Level 2 Chi Kung. Microcosmic orbit.

Several weeks ago, frustrated that the recovery of my injured knee seemed to have stalled, I decided I’d better make an appointment to see the GP. The appointment was yesterday afternoon. I was hoping to be referred for some physiotherapy, but the GP wants an x-ray first to find out whether the bone is chipped. She asked what I was doing for pain relief, and I told her that I had been taking nurofen – just a couple of tablets a day but that I had stopped because I was concerned that it had been two months. She agreed that it isn’t a good idea to take ibuprofen long term and gave me a prescription for an alternative. I didn’t take much notice until I collected the prescription today and discovered that she has prescribed 1 to 2 tablets, 4 times a day, of something containing 15mg of codeine. So, if I followed this advice, I could potentially be taking 120mg of codeine a day. Now, even leaving aside the fact that, if I took anywhere near this much codeine I may never go to the loo again, this puzzles me. I have always found GPs to be very reluctant to prescribe painkillers – before I had kids I suffered from appalling period pain but was repeatedly sent away empty-handed, and a few years ago St Mary’s Hospital sent me home to have a miscarriage, with a prescription for paracetamol! And yet here I was saying that I was basically getting by without any pain relief at all, and the GP prescribes this heavy duty stuff. Of course there might be a logical reason – she noticed me limping and thinks things would heal up faster if I walked normally maybe (but, if so, she really needed to explain her thinking) – or is it just that obs and gynae stuff is ‘meant to hurt’ but knees aren’t?