily saw it too and quit cold turkey.
I’ve lost a good friend in the fire service (not dead yet). He got hooked after he sought treatment at the VA for back pain from a helicopter crash in Afghanistan when he served in the Army as a medic. He got hired on with the fire department kept his pain in check for a while then went off the deep end. He got fired and now he’s a full blown addict. My take on things is things really went to shit went the DEA actually cracked down on prescription pain pills like Oxy. That sent the price of pills for addicts through the roof and they turned to cheaper meth for their addiction. Simple cause and affect. You restrict one area of addiction and human behavior and a gateway to a cheaper alternative route to get high will open. In the end there will always be drug addicts. |
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They're mostly IMO victims of a genetic predisposition to addiction. About 90% of people who are given prescription opiates for legitimate purposes are in no danger of becoming addicted. View Quote If I"m prescribing strong opiates, I sometimes tell people "if you find yourself REALLY liking this medicine... I mean REALLY, REALLY liking it... like counting the minutes until you can take your next dose, you might be one of those people who has 'the bad gene.' If that's you, for the love of all that's holy, STOP TAKING THEM. Step back from the precipice, and throw them away. Do this before the stuff really gets its hooks in... because there is nothing down that road but ruin and pain" |
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Opioids are a painkiller. All sorts of pain. It's cheap and available. People get broken many different ways. I've had a bad spinal, never had a problem with the meds. I suspect I would have as a teen. View Quote They didn't do much for pain nor were they any fun. I guess some people get the predisposition to them, maybe I don't have the needed receptors for them or something. And it isn't addictive personality. I battled booze for a few years and just kicked a 20+ year smoking habit so I am susceptible to addictions. Opiods just weren't my thing I guess |
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A study of one million patients showed only 4.5% became addicted from their opiate scripts.
The vast majority of addicts are just run of the mill junkies. http://archive.castlighthealth.com/typ/the-opioid-crisis/ |
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They're mostly IMO victims of a genetic predisposition to addiction. About 90% of people who are given prescription opiates for legitimate purposes are in no danger of becoming addicted. View Quote |
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The liberals want to blame the (legal) drug industry for heroin addiction. What percentage of junkies are junkies because of legal opioids taken after an injury versus just being a burnout loser that wanted to get high? View Quote |
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It's an interesting question. People here see their own injuries as "legit" and injured people turned junkies like you and I described as losers with no self respect. If all prescription drugs were banned and not sold any more, would the person go to street H or would they learn to manage pain another way? View Quote |
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People who recreationally used prescription opiates, or people who got hooked following a doctor's pain management directions? The ones who got hooked listening to a doc are a small minority, but the ones who started off recreationally using prescription opiates is a vast majority View Quote |
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Whenever I see or hear the phrase "big pharma" my eyes glaze over and I know to tune everything that person says out. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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The percentage of people that painkillers / opiates have been pushed on is extreme. Its all by design....most people didn't even know that a physical addiction was possible by the stuff their doctors were prescribing them. I have always wondered why Big Pharma is never criticized. Especially after a shooting. Between that and psychology/ psychiatrists its all a big scam. |
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A study of one million patients showed only 4.5% became addicted from their opiate scripts. The vast majority of addicts are just run of the mill junkies. http://archive.castlighthealth.com/typ/the-opioid-crisis/ View Quote |
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My brother was never injured; he used pain pills recreationally. After it become too difficult/expensive to obtain them he moved on to heroin. I did a whole thread on it.
If he and his friends are any indication, most of the people that go down this road are just junkies chasing their high. |
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I have no idea how many started on legal prescriptions but that's the story 99.9% will give you. View Quote and there you have it. i grew up in the heyday of the 60s and 70s. worked in drugstores as a pharmacy tech and was licensed pharmacist for a short while before i switched to IT. you never saw opiod prescriptions like oxycontin with the exception being terminally ill cancer patients usually on dilaudid and later fentanyl patches. you never saw opiod use amongst recreational drug users. heroin, needles and so forth were beyond the pale. but the oxycontin and similar industry introduced a ton of folks to mega-opiod doses. and oxytontin was super expensive wholesale. the drug companies knew what they were doing and they made a killing (pun intended). and anybody familiar with drug use/abuse could have told you as soon as oxycontin came out (as was crushable) that it would be a highly abused drug. |
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My only contribution to this discussion is 5-6 years ago I noticed an awful lot of non-hospital affiliated "pain clinics" with only one or two doctor's names on the sign.
