An orthopedic surgeon prescribed it for me after I had, literally, smashed my ankle. I was so concerned about taking it that I called my ex-husband, a surgeon, and he said pretty much the same thing that Cam said. And I gradually eased off it. I talked to the Orthopod and he listened to my concerns and if I could get by for even 30 minutes without it, I would wait to take the dose. The pain was so bad, for awhile, that we slowly shifted downwards to another med.

Something else to note is that when I worked in ER, you could tell what a drug addict wanted by what they said they "weren't" allergic to. We had an awful lot of people that weren't allergic to Dilaudid.