A woman once told me about going with her husband, who had a heart problem, to see his primary care doctor; at the end of the visit, the doctor said, “I’ve written you 12 prescriptions.” The man responded, “12? No way.” So the doctor said, “Well, then, I’ll just give you these two.”
Did he take the two? “No,” she said, “he figured maybe he didn’t need those either, so he tossed ‘em, but he changed his whole lifestyle, and has been doing well.”
A recent opiate addiction report stated that less competent doctors write three times more prescriptions than the more competent ones write, and the less competent ones are less likely to talk with their patients to find answers.
I wondered if two aspirins would work equally well if the patient believed they would. There was a time when I took them for a headache. Then I read in a doctor’s column that most headaches were caused by a different level of humidity inside the body from the level outside. So I just drank the water and gave away my aspirins.
Since a doctor cannot be expected to judge whether a patient could become addicted to OxyContin, he should not prescribe it. I would have told anyone that no one in my family could be an addict, but then a half-niece’s son died of an overdose of heroin. His mother said that he had been clean for three months from alcohol, his addiction of choice, but a friend came to visit and suggested using heroin that he had with him. End of story — except that the friend(?) went on living.
Generalizing about patients’ use of pain relievers, or even their need for them, is risky. Everyone is unique. My doctor once told me, “Some patients have multiple hairline fractures in the back and never report pain, while others with similar x-rays complain of much pain.” I had complained of backaches and he said, “I can’t help you unless you get worse.” Did he mean surgery? Yes, he said, scaring me half to death. He added that he could prescribe x-rays if I wanted. OK.
Halfway to the x-ray center, it dawned on me that I had asked for the prescription, so I went home instead and placed the prescription with others I had kept (unfilled) over the years. I stopped having backaches by avoiding what I was doing that caused them, and I changed doctors.
That was about five years ago and, except for the initial physical, I have seen him only for annual wellness visits. He is a very good listener and might make a suggestion, but has never given me a prescription. So far so good.
Byrna Porter Weir was born and grew up in Houlton, where her parents were portrait photographers. She now lives in Rochester, N.Y.