I've not seen any in a while. |
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here's how... patient goes to doctor with some sort of pain. doctor gives patient vicodin with refills. patient takes vicodin and it quickly doesnt provide much relief (it is the weakest of the opoids other than codein). doctor prescribes oxycontin. 40, 80 mg a day. oyxcontin lasts 8 hours more or less not 12, so patient takes the stuff more often. and at the dosage level of those pills you will become physically addicted. you may be able to stop, depends on will power more or less. also so many pills were being prescribed they got diverted. kids and users discovered you could crush them (before they were changed) and get a serious intense high about as good or perhaps better than heroin. this introduced a whole generation of drug users to very strong opiods. many got hooked. then uncle sugar decides allowing the widespread prescribing of very strong opiods is bad juju and slams on the brakes. vicodin moves to class II and its very hard to get oxcontin. and oxycontin is expensive. mexican cartels fill the void and chinese clandestine labs do their part by providing fentanyl to cut the heroin and make it lethally strong. and there you have it. i grew up in the heyday of the 60s and 70s. worked in drugstores as a pharmacy tech and was licensed pharmacist for a short while before i switched to IT. you never saw opiod prescriptions like oxycontin with the exception being terminally ill cancer patients usually on dilaudid and later fentanyl patches. you never saw opiod use amongst recreational drug users. heroin, needles and so forth were beyond the pale. but the oxycontin and similar industry introduced a ton of folks to mega-opiod doses. and oxytontin was super expensive wholesale. the drug companies knew what they were doing and they made a killing (pun intended). and anybody familiar with drug use/abuse could have told you as soon as oxycontin came out (as was crushable) that it would be a highly abused drug. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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I have no idea how many started on legal prescriptions but that's the story 99.9% will give you. and there you have it. i grew up in the heyday of the 60s and 70s. worked in drugstores as a pharmacy tech and was licensed pharmacist for a short while before i switched to IT. you never saw opiod prescriptions like oxycontin with the exception being terminally ill cancer patients usually on dilaudid and later fentanyl patches. you never saw opiod use amongst recreational drug users. heroin, needles and so forth were beyond the pale. but the oxycontin and similar industry introduced a ton of folks to mega-opiod doses. and oxytontin was super expensive wholesale. the drug companies knew what they were doing and they made a killing (pun intended). and anybody familiar with drug use/abuse could have told you as soon as oxycontin came out (as was crushable) that it would be a highly abused drug. Btw Seems like there was a lot of anti-drug stuff everywhere in the past few decades before recent (80s, 90s) also..l remember so many commercials, speakers, heros, government programs etc telling young people how bad drugs were. It was everywhere. Nowadays everything and everyone basically says drugs are awesome from musicians singing about how great drugs are and every other movie says how awesome they are, etc. |
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Senior citizens abusing pain killers is becoming a bigger problem than most people realize.
