Hopefully your mother is doing better. Urinary infections are common for folks like her for sure and can cause some horrific complications as described above. Hopefully they can find the underlying cause of her pain. Unfortunately pain control in older patients can be very difficult as their bodies are not accustomed to pain medications and their bodies can’t metabolize the medications as well so their effect is much stronger than anticipated and can create deadly situations plus the possibility of interaction with other medications which as we get older we tend to have more medications. My advice would be to ask about options for pain control exclusive of opiates. Like others have said some physicians are afraid to prescribe pain medications these days for a variety of reasons. I believe it’s a balancing act and we have to assess each case individually. I work in trauma and surgery and my patients usually have a good indication for some pain meds. However they make it extremely difficult because sometimes the meds they were taking on the street are stronger than those I have to offer. Again best wishes to the OP and his mother. I’ve been on the other side as well when I witnessed my dad have a reaction to pain medications after surgery and was completely out of his mind. It’s always scary when I see that but it was even scarier when it was my dad.
Build a man a fire and keep him warm for a night, set a man on fire and keep him warm the rest of his life.
Posts: 1894 | Location: WV | Registered: December 15, 2005
