For some reason, which I have yet to figure out, the medical community tends to try to lump us all into one neat little package. Not all doctors do this, but in my experience, many of them do this with an unyielding resolve. They tend to think that all human beings are of like body chemistry and will react pretty much the same to most medications. This seems to be most prevalent when it comes to pain medication.

I visited my personal physician the other day for treatment for a couple of different ailments, one of which was a lifelong problem caused by a chemical imbalance. When I asked what the side effects would be to a couple of different medications, she stated that different medications affect each individual differently. I found this statement to be insightful and I am sure that if most physicians where asked, they would tend to agree with her answer. Yet, agreeing with the statement and acting on it are two different things. Case in point would have to be my two different visits to two different hospitals.

Around ten years ago, I was involved in a major car accident. I came out of it with a broken rib, a torn posterior crucial ligament, a severe hematoma on my left side and plenty of contusions throughout my body. After being examined and admitted to the hospital, the nursing staff promptly administered pain medication to me. Without question, they allowed me to pump as much or as little pain meds to my body as I saw fit.

As you can imagine, I was in extreme pain at the time, so I was extremely liberal with my dosages and the nurses had to come in very often and replace the bag of morphine. At one point they had given me so much of this stuff that one of the nurses remarked to my mother, that given the amount of morphine that I had taken, I should now be completely unconscious. She also stated, that if they had given that much morphine to an elephant it surely would have put him to sleep; yet I was completely awake and of sharp mind.

In contrast, I was admitted to another hospital years later because one of my kidneys shut down and a third of it died off. At this visit, the nurses where very thrifty with the pain meds, even though it felt as though someone had just stabbed me with a bowie knife in my right side. I asked repeatedly for more pain medication yet the nurses refused since they felt that I had had enough. Consequently, I lay in that hospital for the duration in extreme pain without much relief.

As you can see, there is a stark contrast in the two visits. In the first visit, the medical staff allowed me to manage my pain as I saw fit. In the second visit, the medical staff took it upon themselves to manage my pain at a dosage that they thought was suitable. Here lies the problem; people react differently to different chemicals and to different dosages.

I, on one hand, have a high tolerance to pain meds. My wife, on the other hand, takes a small dose and can barely function. Yet taking into account our weight differences and genders only, many people in the medical community would have us taking pretty similar doses. If we both had a tooth pulled on the same day and we were given similar dosages of pain meds, I would be in intense pain and my wife would be swinging from the ceiling fan screaming: "I’m Peter Pan, are you Tinker Bell?"

My point is that weight and gender are not the only deciding factors for the amount of pain meds, or any meds for that matter, that one should be prescribed. Body chemistry, in my mind, is one of the most important factors for the amount and type of medication given to a person.

I awoke at one point during the middle of an operation that was being preformed by some wonderful, experienced medical personnel. As I lay there with my eyes wide open, the person in charge of administering the drugs to keep me unconscious and pain free, was stating to me very fervently "Your fighting it, Your fighting it, go back to sleep!" All I could think of at that time, and ever since was, "I am not fighting it, I am just not sleepy anymore."

She was a great person, very professional and very nice to me, yet I kept thinking to myself: "Hey, this is not my fault, do you think I want to wake up while the doctor is sticking that long metal harpoon into my groin region?" Needless to say, it took plenty more of what they were giving me to knock me out again.

What I have stated today about body chemistry is nothing new. If you think back to your college days, don't you remember that one skinny little guy who seemed to be able to drink everyone under the table; even the football players that outweighed him by a hundred or so pounds? Or how about the co-worker that drinks four or five pots of coffee and acts normal all day. In contrast, if you were to have just one pot, you would instantly turn into Don Knots doing his impersonation of a crack addict.