Tacoma Girl came over for snax & drinx yesterday evening. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
namoda couldn't make it, or it would have been a full gathering of the coven.) Not all that long ago, TG started working at a non-profit that helps people get mental health care, including addiction treatment.
Tacoma Girl had lots of bad news about the fentanyl epidemic.
A story, as told to Tacoma Girl: In 1989 I had my wisdom teeth out. I asked the tech, "What's in the drip?"
"Fentanyl and barbiturates." This was the first time I'd ever heard of fentanyl.
A few hours later, or as I perceived it a few minutes later thanks to that serious anesthesia, I regained consciousness and asked, "Done already?"
And then I started to feel cold. I shivered like... a really cold person. They put a blanket on me, if I remember correctly.
Tacoma Girl says that "shaking" or "tremors" are a symptom of fentanyl withdrawal. It's typical of the medical profession, she said, to express things in terms of what their professionals see, not what patients experience.
I mean, I had a fabulous time with Tacoma Girl and I ate way too many snacks from Uwajimaya, but mayunn, she had some heavy stuff to tell me.
namoda couldn't make it, or it would have been a full gathering of the coven.) Not all that long ago, TG started working at a non-profit that helps people get mental health care, including addiction treatment.Tacoma Girl had lots of bad news about the fentanyl epidemic.
- It's so pervasive that she says she saw people trying to score at 5th & Jackson – near a light rail stop, close to touristy parts of downtown and Chinatown – on the way to my place. She says it was a little worrisome to her personally even though she grew up in Tacoma's Hilltop neighborhood, which has a reputation throughout Puget Sound for drugs and violent crime. (That reputation is no longer deserved, she says.)
- The time from a hit to onset of withdrawal symptoms for heroin? About a day, maybe longer. For fentanyl? Two hours. That means that if you're addicted, you can't really sleep, and even eating is an issue.
- The immediately above means that about the only treatment that works is inpatient. That's expensive.
- You know how cocaine got segregated into powder for white people and crack for the poor and minorities? These days the analogous drugs are heroin and fentanyl, respectively. That bodes ill for a serious response to fentanyl.
- What also bodes ill for a serious response is inertia: treatment programs, such as they are, are set up for heroin, the drug of ten or fifteen years ago.
- And did I mention that effective treatment for fentanyl addiction is expensive? Tacoma Girl is of the opinion that only single payer health care can get the job done with fentanyl.
A story, as told to Tacoma Girl: In 1989 I had my wisdom teeth out. I asked the tech, "What's in the drip?"
"Fentanyl and barbiturates." This was the first time I'd ever heard of fentanyl.
A few hours later, or as I perceived it a few minutes later thanks to that serious anesthesia, I regained consciousness and asked, "Done already?"
And then I started to feel cold. I shivered like... a really cold person. They put a blanket on me, if I remember correctly.
Tacoma Girl says that "shaking" or "tremors" are a symptom of fentanyl withdrawal. It's typical of the medical profession, she said, to express things in terms of what their professionals see, not what patients experience.
I mean, I had a fabulous time with Tacoma Girl and I ate way too many snacks from Uwajimaya, but mayunn, she had some heavy stuff to tell me.
