Heating pads. Free drugs. Everyone's got an opinion.

Not a week goes by that someone doesn't say this:

"I hurt myself lifting something. It hurt really bad. I put a heating pad on it and it felt good. My neighbor had surgery 5 years ago on his teeth and had some pain-killers that he still had. He gave them to me for free...he's such a nice neighbor. Well anyways, I was talking to another friend and they said I should hang upside down. Someone else said I should exercise more. My husband says that I'm tight in the hamstrings and that I should stretch."

Heating Pads
Stop heating injuries! When you injure yourself lifting something, there is swelling. I understand that heating pads FEEL good, but they increase the swelling. Usually, the next day you will feel worse and you won't connect the heating pad to the increased pain because it takes TIME to swell. Use ice.

Free Drugs
If you had a child that was offered narcotics from someone at school, you would flip out and make a big deal about it, wouldn't you? But somehow it's different when you're taking someone else's prescription drugs at work, isn't it? Never mind that the drugs are expired and have lost some of their effectiveness.

I have found that people hold onto drugs as if they were golden eggs (some of them cost that much). People keep antibiotics and narcotic drugs for years "just in case." It's the underground drug scene. If you need drugs, just announce to everyone at work that you have pain and you'll be shocked at how many people will just pull stuff out of their purses.

Stop taking prescription drugs that are not yours and that are expired.

Everyone's got an opinion
Everyone is an expert. The problem is that they may be knowledgable about themselves, but they haven't diagnosed YOU. That's because they can't. They mean well, but stop listening to everyone. I've had patients sprain a muscle and then find out that they started stretching the muscle because a coworker told them to. That's like having a tear in a paper and someone telling you to fix the tear you should pull on both ends of the paper.

Listen to someone that has some training in your condition. Listen to their opinion.