A person exhibits compulsive behavior to satisfy their craving for a pain killer or pain medication even when there are negative consequences associated with taking it. There are many side effects and adverse reactions that can occur with the use of opioids as pain killers. When you're addicted physically to a drug, like pain killers or alcohol, etc., it's because you've suppressed or shut down your body's production of endorphins, which are natural opiate pain killers; when this happens you start craving the drug that you replaced the endorphins with whether it's alcohol, any of a number of drugs or pain killers.

Many other drugs can interact with the opioids and cause a variety of symptoms; this can be fatal. There are a number of effective treatment options to treat pain killer addiction to prescription opioids and to help manage the sometimes severe withdrawal symptoms that can accompany sudden stopping of pain killers or drugs. Opioids used as the doctor has prescribed are supposedly not dangerous according to some well-established medical groups; but if this is the case, why are so many people addicted to them?

More than 10% of high school seniors have started taking Vicodin for reasons other than reducing pain. Addiction is both a biological and psychological condition. Patients can innocently start taking pain killers after a moderate injury or because of a severe injury in an automobile accident, fall or for post surgical pain.

Common side effects and adverse reactions of pain killers are: nausea, vomiting, drowsiness, dry mouth, miosis (contraction of the pupil), orthostatic hypotension (blood pressure drops upon sudden standing) -- often happens when arising too fast when getting out of bed in the morning, urinary retention, constipation and fecal impaction. Pain killer addiction includes: opiate dependency, opiate addiction, narcotic dependency, narcotic addiction, and pain killer dependency or painkiller dependency. Opioids should never be taken when drinking alcohol (also a drug) or when alcohol may still be in the system.

An opioid-dependent pain patient has improved function with the use of the drug while an opioid-addicted patient does not have improvement. More than 415,000 people received treatment for pain killer abuse or addiction this past year. Physical dependence on a drug suggests that sudden stopping of the drug may result in negative consequences.

The longer you wait to get treatment the worse it'll get; take action now. If you can't do an in-patient rehab, find out how you can do outpatient rehab and pay for it under your insurance plan; check your insurance policy to see if it's covered. If you don't have insurance, check with your local mental health agencies to see what is available that's free.

Some insurance companies will pay for one or two weeks; some may pay for rehabilitation too. There are many pain killer addiction treatment facilities located throughout the United States, Canada and the rest of the world. You must leave the routine responsibilities of your life for a week or two or suffer the inevitable outcome and bad health effects of prolonged drug addiction.

A patient being treated with a pain killer can become dependent, but with controlled and appropriate use of the medication, the patient can return to some level of normal living and normal activities following discontinuance of the drug. The many problems that are associated with pain killer addiction and abuse have experts, doctors and authorities searching for solutions. The effort to reduce pain medication abuse is causing serious problems for patients who legitimately need the drugs.