Dangers for elderly patients who regularly take opioid painkillers

It is often the arthritis sufferers among elderly patients who most regularly take painkillers, because their pain tends to be chronic. Adverse side-effects are not uncommon, especially with the opioid painkillers, which include codeine, morphine, methadone and brand names such as Demerol, Percocet, Percodan, Darvon, , Vicodin, and Lomotil. The side-effects can be very serious, even dangerous, e.g. more fractured bones. Read this report on MedicalNewsToday.

Yet there is a completely safe and very effective way to reduce the pain/severity of osteo-arthritis, and it does not involve taking pharmaceutical drugs. - You just need to avoid salt and salty food as much as you can. - The less salt you eat, the less pain you will experience from your arthritis...(o: And, since you will also lose some excess water weight from your body which salt has been holding there, there will be less wear and tear on your joints, not having to carry so much water around. - So give salt the elbow, and say goodbye both to so much pain and to dangerous drugs. - See salt/sodium in foods.

Morphine injections caused death of two patients: doctor found not guilty of murder

See Telegraph report. The coroner commented "that some recommendations to protect people after the case of Harold Shipman, the GP who killed more than 200 patients, had not been implemented."

Personally, I insist on no morphine - ever.

The death of a patient accidentally given a lethal morphine overdose is to be investigated.

BBC NEWS reports that "Dr Daniel Ubani gave David Gray 10 times too much painkiller while working for a Cambridgeshire health trust."

Surely the packs of morphine could be manufactured so that it is impossible for a doctor, however tired, to administer more than the normal dose?

Doctors and pharmacists are being warned by the National Patients Safety Agency to take greater care when prescribing or administering drugs.

Doctors are warned over drug deaths
Article in the Observer

Extract:

"Doctors and pharmacists are being warned by the National Patient Safety Agency to take greater care when prescribing or administering drugs. Eight NHS patients have died and 17,000 others been put at risk in 'incidents' involving powerful painkillers used by millions of Britons between January 2005 and December 2007.

On Friday the agency sent a 'rapid response report' - an official warning that is sent around the NHS when evidence emerges about a threat to patient safety - entitled 'Reducing Dosing Errors with Opioid Medicines'. It covers the 11 most common forms of opioids, such as morphine, methadone, fentanyl, diamorphine and oxycodone.

'Incidents have been reported to the National Reporting and Learning System concerning patients receiving unsafe doses of opioid medicines, where a dose or formulation was incorrect, based on the patient's previous opioid dose,' said the report.

Around 12 million prescriptions for opioids are issued every year."

If you want a drug-free way of reducing pain, try cutting down on salt and salty food. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/sodium_foods.html and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html

Prescribed drugs are a snare and a delusion....

Here is an example of what I mean, taken from my recent stay in hospital:

A female patient was troubled by the pain of constipation (which was likely to have been caused by the morphine medication administered because of her operation to mend a broken hip). She was given pain-killers for this constipation pain - pain-killers that have constipation as one of their many adverse side-effects!

She was then given Lactulose to relieve the constipation. - She said this made her feel sick and so she was given further medication to treat the feeling of sickness! - This drug culture is madness! (Nor did the Lactulose work for her and so she ended up having an enema!)

It is my belief that our bodies and minds can cope with most pain - that they indeed evolved to do so.

They did not evolve to cope with vast quantities of pharmaceutical junk!

I insisted on not being given morphine for my operation, and although I suffered a lot of very severe pain during the 4 weeks I was in hospital I coped with it, and the only analgesics I took were paracetamol when I had reason to believe that a migraine was on its way. - When I notice the visual disturbance - jagged lights, etc - of an incipient migraine, if I quickly take 2 paracetamol this usually prevents the headache from coming. - And I know from experience that I do not seem to suffer ill-effects from paracetamol taken in this way and do have the great benefit of averting the migraine.

Similarly, when I had a hysterectomy in 1994 I resolutely refused to have morphine, and I made an excellent recovery, unhampered by the side-effects of morphine.


Lose weight and improve your health in many ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

About my stay in Sheffield's Northern General Hospital (3)

The operation to fix the broken bits of the bone back together using metal is called Humerus Replating. Mr Royston was the surgeon who performed the op. - He came to see me the day before the op and I must say he exuded confidence and was very reassuring. I did not want to have morphine and that was OK with him.

The theatre staff were amazingly helpful and kind. Because I am a steroid victim, my skin is very thin and fragile. They put padding in various places to protect it. And they protected my painful, delicate feet by putting soft padding around my calves so that my feet were lifted above the surface that they would otherwise have had to rest on.

Mr Royston had said to me that he would not put another splint on after the op and that I would be able to move my arm the same day as the op and that proved to the case. It was extremely painful for a few days but it shows you don't have to have morphine for these operations. - When I had a hysterectomy in 1994 I also refused to have morphine, and that op went very well and I made an excellent recovery from the hysterectomy, which was performed by Professor Cook.


Lose weight and improve your health in many ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.