Is there a danger of addiction when using narcotic medicine for pain?
As with any type of narcotic medication that a person gets pain relief from, the more addictive ones are the ones that have a quick onset, the ones that they get the rush from and get the pain relief from immediately. They’re going to want to reach immediately for that when they’re experiencing chronic pain, and if it’s not there, they’re going to have a withdrawal immediately. And one of the other problems with using long-term narcotics is a person becomes what we call tachy-phylactic, or tolerant to the medication, meaning that they need more and more to get the same relief they were getting from the orginial, smaller doses.