I agree, most “fixes” are focused on after addiction. Dental surgery, accidents, cancer, these circumstances along with many others do justify the short term use of narcotic pain medication.
I like how the emergency room doctor handled pain management when I initially injured myself. I was there on Sunday, he scheduled an appointment with the other doctor for Wednesday and sent me home with six Vicodin, enough to get me until I had my appointment and began receiving care by the other doctor. That’s how it should be done, and after my test results were reviewed the doctor should be able to guesstimate the average of how long the intense pain will last before it subside and give me a reasonable prescription until then. I understand everyone is different and my pain tolerance higher on the scale but I’m not the choices other patients have made nor am I a patient that has a history of abusing narcotics.