I began to notice signs on drugstore windows and doors that they didn’t carry something called Oxycodon or OxyContin in the store. I had no idea what this was all about.
But Fortune Magazine (November 21, 2011) talked about a company called Purdue Pharma and its $3 billion drug, OxyContin. This drug is an opioid, a painkiller. And as painkillers go, it’s addictive like so many of its cousins.
Purdue, according to this source, lied about the addictiveness of its drug. There are so many people using pain killers now that the article estimates, in 2010, 254 million prescriptions were filled. Enough to medicate every American adult around the clock for a month.
Some people realize how addictive these drugs are, most don’t. It’s not pleasant to get off them. This is the state of the legal drug market – sold by legitimate companies – to the masses of people suffering from chronic pain.
In 2008, 15,000 Americans died of opioid overdoses, 3X what it was in 1999. Since the pain killers really don’t cure the problem, as people take the pills, they have to take more and more because the brain and body want it more and more. That’s how addictions begin and escalate.
But the bottom line is, they’re not a solution for pain. They’re band-aids. They don’t solve your problem!
As soon as you have any issue that flares up again or you feel pain at some level, on a continuous basis – that’s the sign that what you’re taking isn’t working. Hence, taking higher and higher doses and the risk of addiction goes higher along with the dose.
Dr. Joanny Liu, TCMD, RAc, P.Eng. Dr Joanny Liu “Best Selling Author and founder of Extraordinary Sports Medicine, where we help athletes reverse injury, get back in the game they love and improve their quality of life.” Best selling book at: Heal Your Concussion: How to Quickly and Effectively Get Back in the Game Remember, we’ve got two books about healing concussions in Amazon: Knock OUT Concussions, Heal Your Concussion: 21 Days to Brain Health, and Dr. Joanny’s new book, Heal Your Concussion: How to Quickly and Effectively Get Back in the Game is NOW live on Amazon!