Maybe I just have a good doctor, but they tried other stuff before going to pain meds. I tried physical therapy and steroid shots in the right places first before they decided to start giving me opioids after those two things didn't help enough. Recently doctors have cracked down a lot on prescribing opioids and have tried other options more readily. They wouldn't prescribe them to me until I had tried those things and then they had x-rayed me all over looking at my joints and seeing what they could find out that way too. So I was pretty happy about their decisions before starting to prescribe opiates long term for me.