Gotta love drugs. Their whole purpose is to make us FEEL things. Fix things that are broken. Or numb pain. And that should be an okay thing for people to have. And the drugs that fuck people up? Cocaine. Heroin. Tobacco? None of those were exactly street drugs first. Hell, they put heroin in cough syrup for babies. Cocaine is from the coca plant and ancient people in South America would steep tea from the leaves, and also suck on the leaves. Tobacco was a something the First People used as a healing tool and an important gift.

These *ARE* all drugs that harm, as we know now. You know why there weren’t tiny baby heroin addicts? Their parents weren’t emptying the bottles down their throats by the crate and letting them run the show about how much to take. It was mixed into a tincture with other stuff, and the amount was a fixed amount per weight. Cocaine wasn’t cocaine back then, it was still in the plant for Coca~cola. (No, it was never cocaine. It was coca leaves, which is where cocaine can be derived, in the same way monkeys and man have a common ancestor.)

But originally they did good. It was *US* that turned them to abuse. So, we need drugs. Tons of things are so manageable with teeny tiny pills now. Did your thyroid just straight up go bonkers and decide to slow up? Maybe the docs need to take it out entirely? You get to take a tiny pill form of a thyroid for the rest of your life. It’s fine though. You will now live without your broken thyroid, and just take a tiny Synthroid once a day. They are super super cheap because they are generic now and a gazillion companies make them. A month worth is less than a dollar.

What if you have something a little more complex? How about a seizure disorder? I use this as an example so often because I have had convulsive epilepsy since I was 9 years old. Been through so many drugs that my liver should have decals like a Formula 1 racecar. In a couple cases changed the drugs quicker than my car’s windshield wipers. (They are done at least annually). I was allergic once. Another time it was just doing absolutely nothing one way or another for me. And if you are taking a metric fuckton of milligrams of what is essentially POISON in random formulations, taking it when it does nothing for you is pointless and kinda just annoys your liver.

When one of your doctors (because if you have a special issue, you’ll need a specialist doctor) has you on 2-3 separate drugs *just for seizures* at any given time, it’d be nice if the drugs were you know… affordable. But they often aren’t. Instead, they cost THOUSANDS per month. And ….

… omg my computer is on FIRE … must stop blog for awhile …

Okay. I had to stop for a couple days while I got myself a couple kickstands for the bottom of my laptop to help with airflow, and a lap fan. Now, where were we?

Right, the idiocy of the cost of drugs. Just about everywhere on earth has socialized medicine. If you have an issue, you get it taken care of. If it is an emergency, it’s seen in a triage type style. If it isn’t EMERGENCY (which we in America have trouble understanding the concept of, I admit) they give you an appointment to see a doctor at a future time. Some people complain that that is HORRIBLE, but the only people I have actually heard complain about it are Americans that don’t want to think about waiting a week to see a doctor about getting an MRI for their knee. They want it done NOW at 2AM because they are thinking of it. So they wander into the ER with the people that are dying of actual issues like hacking up their lungs, babies with 105 degree fevers, or ambulances driving in from car accidents.

Too many people think single payer insurance (i.e. when your country pays for your insurance) means communism. Somewhere somewhere they got it in their heads that single payer insurance meant socialism, which of course means communism… because apparently those terms are interchangeable. (You can tell the level of someone’s education by how they define ‘social work,’ ‘social education,’ ‘humanities,’ or ‘community.’ Sometimes the definitions are not so good…)

They certainly don’t complain when it comes time to get drugs when they have an operation though. People seem to have this ability to parse ‘drugs’ with ‘dRuGs’ like prescription drugs and street drugs are somehow totally different at the core and cannot be abused equally. You can die from an overdose of Flintstone Vitamins if you try to. It takes a bit of time, and you have to be really stupid (or young), but you can do it (House M.D. Season 5, Episode 8… thank you very much).

When someone goes in to get a knee replacement, they don’t opt for “bite down on this leather belt while we cut you open and rip you apart.” No. They opt for “knock me the fuck out with heavy duty drugs so I remember nothing. Then give me pain meds that I may or may not become addicted to later. This is okay because I had surgery and this is a legitimate reason for addiction in my eyes. Everyone else is scum.”

In that funny but not funny train of thought, many chronic pain sufferers started out addicted to pain meds before having to ‘move on,’ so to speak. Their doctors cut them off, but they were still in legitimate pain. Rather than say “let’s discover why you are still in pain and deal with the source, and perhaps find a different course of action and maybe a different drug/therapy” they instead decide the person is just hoping for drugs (and drug seekers *are* a thing, so it’s a difficult thing to read), and stop giving them their prescriptions for their opiate meds. Know what else is an opiate?

HEROIN

Yeah. When they cut these people off, they go to their friendly corner dime-bag “pharmacist” for relief. And they circle the drain that they thumbed their noses at before their own surgery. And so it goes. Also, rounded up into jails for possession (“Intent to sell! Child Endangerment! Paraphernalia! Felony!) and then hello withdrawal. Withdrawal + pain. In Jail. If you are lucky (like angels have kissed you and bestowed golden kisses upon you) you are allowed to go to a nice rehab instead of a mankey prison to do your sentence. You have a chance of shaking the heroin, and they may have something to help you deal with the pain issue. Maybe. You know, other than yoga, meditation, and biting bricks. Not that there is anything wrong with those, but I’ve found they don’t tend to help with chronic pain.

I know when I have dentistry work I am better off with nitrous oxide turned up pretty high with at least one to two more shots of novocaine than would be normal. I don’t know if that is because of the red hair in my family or if it is because of all the meds I take making me more likely to have my body laugh at any incoming medication. (Alcohol affects me the same, as in… pretty much not at all.) I had a molar extracted semi-recently and they gave me like 4 shots of novocaine and I could still feel them attempting to remove it. They put the nitrous on and it got better. I am lucky I have a decent dentist because I growled and indicated to my nose and pointed that he should turn it up because when they turned it down it got worse, he did so. And then I was okay. Apparently, nitrous works better for me than novocaine does. (Sadly, adult nitrous does not smell of bananas. I remember when I was a kid it smelled like the banana Runts did. My dentist said it is an additive they put in the kid one. WHYYYY? We like bananas!)

Also, Drug 101: Redheads have a totally different tolerance to drugs and anesthesia than the regular populace. Look it up. If your anesthetist does not take your red hair into account when calculating your dosage… run. You’ll likely wake up mid-operation and be very unhappy. Your surgeon will be less than pleased, too. There’s a genetic factor involved (MCR1 gene – responsible for melanin, but also factors in pain receptors) but individual mileage may vary depending on procedure and drug. Apparently lidocaine doesn’t seem to work for redheads much. Or me. But there’s a lot of redheaded folks in my family. And I was born redheaded.

Uh…. I think I am still generally on topic. The ADHD squirrels have not totally abducted me. But then again it has taken me like 2 weeks to write this one.

Oh! Did you know that insurance will give you like a gazillion erectile dysfunction pills, but not two asthma inhalers? I wanted one to keep in my car. This is unacceptable, apparently. You can use Viagra like sprinkles, keep them in your wallet, in the glove box, at home, whatever, but breathing is not essential. I’m going upstairs to find my super expired inhaler to stuff in my glovebox for emergencies.

Update: went to pharmacy to pick up my inhaler. Blue cross said they stopped covering it. Albuterol. Like generic albuterol. For those playing the home game, that’s Ventolin. The BLUE inhaler that like everyone had before it went generic.

…something’s off…