6 Things to Try If Your Doctor Won’t Prescribe Opioid Pain Medication
/By Crystal Lindell
Many doctors are extremely resistant to prescribing opioid pain medication for any reason these days. Whether it’s for post-operative pain, chronic pain or even pain from terminal cancer, patients are finding that doctors shrug their shoulders and tell them to go home and take ibuprofen.
Unfortunately, over-the-counter pain medication is just not effective in many cases, and that can leave patients in desperate situations.
As someone who’s been navigating my own chronic illness for more than a decade, as well as helping my loved ones with their health issues, I do have some very realistic advice I can offer.
If you ever find yourself in extreme pain, but your doctor won’t give you pain medication, here are 6 things you can try.
1. Doctors Expect You To Negotiate
Many doctors now have an unwritten policy where they will only give you opioid medication if you ask a certain number of times, especially when it comes to acute trauma like a broken bone or post-op pain.
Doctors believe that this helps them to make sure that you really need it.
So just because your doctor tells you no one time, two times or even three times, that doesn’t mean you should just accept the response. If your pain is severe enough that OTC medication is not working, then ask again. And again. Ideally, they eventually relent and will send in at least a small opioid prescription for you.
This also helps future patients. Many doctors assume that if patients don’t ask repeatedly for pain medication after a surgery then that means that the surgery doesn’t result in severe pain for anyone. By showing them that you need it, you make it more likely for doctors to believe the next patient.
2. Tell Your Doctor You’re Unable To Work Due to Pain
Unfortunately, under our current financial structures, much of our worth as humans is still tied to our ability to be productive at our jobs. So telling your doctor that you’re in too much pain to work may inspire them to finally send in an opioid prescription for you.
They do not want you missing work, which could mean you losing health insurance and being unable to pay them.
3. Threaten To Go to the ER
Another option when your doctor refuses to give you opioid medication is to tell them that you’re going to go to the emergency room then. This will often spur them to send in a prescription.to your pharmacy.
When it comes to something like post-surgical care, many doctors feel like it makes them look bad when their patients have to go to the ER for after-care.
I have also seen this work for chronic pain as well, especially if you’re in their office when you bring it up. One time, for example, after explaining that I was going to go to the ER because my pain had spiked, my doctor gave me stronger pain medication in his office.
As an aside: Just make sure that if you get something very strong, like a hydromorphone shot, that you also get medication for nausea, like Zofran. While most ERs do this as a matter of policy, sometimes a doctor will skip it if it’s administered in their office.
This is something I learned the hard way after an in-office hydromorphone shot left me vomiting for more than 24 hours because I wasn’t used to the strength of the medication. The whole thing could have been prevented with some Zofran.
4. Go to the Emergency Room
If telling your doctor that you want to go to the ER doesn’t motivate them to send in an opioid prescription, then the next step is to actually go to the emergency room.
In my experience, ER doctors will, at the very least, usually give you a dose of pain medication to take on site. That can help you get the pain down to a level where you can at least think clearly and then figure out next steps and/or get some needed sleep.
Depending on the situation, sometimes you can also convince ER doctors to give you a small prescription for at-home use too, especially if it’s for something like post-op pain or a severe injury.
5. Consider a Pain Management Doctor
If you have chronic pain, many times your best option is getting a referral to a doctor who specializes in pain management.
This is not ideal because pain management doctors tend to be quite different from primary care doctors. That’s because many pain specialists believe they are being watched by the Drug Enforcement Administration. The DEA has no medical expertise, but has targeted hundreds of doctors for what it calls “unlawful” opioid prescribing.
Because of that, many pain management doctors act more like probation officers than medical professionals, requiring invasive and expensive monitoring like drug tests and pill counts on a regular basis. This means the patient experience tends to be more like being on probation than getting healthcare. The only thing missing is an ankle monitor.
That said, pain specialists are usually willing to prescribe a low-dose opioid if it doesn’t exceed medical guidelines, which could get them in trouble. For many patients, even a low dose can literally be life saving.
If you can’t get pain treatment anywhere else, then it can be worth it to put up with the draconian atmosphere.
6. Try Kratom or Cannabis
The two most effective pain treatments you can get without a prescription are kratom and cannabis, although your mileage may vary and their legal status varies a lot by jurisdiction.
While I am not sure how effective kratom or cannabis is at treating short-term intense pain, like a broken bone, I have personally found kratom to be the only substance I can get without a prescription that helps my chronic intercostal neuralgia pain. I would describe kratom as having an extremely mild opioid effect.
Personally, I use it by taking a spoonful of kratom powder with a swig of Gatorade, as I find that to be the most effective delivery method. However, there are many options, ranging from capsules to kratom candy and even kratom seltzer.
I also know many others who have found relief by using cannabis, which is thankfully legal in many places now. THC gummies seem to be especially helpful to anyone who’s new to cannabis use and doesn’t want to smoke. Cannabis dispensaries are also usually staffed with knowledgeable, friendly employees who are happy to guide you to the best option.
I always say pain will make you crazy much faster than you expect. Within just three days of severe pain, I have seen people openly saying they were ready to die.
It’s a true shame that in 2025, when effective and cheap pain medication exists, so many people are still left to suffer simply because of opioid-phobia and an overzealous DEA.
However, that doesn’t mean you should be forced to suffer through pain just because you may not know how to navigate the healthcare system. You do have options.
And if you’re in a situation where you’re denied pain care that you need, I hope you’ll use it to inspire more compassion in yourself. Pain treatment is a human right, and the more people who support it, the more likely we are to get it.
