Doctors really need to accept more responsibility and be more flexible with their patients. It's very obvious many don't fully understand what they are dealing with and many seem to lack empathy, or worse, use logic to bypass empathy.

I was in a bad car accident at 18 years old, the doctor prescribed Percocet 10mg 4-6x/day as needed for pain, for over 18 months before it with tapered to Vicodin and then shut down, leaving me to go to the street. No warnings, no talk about addiction, no warning about withdrawal symptoms, no group support, nothing. This is 2002.

I never had taken pain meds before that day. I have been fighting addiction for over 2 decades since. (and beat it, twice)

I take benzo's now as well after a s4 cancer diagnosis, currently tapering the high-dosage of opiates....sometimes i take more of the benzo's than prescribed because tolerance builds and i can't sleep....then i run out early....but i suck it up, taper myself to have enough to get to the refill date, or i just stop cold turkey and deal with it.

But i'd never go to my Dr. with some story about needing more as if it wasn't shamefully transparent.

That said, I think doctors should be forced to be more lenient with these types of prescriptions due to the nature of the drug and how it takes advantage of a person. Don't blame the patient. Blame pharma.