As far as the insurance and doctor problems go, I'll share a personal anecdote.
I had been on tramadol for about 3 years because of neck joint degeneration and a bone spur which presses on a nerve. I wasn't happy about taking opiates for so long, but I sought treatment because life was getting miserable for me, and an MRI showed my problem. I took the medication as directed, and the meds made life bearable again. I could sleep, and I could function at work and at home with my two kids.
Then I lost my job and lost my insurance. Our opiate laws here in Florida mandate the doctor see their patients in person every month - and are also subject to random drug testing on a regular basis. I suddenly went from managing my pain, to dope sick when my meds ran out. I mean sick and completely miserable. Now not only was I in pain, but my body and my brain made me feel worse than anything I had ever experienced. There was also a deep depression that set in. I was unable to cope with anything. I very suddenly understood the desperation that junkies must feel. If someone had come into my home with a needle and heroine, I can't honestly say I would have turned it down. I felt as if I would do anything to get me out of feeling like I did. So, I thought, OK, this will last for a few days and I'll sweat it out and be over it. TWO WEEKS passed, I was worse, not better.
Someone I knew recommended
kratom. I went to a nearby kratom bar. I was skeptical and sick and just a grumpy asshole. My girlfriend almost literally had to drag me there. I had a drink. I felt something, and my symptoms started to go away, like within a half hour. I had a second drink and felt good, like really actually good. Not the same as tramadol, that warm fuzzy feeling it gave me, but good as in having hope again. Also, the constant muscle spasms, and burning associated with my condition lessened substantially. My mood lifted, my sickness went away and I went shopping and stayed out of the house all day. Fucking amazing. I went home with some in baggie and learned how to make tea with it. Many states have banned kratom and we just fought off them trying to do so here in Florida for a third year in a row. You may have also heard recently that we fended off a DEA measure that wanted to make kratom a schedule 1 substance, which is ridiculous. Many of the states that have enacted measures against kratom also have pharmaceutical research going on with kratom. Coincidence? There's a lot of misinformation about kratom everywhere you look, and I support research into it for pain relief and getting people off of opiates. I would support measures to regulate kratom (not ban it) so that you can be assured of potency, purity, and make it safer.
I'm still unemployed, and I take a few tablespoons of kratom every day to manage my pain, and help with my depression, which it does wonders for, when I had tried several depression meds that didn't work for me or had intolerable side effects.
In many ways I consider myself lucky. Who knows what I would have done to avoid that dope sickness, had I the connections or know how to get a hold of street stuff. I'm not proud of saying that, and I have no history of alcohol or other drug abuse. I've had vicodin and similar drugs before after surgeries, sometimes for a few months, and had very little difficulty after my medical rotation was finished. It seems that Tramadol also has an ssri component to it, which is scary. As I looked around online, it seems Tramadol was marketed as a
less addictive type of opiate. But, from what I have been able to find, like many drugs as of late, it's turning out to be the opposite of that.