Opioid epidemic literally hurting people who need them

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This sounds similar to the restrictions on Sudafed here in the states. I buy a pack every month or so cuz me & my girlfriend both have sinus & allergy problems & can get sinus headaches.

My girlfriend has a lot of pain issues partly due to fibromyalgia, arthritis, & injuries she suffered as a kid, teen & adult. She can barely do anything some days partly cuz of that & cuz of depression. She's tried different pain meds out including Tylenol, at least a few anti-inflammatories, more than a few antidepressants, & Neurontin. Some things help some but nothing has helped enough. The only narcotic she's tried is Tramadol & it didn't have any effect on her but she wasn't prescribed Tylenol with it which I read can help increase the efficiency of Tramadol & her dose was also really low. I wish the docs would be open to trying her on something more potent &/or medical marijuana cuz I've known at least a few people online with similar type issues who insisted those things helped. It's very frustrating & depressing for her to be jumping through all these hoops & not really getting anywhere

Why wouldn't she just try marijuana in various forms and see if it works?

Neither of us likes the idea of doing something illegal(thou members of her family do smoke it so we could get it) but we both have sinus & allergy problems & we're really only interested in trying edibles which would be alot harder to get on the street. Vermont did recently legalize it thou & it's supposed to go in effect at begging of June or July I think. No idea when it'll be sold legally but a commission was appointed to study it.

I went to the doctor this morning. She changed my arthritis prescription from Motrin to an opioid. I guess she is rebellious or did not get the memo. I took my first one an hour ago.

^ Is it effective?

Part of the argument I had with the chemist was that opioids only mask pain, they don't work on the root cause, such as inflammation.
I took them for migraine and facial pain, so I was fine with the masking.

I have not moved very much in the last hour. The ache is less noticeable, but time will tell if it affects the pain activity brings.

in my experience, musculoskeletal ails work best with something that suppresses spasms [valium or flexeril] together with an NSAID and a narcotic. when my spondy flared up, and basically kept me housebound for a few months a few years back, that was what saved my life.

I understand having anxiety about breaking lawes.. but there's a reason almost everyone ignores marijuana prohibition laws. Granted, I live in probably the most liberal place on the continent for marijuana acceptance. It's still technically illegal here until later in the Summer, but anyone can walk into one of dozens of dispensaries and buy pretty much anything they want right now - edibles included. One of my friends bakes cookies & supplies dispensaries with them.. I've had several. If no such store exists near you, surely there are local stoners who bake & supply cancer patients and such, no? That's been a thing here for decades. Failing that, there's always having cookies delivered by mail.. probably technically against some rules, but very low risk. Or her family that smokes could do some extracting and baking. (it's not hard.)

Seems VERY odd to be willing to try various chemical narcotics, that are possibly addictive, vs. try eating some THC/cannabinoids. I'd rather eat an illegal brownie than be in pain or poison my liver - Especially since the penalty here for doing so is Zero. Cops/legal system couldn't care less if someone eats some pot. It's a waste of their time & resources to pursue.

There's a report on my newsfeed this morning that codeine has had a huge price spike since going prescription only, which is being investigated.
I suppose the drug companies have to make up for the losses they'll suffer from no OTC sales.

Yesterday was the first day of my opioid prescription. I only took half the amount prescribed, but I actually slept through the night. For the past year, I haven't been able to sleep more than 4 hours, without waking up in pain. I am very pleased with the initial results.

I do worry about the addiction. The instructions say stopping the medication without medical supervision is dangerous. I don't worry about myself overdosing, as that requires intentional misuse. I will have to hide it from others when I travel.

^ The thing I like about the opioids is they help you to sleep.
You have to make sure you drink plenty of fluids, though.
They do affect my voice (make it hoarse and croaky).

you'd think with all the pain research going on, that long ago some company would have released an effective non-narcotic pain reliever. but big pharma is stepping on the throat of such innovation in the same way that the oil companies are stepping on the throat of anything that would get us off of petrochemical dependence. anyways, perhaps the strangling of the OTC narcotic market in your nations will encourage somebody to release such a drug to the public.

There is cannabis, but there's so much red tape in my country it's impossible to obtain legally.
I've applied, and been refused.
The reason given was that I refused conventional treatment, which was making me severely ill.

walked into a potshop here and bought a supremely overpriced morsel of pot chocolate, $4 GD bucks for something the size of a bonbon. it barely took the edge off of my pain, i'd have needed 10 of them to get a useful effect.

Ideally, it would be best if we could grow our own "herbs" for medicinal purposes.
But that will never happen.

I've read that there are a few species of mushroom that have pain-relieving qualities, and I live where mushrooms about. hmmmmmm......