Vets Hooked by Over Prescribed Meds

[unhappycamper]

Vets Hooked by Over Prescribed Meds
June 13, 2010
The Virginian-Pilot

Two doctors who worked at the Hampton VA Medical Center say powerful narcotics are being over prescribed to veterans there, leaving them addicted while their underlying medical conditions go untreated.

The doctors have warned that the high volume of narcotics may be feeding a pipeline of dangerous drugs that are illegally resold in the community, with potentially fatal results.

Federal authorities are looking into the allegations.

One of the doctors was fired after airing her concerns.

When Dr. Pamela Gray joined the staff at Hampton in 2008 after 23 years of private practice, it didn't take her long to become uncomfortable with the kind of care being delivered there.



unhappycamper comment: This is the very tip of the drug-them-up-shut-them-up Veterans Administration mentality.

Got PTSD? No problem, have some Xanex or Prozac. Got an ache in that knee joint that was shot up? No problem, have some Oxycontin or morphine. Our veterans have been drugged to the gills.

Legally.

And it's still going on.

[pinboy3niner]

1. This is nothing new

As one Vietnam vet friend used to say of VA care for returning VN vets, "They give you a bottle of 500 pills. You can take them one at a time, or all at once. They don't care."

:kick: K&R

ETA: Just remembered what they used to call the effects of overmedication on VA hospital patients: The "Thorazine Shuffle". Also a song title, as I recall.

[secondwind]

2. hmmm. I wonder if Virginia VA has an agenda here, we have no problems here in Boston.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

3. I know a vet with titanium knees that uses too much morphine

[Warpy]

4. There is a difference between addiction and dependence

Dependence means you need to take a drug or you will have serious physical side effects. If you are withdrawn from that drug slowly, you won't have cravings for it, although you might miss some of its effects.

Addiction is best summed up by "One is too many and a thousand isn't enough." Addicts don't have an off switch and will continue to chase an elusive high, exceeding the dosage of whatever drug they're on, truly compulsive behavior. If the drug is withdrawn slowly, the addict will have unbearable cravings for it.

Addiction requires intensive treatment. Dependence does not.

[undergroundpanther]

5. it's the same thing they do in 'mental hospitals'

Got a patient who's a pain in staff's ass? Drug them into a stupor.

I have been forced to get heavy huge doses of drugs.My body still bears the damage.
I was the kind of patient that wouldn't stand by when others were abused. So they tried to shut me up.
And my anger over what has happened to me has not faded.I have PSTD,but they diagnosed me everything in the book before they admitted it was trauma. Despite some the abuse I went through being written in by my mother on my admission forms.

Sometimes doctors want to deny things,either because the patient is a pain in their ass,the hospital 'cuts corners',or the doctors/admin themselves have issues that interfere with their capacity to help,or the profit motive ,or CYA..gets in the way.Regardless people need help,and for some reason they are not getting it.

[Heywood J]

6. "A veteran with carpal tunnel syndrome got repeated refills by mail for a cocktail of narcotics --

morphine, methadone, tramadol, Percocet and fentanyl"

How does anyone stay on their feet with all of that in them? The only way I can think of would be years and years of abuse, or if they were reselling it and not taking it themselves.

[Stuart G]

7. Let's get one thing straight...Xanax is not the same as Prozac..

Xanax is a powerfully addictive benzo..especially hard to kick..very very dangerous if abused.

Prozac is an anti-depressant. Unplesant side effects, but non addictive..easily stopped.