I'm so tired of seeing nothing in the media but anti-opioid hysteria and half-truths. Opioid prescribing has plummeted since 2010; opioid overdoses have doubled in the same time.
Does anyone in the mainstream media see what's happening now to legitimate pain patients and ordinary people going in for surgeries? Do you even care? People areā¦
I'm so tired of seeing nothing in the media but anti-opioid hysteria and half-truths. Opioid prescribing has plummeted since 2010; opioid overdoses have doubled in the same time.
Does anyone in the mainstream media see what's happening now to legitimate pain patients and ordinary people going in for surgeries? Do you even care? People are having amputations, hysterectomies, C-sections, joint replacements, and even by-passes -- and being denied effective or even adequate pain control even WHILE STILL IN THE HOSPITAL. People undergoing double-amputations have been given Tylenol. People with sickle-cell anemia. People passing kidney stones. People with terminal cancer.
Ordinary people -- non-addicts who have never refilled pain prescriptions early, never sold or given away their meds, never given anyone any reason to believe they are anything but responsible with their medications -- are now being cut off, force-tapered, prescribed alternative drugs that are ineffective and/or harmful (including suboxone and gabapentin), forced into harmful "interventional pain" procedures actually banned in other countries, and treated like criminals. They are forced to sign humiliating one-sided "pain contracts." To show up on a moment's notice for urine tests or pill counts. Not allowed to change doctors. Not allowed to change pharmacies. Not allowed to be treated for pain in an ER for any reason without permission. Not allowed to travel (lest they be unable to show up promptly for an unexpected-but-demanded urine test at the doctor's office; no other doctor's office will do). And medically abandoned, instantly and irrevocably, for the slightest of reasons.
Legitimate chronic pain patients who were, prior to the anti-opioid hysteria, able to live pretty normal, quality lives, thanks to their meds -- including working, parenting, and enjoying hobbies -- are now bedridden, racked with pain. Many are dying --- some, because they kill themselves when they decide they can't bear their untreated or undertreated pain anymore; some, because untreated pain itself kills (e.g., stroke, heart attacks, uncontrollable blood pressure); and some because they overdose after turning in desperation to the street and its unregulated drug suply after their safe and regulated medications are abruptly withdrawn.
Even those lucky few who still have doctors willing to take the risk of prescribing what they need are finding, more and more, that their pharmacy can't -- or simply won't -- fill their prescriptions. Each year, the FDA and DEA limit ever further the number of pain medications that can be manufactured. Desperate and frightened patients at the end of their previous fills are calling and calling pharmacies looking for any that will admit it has the medication in stock.
And the backdrop of all of this torture -- to the ignoring of legitimate pain and the abandonment of legitimate patients, with every one of us now staring down the likelihood that our own next illness, injury, or need for surgery will come with treatable-but-untreated intense pain -- is that all of this suffering is accomplishing nothing. Or, more accurately, it is having exactly the opposite of the intended impact: Overdose deaths continue to go up and up and up. Because prescribed pain meds are not now the real problem -- and were never more than a fraction of the real problem. The iron law of prohibition is in full swing. Opioid deaths continue to go up and up. Why? Fentanyl. We are literally torturing and killing real people in real pain for NO BENEFIT.
Anyone who has experienced a surgery or injury and enjoyed the benefit of effective pain medication in the hospital should be terrified of the new reality. I know I am. I've never taken pain meds more than 5 to 7 days following a surgical procedure (2 in my 56 years) or bone break (2 in 56 years), but I was very glad to have them then. Thanks to the DEA terrorizing doctors and inserting themselves between doctor and patient -- thanks to health "care" insurance companies now literally paying doctors not to prescribe the meds we need -- we can now all look forward to being treated inhumanely when we are next in pain, or to watching a loved one be treated inhumanely while we are powerless to push back.
For anyone interested in getting a bigger picture, here is a collection of patient stories from the National Pain Council collected last year:
I'm so tired of seeing nothing in the media but anti-opioid hysteria and half-truths. Opioid prescribing has plummeted since 2010; opioid overdoses have doubled in the same time.
Does anyone in the mainstream media see what's happening now to legitimate pain patients and ordinary people going in for surgeries? Do you even care? People are having amputations, hysterectomies, C-sections, joint replacements, and even by-passes -- and being denied effective or even adequate pain control even WHILE STILL IN THE HOSPITAL. People undergoing double-amputations have been given Tylenol. People with sickle-cell anemia. People passing kidney stones. People with terminal cancer.
Ordinary people -- non-addicts who have never refilled pain prescriptions early, never sold or given away their meds, never given anyone any reason to believe they are anything but responsible with their medications -- are now being cut off, force-tapered, prescribed alternative drugs that are ineffective and/or harmful (including suboxone and gabapentin), forced into harmful "interventional pain" procedures actually banned in other countries, and treated like criminals. They are forced to sign humiliating one-sided "pain contracts." To show up on a moment's notice for urine tests or pill counts. Not allowed to change doctors. Not allowed to change pharmacies. Not allowed to be treated for pain in an ER for any reason without permission. Not allowed to travel (lest they be unable to show up promptly for an unexpected-but-demanded urine test at the doctor's office; no other doctor's office will do). And medically abandoned, instantly and irrevocably, for the slightest of reasons.
Legitimate chronic pain patients who were, prior to the anti-opioid hysteria, able to live pretty normal, quality lives, thanks to their meds -- including working, parenting, and enjoying hobbies -- are now bedridden, racked with pain. Many are dying --- some, because they kill themselves when they decide they can't bear their untreated or undertreated pain anymore; some, because untreated pain itself kills (e.g., stroke, heart attacks, uncontrollable blood pressure); and some because they overdose after turning in desperation to the street and its unregulated drug suply after their safe and regulated medications are abruptly withdrawn.
Even those lucky few who still have doctors willing to take the risk of prescribing what they need are finding, more and more, that their pharmacy can't -- or simply won't -- fill their prescriptions. Each year, the FDA and DEA limit ever further the number of pain medications that can be manufactured. Desperate and frightened patients at the end of their previous fills are calling and calling pharmacies looking for any that will admit it has the medication in stock.
And the backdrop of all of this torture -- to the ignoring of legitimate pain and the abandonment of legitimate patients, with every one of us now staring down the likelihood that our own next illness, injury, or need for surgery will come with treatable-but-untreated intense pain -- is that all of this suffering is accomplishing nothing. Or, more accurately, it is having exactly the opposite of the intended impact: Overdose deaths continue to go up and up and up. Because prescribed pain meds are not now the real problem -- and were never more than a fraction of the real problem. The iron law of prohibition is in full swing. Opioid deaths continue to go up and up. Why? Fentanyl. We are literally torturing and killing real people in real pain for NO BENEFIT.
Anyone who has experienced a surgery or injury and enjoyed the benefit of effective pain medication in the hospital should be terrified of the new reality. I know I am. I've never taken pain meds more than 5 to 7 days following a surgical procedure (2 in my 56 years) or bone break (2 in 56 years), but I was very glad to have them then. Thanks to the DEA terrorizing doctors and inserting themselves between doctor and patient -- thanks to health "care" insurance companies now literally paying doctors not to prescribe the meds we need -- we can now all look forward to being treated inhumanely when we are next in pain, or to watching a loved one be treated inhumanely while we are powerless to push back.
For anyone interested in getting a bigger picture, here is a collection of patient stories from the National Pain Council collected last year:
https://704935b5-03fb-4b17-beea-2ec9b6b07625.usrfiles.com/ugd/704935_86e0e747117a40ed87b10716ccac50b1.pdf