RetireJapan

Cracaphat wrote: ↑Tue May 31, 2022 2:59 pm I had two shoulder operations in the space of two years,five years ago. That first op had me in a world of pain and I basically had to sux it up.No cooling jacket,no more painkillers after it had worn off.Couldn't sleep and a nurse gave me a sleeping pill as if it'd work.I'll never forget that pain.The second time with a different doctor,I implored him to hook me up, because I didn't want to go through that level of pain again.He came through alright,though I was just waiting for the pain to come like the first time but thankfully it didn't.To me, Japan's pain attitude is to "gaman" at best.

captainspoke wrote: ↑Tue May 31, 2022 10:42 am Probably not what you want to hear, but personally, I'm glad opioids are as restricted as they are here--inpatients only, and even then, sparingly.

Gulliver wrote: ↑Wed Jun 01, 2022 7:25 am I think many of your posts are validating my point. Which is that there’s a large amount of misunderstanding as to the different types of pain. I am talking about chronic intractable pain which is pain that will never go away, cannot be easily managed and is just as bad, if not worse, than pain caused by cancer. So the main point is that Japan has a large gap in pain treatment protocols for this area. This might be my fault for not making it clear enough.

There was mention of a “ very strong patch” used by a cancer patient. This was probably the drug fentanyl which is 50 times stronger (literally) than heroin. The type of pain I am experiencing needs nowhere near that level of mitigation but it does need something stronger than the strongest NSAIDs on the market (which have minimal effect on my pain). This is where these intermediary drugs come in to play. The ones I was describing are 100 times less powerful than fentanyl but still work to make life livable for folks in my condition.

The type of pain most of the posts so far have been describing is postoperative acute transitory pain. This type of pain is intense at first but goes away over time. I’ve had a few major surgeries in Japan and while a week or two of severe pain medication would have been the compassionate and generally worldwide accepted treatment, not receiving them did not throw me into despair because I knew it would get better eventually.

Currently for someone like me who has fallen through this pain treatment gap in Japan, there is no respite other than maybe a stress related heart attack or something similar. That is why I ask the question: Has anybody been able to find a viable solutions to bridging this gap other than moving out of Japan? I’m so desperate that, I’m embarrassed to admit, I even tried acupuncture for a while.

A telling antidote, that may be of relevance, would be the time I received surgery for a broken ankle in Japan: After waking up from general anesthesia the first thing the surgeon asked me was, “Is your ankle in pain?” I thought this was a rather odd question considering I just had my ankle cut open, fragments of bone and tendon removed and a screw inserted into my fibula. It made me wonder how many Japanese simply answer “I’m OK” due to the grin-and-bear-it culture here. Looking back I should’ve said, “What do you think baca!” but I was still too out of it at the time.

The other thing that jumped out to me was the mention of suppositories. I recently had a doctor suggest I use NSAID suppositories because the oral ones were tearing up my stomach and intestines. “You can’t be serious,” I thought. So not only will I not get the proper level of pain mitigation but I also have to suffer the mental/ physical trauma of inserting the thing! A bit sadistic if you ask me .

This is all especially disheartening when I know there’s medication readily available that I know actually works for my pain, is fairly safe and does not cause ulcers and cardiovascular side effects like NSAIDs and acetaminophen do. The side effects of addiction and drowsiness do not bother me because I am retired and I do not own a car.

I think I agree with most of you when I say that I DO believe that opioids should be heavily regulated and you should be closely monitored by your doctor when they are taken (another difficulty Japanese doctors seem to have). I’m actually a bit alarmed as to the ease with which you can obtain benzodiazepines here (which are equally, if not more, addictive and mind bending as opioids). Not to mention prescription sleeping pills. The doctors here seem to give both of these out like candy. But I guess that’s another topic.