Fact or Myth? People with endometriosis don’t need to be on opiates – Ibuprofen will treat the pain just fine.

Myth!

Per spazzy444 on LiveJournal, “I was told this by an actual doctor!”

Many of us have been told the same or similar, or doctors have insinuated that we are drug addicts, because of the fact that over the counter pain meds, and even opiates all the way up to morphine and back again, end up doing very little for our pain.
What many women end up wanting, myself included, is to just dissociate from the pain if it cannot outright be removed, and opiates help with that.
I go through 10 Tylenol 3 every month. I do not have withdrawls after being on it. It’s what works best for me after having tried nearly everything else. Every woman’s body reacts differently to pain medication. Even so, I have had to change doctors a few times because after months or a year, doctors become wary of continuing my every-three-months prescription refills. I’m taking it as prescribed, but I’m still flagged as an addict. This is true across the board for women and men with chronic pain conditions.

The Center For Endometriosis Care (CEC) writes:

“Our society in general frowns on drugs, and teenagers today have especially been inundated with the message, “Just Say No!” This concept contrasts with the young woman’s drug dependency (not drug addiction) and can contribute to a gradual loss of self esteem”.

This doesn’t just apply to teenagers, but to all women. The CEC goes on:

“She may think, “I shouldn’t take drugs, but I can’t function without them, therefore I am weak or helpless or worthless or bad.”

As endometriosis progresses in these young women, most eventually end up on the operating table for diagnostic procedures. The endometriosis is diagnosed (sometimes) and staged (sometimes). If the physician believes that there is no cure for this devastating disease, her or she may offer only analgesics or medical forms of therapy (Danocrine, Lupron, Synarel or Zoladex) which stabilize the process at great monetary expense and side effects that can be as bad as the disease itself.

The ultimate result here is that, in addition to all the other physical and psychological impacts of this type of treatment, it takes away the teenager’s hope that she will ever be pain-free to live a normal life. There is nothing I know that has a greater impact on our lives than the loss of hope. It is a primary form of torture used on prisoners of war. Is it any wonder that we find many of these young women have become angry, depressed, and totally confused?”

In Endometriosis, Mary Lou Ballweg and the Endometriosis Association writes:

“Many people, including physicians, confuse addiction and physical dependence. A person who is correctly using prescription medication for pain over a long period of time may develop some physical dependence — in other words, the body has gotten used to that substance. He or she may need to reduce the amount of medication usd gradually, under the supervision of a physician, when the medication is no longer needed because some physical dependence has developed. This is not the same thing as being addicted to the drug. Addiction includes misusing or abusing the substance in order to get a “high”; not including proper use of the drug.

“Women with endo are often told that their pain is exaggerated, imagined, or normal. Association research showed that 69 percent of women were told so by their ob-gyn! The opinions of family and friends add to that pressure, and women with endo are likely to begin to doubt their bodies and believe their pain is imaginary, somehow their own fault, or that they should just buck up and shut up — even though the pain is often disabling. Many women surveyed often responded that they themselves had sometimes wondered if their pain was “all in their head.” -pages 15,16.