#finsjng alternatives to vicodin ?

[paintingraves]

House in season 6 kills me. He's really doing better, and he's off the Vicodin, and he's seeing a therapist, and he's moving forward by quitting because he knows that that's what he has to do to keep this momentum going.

He finds himself a new passion, he keeps connecting with people, he tries to put his old, miserable life behind one step at a time - and then suddenly you hear "And yet my leg hurts". It hurts because cooking isn't enough of a distraction, because cooking can't change the fact that the guy has half his thighs muscles missing - a literal hole in his leg - and all they gave him to handle his pain was ibuprofen. He is surrounded by doctors, and he is one himself, and yet they're all failing him when it comes to giving him a proper, thought-out pain management plan, as you do with chronic pain patients.

Yes, I know it's a series, I know they needed excuses and arguments and reasons to keep the plot moving forward and the series running for a few more seasons. Who would want to see House outside of PPTH, happy (or at least marginally less miserable) and pain-free, working as a researcher like he wanted - offering the occasional consult for a diagnosis but keeping his distance with his old life? It could work, but then the series wouldn't be called House MD anymore. It would, however, have been more hopeful, more realistic, and it could have spared us the slow descent back into misery that were the latter seasons.

It's just very frustrating to see someone on screen really try to make an effort and turn his life around for the better, in spite of how scary that may be, only to be knocked down by everyone around him - and by life - again and again.