Seriously looking into driving but have a few questions, mostly medical

aww man ill tell ya brotha.

 

That 3rd paragraph is why I do not mind e logs and the HOS rules. If the load can't make it, not my problem.

 

Meth always helps for the 3rd paragraph. maybe the poster didn't know

 

I don't make enough money trucking to rake stupid risks.

 

There was no meth in my time. Not like today. I think meth originated with one particular motorcycle club on the west coast and the Mexicans moved in along with the ... certain other groups here in the south that started to make it as well. Meth is destroying my area when people pick it up and find that they lose way more than themselves in a short time.

The worst I did was coffee and smoking marlboros along with alcohol on bad roads prior to the CDL years. I found a problem with caffinee pills trying to maintain 30 hour days in a day cab with a baltimore to norfolk seacan run. Sit there all day and drive back half the night fighting white line fever just to make piddling baltimore 5 hours away against the worst traffic there is. So a whole box of 40 caffinee pills was my kick. Until the body simply built tolerance and it did not work anymore that put lives at risk one night.

I eventually discovered certain foods as a form of fuel for the stamina needed to run 5 days and 4 nights with 2000 to 3000 mile runs straight through now and then. That was my addiction I suppose you could call it that. With the right meals and a nap once a day for a hour or two at most it's time to GO. and that thing wont stop except fueling a few times all the way. Logs? Ha. we will spend a little time cleaning that mess when we get there. Or when DOT stood on my fuel tank and said to me clean up this tripe.

Im actually glad there was not much in the way of uppers in form of meth etc back then. It would have turned me into a monster America would not be big enough to make me tired on that stuff. I generally stayed drug free, that paid dividends for my health much later in life when I am confronted with the necessary medicines due to the wear and tear on my system. You could say that I am on drugs now. But not to the point of being screwed up on good days. The bad ones? Well, we will talk tomorrow about that.

 

I did 50 days clean and just completed 30 today. Im sharp and that trouble is over and done with with it out of the body thankfully.

The withdrawals are a old enemy this year, I have had time to carefully examine the issue. The one doctor I had before I left him only issued so much per day something like 4 times a day. If you were asleep long enough, say 9 hours the medicine is out of the system and you wake up in withdrawal. It's nuts. Takes two to cover that problem and stay on top of the issues for the morning. That was where the problems came in.

They issued a long term medicine for overnight use should be good for 12 hours. Not so, it takes 2 to kick in and is out in 6 leaving you 4 hours to wait until next dose. When I think about my life on medicine compared to a clean life without, I actually prefer the clean life without. However, ordinary store bought pills like moltrin does not work anymore so I have to take something stronger. We are looking into one that is equal one to one vs morphine with a dozen demerol tablets for bad days. Those last 8 hours at 60 mg.

The problem with demerol is that the DEA and the State of Arkansas specifically tell ER doctors for example not to use that drug at all, they are specifcally told to use another medicine instead of demerol for patients with broken bones or acute pain. Demerol induces seizures in a percentage of population once it is converted into a form of poison in the liver. I don't have that problem. But you will not convince any doctor not to issue that particular medicine.

The bigger issue is coming up against the current tightening and excessive control of these kinds of medicines for people who legitimately need and prove benefit from them. Because of the diversion and sales by those into illegal drug trade. (Pills can go from 10 to 120 each.. and a pint of liquid codeine will go for 5000) as well as the patients who are detected as abusers cut off from all pills and turn to illegal street heroin for 20 dollars a day. The amount of deaths via OD via Heroin has doubled in 4 years time here. You can blame partly the abusers who are cut off. Make it harder for the rest of us who rely on that stuff legally.

I don't want to get into too much detail, but I have been led to do quite a bit of research. For example Medicare patients by any doctor in the USA who prescribes scheduled drugs as of 2015 is here.... my personal doctor does about 331K in medicare prescribing and about 507 patients including myself in 2015. My previous pain clinic did number 8 in prescribing in the entire USA and approximately 2110 patients including myself for about 2.3 million dollars total in medicine claim. In addition to the prescribes anywhere in the USA, you will find particulars about what medicines they do prescribe and what percentage of patients recieved them. By both all age groups and specifically over 65 years old.

Prescriber Checkup

The next link deals with Opoid overdoses in general and medicine in particular. There is a massive push against Opoids in general to essentially outlaw them. Russia has made a break through a month ago in a research lab where they were able to get a pain killer without any Opoid influence in human beings possibly. Just need to move that new medicine from lab testing into animal test and then human testing. If it hits the market, I would be happy to give them a try. To be pain free without the highs and lows along with no withdrawals at all.

Withdrawals happen in a human when you take a pain medicine long enough, say a month. Your brain builds millions of chemical receptors to stay connected to the body below. The more drugs you take, the more the brain builds receptors. Take away the drugs quickly and not have anymore, your brain suddenly has way way way too many receptors and cannot stand it for a while. Boom withdrawals as your brain and body works over time to collect all the receptors and remove them from the system.

Management of Opioid Analgesic Overdose


I promised not to get into details, but it seems I cannot help it. It has been a few months worth of research this year trying to learn about the problem and how best to work around it in the first place. Im probably very rare as pain patients go who are willing to research and learn the laws and information being pushed to the Medical community, in addition to researching specific doctors the same way they can research you.

The biggest asset to the state and national are two lists. Every state maintains a prescription drug dispensing list. Any time you pick up even one pill from a valid doctor's scrip at a pharmacy, THEY report that sale to the state in real time or within a week. It becomes a pernament record accessible to law enforcement and all other doctors engaged in prescribing such as ER's That is one list. You are allowed a maximum of 120 to 180 pills a month, unless medicaid these are limited to just 90 a month.

There IS a national list which is a superior list to the state. This list only holds the names of abusers submitted into this list. If you are in this list, should you try to score pain medicine you will be arrested for life time. A doctor in the hospital MAY provide you with something to help the ow after a car wreck you have had but only for very short time. But because you are on that list you are going to be given something else besides addictive pain medicine.

It's getting to where the police in my area, they established a SIU this year and managed to arrest about 120 people in our county so far with about 170 felonies that will put them away for a while based on illegal drugs in some form, INCLUDING sales of prescribed pain medicine. We had one fella arrested in a church who tried to sell his 100 hydrocodone pills for a thousand dollars to a undercover SIU buy bust team. He could not resist that kind of a sale and bought himself many years in corrections.

That is the type of behavior that makes it really difficult for you and me to maintain a decent living with some level of adequate medicines. That too should pass and we will have to deal with it at some point the way things are going. However the work in Russia has a promise to break this pernamently globally if it should actually work for humans and pretty much put opoids out of the pain business entirely.