Folks not reaching for a pill bottle are pretty rare, IME. I think the author of this article is touching on something pretty valuable with the willingness to be uncomfortable or even to endure pain. When I broke my leg in college, they gave me morphine while I was in the hospital (which just made me annoyed and mad) and I never touched the take-home codeine. Was walking in an air boot "early", too, as I was assured I couldn't hurt myself thanks to the metal rod through my shin and it just...didn't hurt that much.

I might take a naproxen if I have a bad headache or I tweak my neck and I can't stop working to take care of myself, but that's maybe two or three times a year (and I am being well-compensated for it). I know people, healthy people, who pop an ibuprofen in the morning just out of habit.

I don't think the average american uses that many pain pills.

OTC pain pills are a ~4 billion dollar industry. There are 320 million people so that's ~1$ / month in pain pill per person. And that's including both stuff that goes bad and is never used and daily Aspirin taken for cardiac health. https://www.chpa.org/OTCsCategory.aspx

5% of the population does take daily pain medication. At the same time it's common to go months without taking anything for pain.

Approximately 80 percent of the global opioid supply is consumed in the United States, which represents only 5 percent of the global population

"There was about 300 million pain prescriptions written in 2015,"

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/27/americans-consume-almost-all...

OTC = over the counter. There was a huge spike in prescription pain medications which has steadly declined over time.

While 2017 numbers are not in. 2016 Prescription pain medications are down 6% from 2015 and down 18% from 2012. https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/maps/rxrate-maps.html

And again, we are talking less than one prescription per year per person on average. With many of these prescriptions for 2-3 days worth of pain management. Though again, a minority of people get a lot of pain medication.

> Approximately 80 percent of the global opioid supply is consumed in the United States, which represents only 5 percent of the global population

That article is borderline irresponsible with how it reports that metric.

80% of global prescription opiate medications are filled in the US, but that doesn't mean that 80% of those prescriptions are consumed in the US (or consumed at all). Nor does it include no-prescription opiates, which are generally much easier to obtain in most countries around the world (and also a lot cheaper) than their prescription counterparts.

I'm very reluctant to take drugs, even over the counter pain meds or allergy pills, but this is an American trend that a lot of people I've interacted with have noticed and I wouldn't discount it outright.

Indeed. Story time!

Last Monday evening, I had an accident with an angle grinder in my garage. The cutoff disc went through my leather glove and bit deep into the middle finger of my left hand. After deciding against gluing the cut back together, I drove myself to urgent care and received five stitches.

Did I need any painkillers, the doctor asked? I declined; my finger was pumped full of lidocaine at the time.

In the middle of the night, the lidocaine wore off, and while the finger hadn't hurt in the immediate aftermath of the injury, it certainly hurt then. After tossing and turning for about an hour, I decided to get up and try to find something to take.

The only analgesic I had in the house was an expired tiny bottle of ibuprofen. I needed about five minutes of digging before I found even that.

I simply don't use painkillers very often. I might take ibuprofen once or twice a year. I can't remember the last time I took anything other than ibuprofen, not even acetaminophen, not even when I twisted my knee.

I'm not sure if I have a higher tolerance of pain than other people or if other people like to self-medicate when the least bit of pain rears its head. Or, perhaps, I've simply been lucky enough not to have much pain.

Well it's a bit tough to do actual work when there's pain that keeps distracting you. In the article the author talks about just needing to rest... But many of us don't really have the luxury of taking multiple days to rest. At least when you're on painkillers you can still do white collar work, albeit at reduced capacity. Without painkillers though, all your mental capacity would be going towards managing the pain.

This may be another geographic difference - In Germany, unless you are self-employed, if you get a dr's note saying you should rest employers aren't allowed to ask you to come to work. And the amount of sick-leave is unlimited.

Side note: They can't even ask WHAT exactly you have that prevents you from working. Important detail in case you have something that could be stigmatising or somehow discriminated against.

It's cheating you out of needed rest. Without painkillers you are be forced to rest and prevented from making matters worse. The concept of pain has an important function. Here's a story of a family that doesn't feel it:

https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/mbpejy/the-family-that-...

No doubt. But I think you are in the minority.