Health News and Information » Cancer http://readhealth.org Articles and discussion on the latest in health Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:26:11 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 OBSTACLES TO PAIN RELIEF – PRESCRIPTIONS FOR TABLETS http://readhealth.org/2009/05/obstacles-to-pain-relief-prescriptions-for-tablets http://readhealth.org/2009/05/obstacles-to-pain-relief-prescriptions-for-tablets#comments Mon, 18 May 2009 06:43:56 +0000 admin http://readhealth.org/2009/05/obstacles-to-pain-relief-prescriptions-for-tablets Don’t leave the doctor’s surgery without prescriptions for enough tablets to take the required dose, every six hours in this case, until your next appointment. In our example, this means you would need 112 tablets. You may not, in fact, take all of those tablets, but at least you are free to decide what’s best for you. If you don’t have the tablets, you don’t have the choice.

Your doctor may say that twenty tablets per prescription is the maximum he or she can prescribe. This is not true. In Australia, your doctor can apply to the Department of Health for permission to give you enough painkillers per prescription to last one month. Permission is always given for people with cancer. Find out from a doctor or pharmacist what regulations apply in your country.

If you are in hospital, you have to rely on nurses as well as doctors to get the painkiller you need. First, ask your doctor to write up your painkiller to be taken regularly, (every three to six hours as is appropriate for the particular painkiller), not ‘as required’. If it is written up ‘as required’ you will have to ask for every dose. Even once you persuade the nurse you do need it, you will have to wait while senior nurses and keys are found, so cupboards can be unlocked to get your painkiller out. You shouldn’t have to go through this and you won’t have to if you can persuade your doctor to say you must have the painkiller regularly.

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]]> http://readhealth.org/2009/05/obstacles-to-pain-relief-prescriptions-for-tablets/feed 0 EXPRESSIONS USED TO DESCRIBE AIMS OF TREATMENT – POSSIBLE BENEFITS OF PALLIATIVE TREATMENT http://readhealth.org/2009/05/expressions-used-to-describe-aims-of-treatment-possible-benefits-of-palliative-treatment http://readhealth.org/2009/05/expressions-used-to-describe-aims-of-treatment-possible-benefits-of-palliative-treatment#comments Fri, 15 May 2009 06:36:14 +0000 admin http://readhealth.org/2009/05/expressions-used-to-describe-aims-of-treatment-possible-benefits-of-palliative-treatment The possible benefit of palliative anti-cancer treatments is that they may control the cancer temporarily. While the cancer is under control, there will probably be less symptoms from it. The patient may feel better, provided the symptoms due to treatment are not as bad as the symptoms due to the cancer were. Sooner or later the cancer will become active again. It will then grow and eventually result in death in much the same way as it would have earlier, if no anti-cancer treatment had been used. In other words, the possible benefit from palliative cancer treatments is that they may delay the eventual outcome. However, they don’t really alter it. In contrast, potentially curative treatments may prevent a person from dying of cancer. Try not to lose sight of the fact that, of course, there is nothing that can prevent you from eventually dying of something. A lot of people with cancer suffer unnecessarily because they let their doctors treat them as though this was not a basic fact of life.

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