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When The Cure Becomes The Problem

Surgery

 

Of some things, it is sometimes said that the cure is worse than the disease. It is similar to the old joke where the doctor says, “The surgery was a complete success. But the patient is dead.” It is a realization that some problems are so challenging, they can only ever be treated, not cured. And the treatment is trading one set of compromises for another.

This sentiment is especially true when the treatment is some form of medicine. As Melvin H. Kirschner, M.D. is fond of saying, all medicine is poison. When doctors prescribe medicine, it is a measured, calculated poisoning intended to treat a problem even worse than the poison they prescribe.

Chemotherapy will kill you, but not faster than the cancer it is fighting. Even if the Chemo works, you will still have to live with horrible side effects depending on how much of the treatment was necessary. Other cures are equally devastating, only in different ways.

Heroin Addiction Vs. Suboxone

Like fighting fire with fire, we have learned to fight addictive chemicals with addictive chemicals. We are somewhat better at fighting fire. First, it was methadone. That is a synthetic drug so my like heroin, it could fool the body into thinking it was heroin. The deception was good enough to avoid severe withdrawal symptoms while lowering the dosage over time.

The similarity was also good enough that street chemists turned to producing it instead of heroin. The illicit “meth lab” was born, along with the hit TV series: “Breaking Bad”. But pharmaceutical companies weren’t done. They felt like they could do better. And they did. Meth has been replaced with suboxone, which outsold viagra in 2013. But we are already seeing the dark side of suboxone. As stated in an article at http://americanaddictioncenters.org/suboxone/:

But Suboxone has a dark side, and its very effectiveness can be a double-edged sword for heroin addicts who are looking to repair their lives. Suboxone addiction is a real problem, with the Fix saying that the medication has caused its own epidemic that requires its own course of treatment (pharmacological and psychological) to remedy.

In this case, the cure may not be worse than the disease. But it is often indistinguishable.

Killing Pain Vs. Pain Killers

No one likes to be in pain. But we all must suffer some amount of pain in life. However, there is an amount of pain no one can endure. At which point, the body starts to shut down. While pain is an objective fact, it is also subjective. People experience pain differently. One person’s killing pain is another person’s morning workout.

Female in blue t-shirt holding glass of water and pack of different colored pills
Female in blue t-shirt holding glass of water and pack of different colored pills

This is just one of the reasons doctors are hesitant about treating pain with painkillers. A scan cannot tell you how much a person hurts. The other reason is that painkillers have the habit of creating addicts. At some point, doctors have to wonder which is worse: the pain or the painkillers. This is why they hesitate to prescribe painkillers except for the most severe cases. And ER doctors often suspect legitimate pain cases of drug-seeking behavior.

Recently, doctors received new advice on prescribing pain killers. According to Citizen-Times:

The document is intended in part to foster more doctor-patient dialogue over treatment for pain. And it should provide doctors with a “safe harbor,” meaning following the guidelines would make them less open to charges of overprescribing or inappropriately prescribing painkillers.

Doctors say the causes and treatment of pain are complicated, and it can be especially tough for physicians who don’t regularly treat pain.

Healthcare suffers when doctors become more concerned about their legal liability than about relieving the suffering of their patients. But when the cure becomes as problematic as the disease, this is the result.

Given more time, we could look at surgeries more dangerous than the problems they are supposed to repair. But that is another whole article, perhaps a book. No of this is intended to create a feeling of distrust in modern medicine. It is just an acknowledgement that modern medicine is a serious affair that carries risks of its own. Properly managing those risks is often the difference between life and death.

Article Submitted By Community Writer

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