@auspice ...well, then. I am not the kind of person who wishes the horrible experience someone is being callous about on the person being callous, but damn, that one tempts me to be.
I pretty much lost more or less everything to a car accident I was in years ago -- there was no way I could do the job I was in college for at the time, etc. even though I fought that for years, only to end up stuck in bed and unable to walk for the better part of a month for the fighting it. I still have pretty exhausting levels of pain from the damage done on a daily basis over 20 years later.
I don't take anything for it, because, really, I did actually 'get used to it'. Getting used to it meant giving up the career I was training for, most of the things I wanted to actually do with my life, and most of the things I wanted to have in my life. At the time, it was because of the dreaded 'no insurance'; now, it's too late for anything to be done about it, pretty much.
So, really, fuck those doctors. Perhaps they should imagine what would have happened to them if someone slammed their surgery hand in a car door in the middle of their residency, and how they'd feel about that. Somehow, I doubt they'd be so bold as to talk like that.
And, damn. I say this as someone who had to take opioids earlier in the year and hated every second of it, because they have nasty side effects for me that are less pleasant than the pain itself most of the time.
'Live with it' isn't the answer. Better, less dangerous medication should be on the agenda, though, for real. ('cause y'know I would kinda like there to be something out there I can take some day without becoming an insomniac hybrid of a hormonal honeybadger and a rabid wolverine, yeesh.)