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Georgia woman battling flesh-eating bacteria refuses morphine before skin graft

slimvictor

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Dec 29, 2008
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In addition to keeping up her spirits despite losing her hands, left leg and right foot to a flesh-eating bacteria, this week Aimee Copeland turned down painkillers before a skin graft, her father wrote in a blog Friday.

"Aimee despises the use of morphine in her treatment," Andy Copeland wrote. "Although that drug effectively blocks most of the pain associated with her condition, it makes her groggy and confused and it gives her unpleasant hallucinatory episodes."

Aimee Copeland, a graduate student at the University of West Georgia, has been hospitalized in critical condition at an Augusta, Ga., hospital since early May, battling kidney failure and other organ damage after she began exhibiting symptoms related to the necrotizing fasciitis, or flesh-eating bacteria, that has ravaged her system. Her condition was upgraded on Tuesday to serious.

"I know the pain was significant, but Aimee's courage is greater," Andy Copeland said of his daughter's decision to forgo the morphine.

"Part of her master's thesis is focused on holistic pain management techniques and Aimee told me that she feels she is a traitor to her convictions when she uses pharmacological pain management," Andy Copeland added.

Aimee faced an even bigger graft Friday, this time including both skin and muscle.

cont at
http://www.thenorthwestern.com/arti...n-graft?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s
 
Holistic medicine focuses on how the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual elements of the body are interconnected to maintain wellness, or holistic health.

In other words, holistic pain management may mean to get exercise and eat a healthy diet (physical), meditate (mental), attempt to surround yourself with positive people and influences (emotional) and possibly take up a religious practice (spiritual). A healthy body, mind, conscience and soul interconnected (holism) will then provide all the pain management one will need to deal with, well, in her case, flesh eating disease. Of course, this is my own interpretation of Holism from what I've read and I don't have any first hand experience other than alternative (herbal) medicine, which, is part of Holistic medicine.
 
200px-Slaapbol_R0017601.JPG


The only herbal medicine I need :D
 
Oh... So she is insane too... Good to know.

Yeah, I think it would be brilliant if a doctor could bring her a picture of a dripping poppy pod and say "Do you know what that all natural paste forming on the outside is"

I realize that the natural opiates can cause hallucinations. I have NEVER heard of someone having strong hallucinations from something like fentanyl, which is perfectly suitable for her needs especially since the grogginess and confusion would not last long at all. I feel really bad for this girl but I also feel like her convictions are going to help her die a painful death and I doubt any of the people she has spoken to about holistic practices would think that she doesnt deserve heavy duty narcotics. If this girl asked for a hit of rock, as a doctor I would have to go out and find a crack dealer and get her a 50 or something...
 
"Part of her master's thesis is focused on holistic pain management techniques and Aimee told me that she feels she is a traitor to her convictions when she uses pharmacological pain management," Andy Copeland added.
this is a ridiculous person. she should take all of the students brainwashed against pain-medicines with her and create a pain-loving colony on an island somewhere.
it makes her groggy and confused and it gives her unpleasant hallucinatory episodes."
the first two seem like a perfectly fair trade off if you're sitting in a hospital bed with instruments ripping your fat and touching your bone. the third can be handled by the doctors, or its dose adjusted...
 
To me, part of the freedom that humans (should) have to use drugs includes the freedom not to use drugs.
Calling the women ridiculous or insane makes me want to say "Just leave her alone. She deserves to live as she wants to live. Who are we to judge her, especially since we lack 90% of the information about her situation? "
If she wants to stop the morphine, because it is worth it to her based on her values, or on the trade-off with grogginess and confusion, what is there left to say?

I sometimes wish that some of my musical heroes, like Bob Marley, had lived longer.
He chose not to get a relatively simple operation to remove the cancer in his toe in order to follow his own spiritual beliefs.
So the cancer metastasized and he died.
But would I have wanted him to give up his beliefs - which I don't really understand or personally accept - in order to keep on living?
I wish he were still alive, and making music, but he wouldn't have been the same person anymore.
Ultimately, it was his decision, and he made the right decision for him.
There is nothing we can really say about his decision.
Same with the woman in this article.
Let people live their own lives as they want to.
She is not hurting anyone.
 
^morphine is herbal

I know... it's awfully contradictory if you think about it.

But logic tends to take a back seat when dealing with differing opinions of interpretations of pretty much anything.

As an example, (it's hardly surprising that) there are reportedly over 38,000 different denominations of Christianity.
 
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Opiates are natural
Marjunana is Natural
DMT is natural

Some of the best drugs come from nature <3
 
Opiates are natural
Marjunana is Natural
DMT is natural

Some of the best drugs come from nature <3

Agreed.
In fact, if they would legalize all such "natural" drugs, I would be pretty happy.
Add mushrooms and cactus to your list, and I am mostly good to go.
Especially if we could also say LSD comes from nature.
The main lack for me would be MDMA, MDA, and the 2c's.
But of course, there is no reasonable moral argument against legalizing synthetic drugs.
After all, most legal drugs are synthetic...
 
I only do natural drugs, like cocaine and morphine;).

If she wants to follow pseudoscience and suffer that's her business. It only becomes a problem when they imposes the idea that pain and suffering=salvation on everyone, which use to be the case in the US(sometimes still is) and still is in many countries.
 
I only do natural drugs, like cocaine and morphine;).

If she wants to follow pseudoscience and suffer that's her business. It only becomes a problem when they imposes the idea that pain and suffering=salvation on everyone, which use to be the case in the US(sometimes still is) and still is in many countries.

Cocaine is natural, cocaine hcl is not.
 
I was being sarcastic. It's sometimes hard to tell on the internet.I'm aware that coca, with low doses of cocaine and other alkaloids in the form of vegetable salts, is different from pure hcl/base.And opium, with morphine and other alkaloids in the form of meconates, is different from pure sulfate/hcl/tartrate.

I don't give a fuck if somethings natural or not. Strychnine, tetradotoxin, and atropine are natural. Amoxicillin and acetaminophen are synthetic. Just because it's natural doesn't mean it's safer or better.
 
I don't give a fuck if somethings natural or not. Strychnine, tetradotoxin, and atropine are natural. Amoxicillin and acetaminophen are synthetic. Just because it's natural doesn't mean it's safer or better.

using acetaminophen as a positive example of synthetic drugs is kind of dubious, due to it's propensity for severe death and liver damage
 
Skorpio said:
using acetaminophen as a positive example of synthetic drugs is kind of dubious, due to it's propensity for severe death and liver damage
Crankinit said:
You do realize acetaminophen is highly toxic and the #1 cause of liver failure in most 1st world countries?
I'm fully aware of that.But it's really not as toxic as you all make it out to be. It does cause liver damage in high doses for prolonged uses or combined with alcohol. But under 4 grams it's pretty safe and effective for mild pain.It's the only non-narcotic pain reliever that doesn't cause GI bleeding or ulcers. And the vast majority of users don't get liver failure. No medicine is without side effects, synthetic or natural. Why not point out that amoxicillin causes a life threatening allergic reaction in many people?
 
Almost drug is fairly safe if you use it carefully and in moderation, that's what it boils down to. Any distinction between natural/synthetic is absurd, a molecule is a molecule, it doesn't care where it came from.
 
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