Easy Access to Pain Pills

     There are many people that go to the doctor complaining of some type of physical pain and for some reason the doctor decides the easiest solution is to prescribe the some type of pain pills that contains a form of opiates. The doctor will sometimes send the person to rehabilitation for whatever pain they are experiencing. It only takes a very short period of time for the person to become severely addicted to the pain pills and soon the pills control that person's life. It is very important that the rehabilitation nurses and doctors recognize the signs and symptoms that a patient is addicted to pain pills.
     Jason Gregg, a professor, from the University of Cincinnati College of Nursing did research regarding patients in rehabilitation showing signs and symptoms of being addicted to pain pills that contain opiates. The case study he did was on a 42-year-old male, Robert Jones, that had back pain and had been prescribed Percocet pills and anti-inflammatory medicine and he w
as also supposed to go to rehabilitation to monitor his back pain and help alleviate some it. The patient missed three therapy sessions and then showed up to the rehabilitation clinic on a day that he did not have an appointment. He ended up saying that the rehabilitation and the anti-inflammatory medicine were not helping his back pain, the only thing that was helping with the pain were the Percocet pills. This particular claim shows clear addiction, because he is relying on the pain pills as the only source of pain relief.
     The use of pain pills in Mr. Jones' life lead to him not being able to work sometimes and that lead to financial issues for the family. The study was to show that long-term pain medication use in chronic pain situations may possibly be more detrimental rather than beneficial. If the pain medications are interfering in the person's daily life, not only is that person addicted but the use of the pain medications is causing major problems in that person's life. The most important thing is for the rehabilitation nurses and doctors to recognize addiction and possibly come up with different solutions to the person's issues rather than pain pills that contain opiates.


Gregg, Jason. "How Do You Recognize Opiate Addiction in the Rehabilitation Patient? "Rehabilitation Nursing 38 (2013): 217-20. Web.


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