Thanks for the replies everyone! They were really helpful.
On a side note—I think I do get one of the primary sources of tension here. The difference here—is that experts tend to err on the side of the precautionary principle. Meanwhile, I’m willing to take solutions that could (in someone else’s eyes) carry greater risk (but which I believe will have more expected benefit). There are two separate decision-making procedures in place here, and both sides place different weights on each particular type of evidence.
Them I’m definitely more sympathetic to your position, as I’ve been in similar ones myself. I’ve had doctors “cautiously” advice me against effective pain medication, because I might—gasp! -- become addicted to a patent-expired medicine with no side effects and have to take it for the rest of my life.
Yeah, that’s so much worse than debilitating back pain, right? Talk about loss of perspective!
I know it’s off-topic, but are there really effective pain medications that are addictive but non-narcotic (or do you not consider narcotic properties a side effect?)?
I was going to say “relatively trivial side effects” but I didn’t want to overload it with caveats. Yes, I’ve temporarily been on medications that were effective at relieving pain but which didn’t make me sleepy or otherwise impair me in any noticeable fashion.
Medications that you would nonetheless consider having potential for addiction? Or is it just that any really effective medication for chronic pain is something that one will ultimately come to “depend” on and have a hard time stopping? (I don’t at all mean to badger you, I’m just curious.)
It wasn’t my judgment that I would become addicted, but the doctor’s. My point was that even if this is correct, that I would become addicted, that “addiction” is extremely benign—far more benign, than e.g. the human “addiction” to food. (You can usefully model humans that way.) It just means that I spend a few extra dollars per year. Big deal.
An addiction is not the end of the world, and when doctors have this hole in their treatment heuristics—where they are constitutionally incapable of weighing addiction against other alternatives—it is a sign to me of shallow understanding on the doctor’s part.
Thanks for the replies everyone! They were really helpful.
On a side note—I think I do get one of the primary sources of tension here. The difference here—is that experts tend to err on the side of the precautionary principle. Meanwhile, I’m willing to take solutions that could (in someone else’s eyes) carry greater risk (but which I believe will have more expected benefit). There are two separate decision-making procedures in place here, and both sides place different weights on each particular type of evidence.
Them I’m definitely more sympathetic to your position, as I’ve been in similar ones myself. I’ve had doctors “cautiously” advice me against effective pain medication, because I might—gasp! -- become addicted to a patent-expired medicine with no side effects and have to take it for the rest of my life.
Yeah, that’s so much worse than debilitating back pain, right? Talk about loss of perspective!
I know it’s off-topic, but are there really effective pain medications that are addictive but non-narcotic (or do you not consider narcotic properties a side effect?)?
I was going to say “relatively trivial side effects” but I didn’t want to overload it with caveats. Yes, I’ve temporarily been on medications that were effective at relieving pain but which didn’t make me sleepy or otherwise impair me in any noticeable fashion.
Medications that you would nonetheless consider having potential for addiction? Or is it just that any really effective medication for chronic pain is something that one will ultimately come to “depend” on and have a hard time stopping? (I don’t at all mean to badger you, I’m just curious.)
It wasn’t my judgment that I would become addicted, but the doctor’s. My point was that even if this is correct, that I would become addicted, that “addiction” is extremely benign—far more benign, than e.g. the human “addiction” to food. (You can usefully model humans that way.) It just means that I spend a few extra dollars per year. Big deal.
An addiction is not the end of the world, and when doctors have this hole in their treatment heuristics—where they are constitutionally incapable of weighing addiction against other alternatives—it is a sign to me of shallow understanding on the doctor’s part.