I have a 74 yr old aunt doing this now. In my 47 yrs I have never seen the woman drink or smoke. 2 years ago one doctor prescribed them and she cant kick em. Part of the problem is she is too proud to admit she has a problem. |
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Pill heads, at least the ones I have experience with, were pill heads while perfectly healthy. Meaning they tried some at a party or something one time, decided it was fun, and kept doing it until it got out of control. Some people just can't control themselves. View Quote I can't stand taking the stuff; I have no idea why people use them for fun. |
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I have a standing prescription for Vicoprofen. I can't stand taking the stuff; I have no idea why people use them for fun. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Pill heads, at least the ones I have experience with, were pill heads while perfectly healthy. Meaning they tried some at a party or something one time, decided it was fun, and kept doing it until it got out of control. Some people just can't control themselves. I can't stand taking the stuff; I have no idea why people use them for fun. They would pay $5 for a pill, then later at the party they would take the pill and drink 2 beers and get completely blasted. It seemed incredibly stupid to me then, and even more stupid now. I know at least one of the guys that used to do exactly what I described later got hooked on heroin and got in a lot of trouble trying to feed his habit. |
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The liberals want to blame the (legal) drug industry for heroin addiction. What percentage of junkies are junkies because of legal opioids taken after an injury versus just being a burnout loser that wanted to get high? View Quote IMO the pharma industry is being made a scapegoat here. No doubt there are some doctors that have over prescribed painkillers in the past, but the real blame for junkies being addicted is....wait for it...the junkie. The handful of people I know for certain that are addicts were out looking to get high, plain and simple. The skipped the Rx route and instead just went for black market pills or H. Absolutely no sympathy on my end for junkies either. It's no secret that heroin is a killer, and you have to be beyond stupid to go that route to get high. Also, having taken Rx opioids for surgeries I've had in the past, it's a mystery to me why anyone would ever take them recreationally. Sure, it dulls the pain, but the side affects of nausea, itchiness, and brain fog are awful... |
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I know two people that got hooked on heroin that started on pain meds.
One was prescription from an injury, the other was stealing pills from his family members. I don't blame the system but, I personally feel all drugs are over prescribed these days. Easier access leads to dependency. |
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IMO the pharma industry is being made a scapegoat here. View Quote In case you missed 60 Minutes last week, it addresses this very subject and contains interviews with men on the front line. Original video and partial transcript here: Opioid crisis fueled by drug industry and Congress |
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People have enjoyed abusing mind-altering substances throughout human history. It is extremely prevalent now because science has given us so many (easy) avenues to achieve mind-altering status. Only people with the highest discipline can keep from giving into these carnal traits. The word of God can help.
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IMO the pharma industry is being made a scapegoat here. No doubt there are some doctors that have over prescribed painkillers in the past, but the real blame for junkies being addicted is....wait for it...the junkie. The handful of people I know for certain that are addicts were out looking to get high, plain and simple. The skipped the Rx route and instead just went for black market pills or H. Absolutely no sympathy on my end for junkies either. It's no secret that heroin is a killer, and you have to be beyond stupid to go that route to get high. Also, having taken Rx opioids for surgeries I've had in the past, it's a mystery to me why anyone would ever take them recreationally. Sure, it dulls the pain, but the side affects of nausea, itchiness, and brain fog are awful... View Quote My first couple knee and shoulder procedures I got tramadol. I had a bucket of it. I didn't think it did anything at all, for pain or other. Later I used the leftover for less severe aches and pains and it did help a little. It's now a scheduled drug, not sure why. I guess some people abuse it. They've got to be doing it on purpose. |
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America as a whole is largely without direction these days. We have no existential enemy in the world, we have no major national project, and we have nothing that really binds us together on an ideological level. We all like to engage in recreational activities. That's about all you can say. That shit's not sustainable. Mankind needs a struggle. We need a challenge to overcome. If we don't find one, we're just going to tear ourselves apart. View Quote I agree for the most part we've become so successful as a society is why people have nothing better to do than all this PC bullshit. No one would be going after confederate statues if they were truly considered about something important, like where their next meal is coming from... |
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I'm not sure about overall percentages - but I know there are people that our medical system hasn't done any favors for by overprescribing any number of things.
My wife and I spent nearly a full year tapering her off a number of drugs she'd been pushed by various doctors. She was on Adderall for her ADD, then Ambien to help her sleep because she was on Adderall, then Xanax for the anxiety attacks the Adderall caused, then an off-label Rx for migraine prevention, then narcotics for migraine treatment. Surprise, surprise, after getting her off all that shit, she feels 100x better and doesn't have really any of the issues she had before. She didn't know enough to question what the doctors were giving her and if it was wise to treat the side effects of one drug with another drug. |
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