From a story at FoxNews by Elizabeth Liorente on pain patients living in despair, committing suicide, as doctors taper or end opioid prescriptions:
It happened slowly. The pain caused by a 1980 back fracture, the result of a tractor-trailer crash, crippled more and more of Jay Lawrence's body and spirit.By 2006, the Tennessee native and Navy veteran's arms and legs were going numb. The excruciating pain reduced him to tears. Multiple surgeries, chiropractic adjustments, and physical therapy didn't work.
He finally found solace in prescription painkillers - 120 milligrams a day of morphine. A high dose, but it dulled the pain enough for him to take walks with his wife, shop for groceries, even take in a few movies.
But last February, the pain clinic doctor delivered jarring news: He was cutting Lawrence's daily dosage, first to 90 milligrams then, in short stages, down to 30 milligrams. The doctor said the reduced dosage was in response to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) prescribing guidelines released in 2016 as part of a national anti-opioid push, according to Lawrence's wife, Meredith.
"The doctor said: 'You know these guidelines are going to become a law eventually. So we've decided as a group that we're going to take all of our patients down,'" she told Fox News in an interview.
Lawrence's pain returned with a vengeance. He could barely move or sleep. He soiled his pants, unable to make the bathroom in time, Meredith said.
"It feels like every nerve in my body is on fire," he told his wife.
Meredith said she and her husband went to their primary care physician and asked for a referral to another pain clinic. They were told it would take a minimum of six weeks.
That was too much for Lawrence. In March, on the day of his next medical appointment, when his painkiller dosage was to be reduced again, he instead went to a nearby park with his wife. And on the very spot where they renewed their wedding vows just two years earlier, they held hands.
He raised a gun to his chest and killed himself.
This guy is pretty much evil in a lab coat:
Dr. Andrew Kolodny, who directs opioid research at Brandeis University's Heller School for Social Policy and Management, believes government policies on opioids need to be even tougher.Kolodny, who also is executive director of the Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing and one of the nation's most vociferous critics of opioids, balks at the alarm sounding over the decreasing supply of prescription painkillers.
"The effects of hydrocodone and oxycodone produced in the brain are indistinguishable from the effects produced by heroin," Kolodny said. "So my point is that when we talk about opioid pain medication, we're essentially talking about heroin pills."
So the fuck what?
He continues:
"It's a manufactured controversy ... They'll say with my opioid, I can at least get up from bed. For a heroin user it's the same thing for them. They say they feel horrible, can't do anything or function until they take their first dose of heroin in the morning."
First, if you want to take heroin, that's none of my business as long as you aren't robbing my house or costing me money for your care.
The reality is, you can kick heroin and have a normal life.
You can't just kick terrible searing pain.
The government needs to stop people in pain from getting the drugs they need to live without suffering terribly -- keeping them from being in so much pain that suicide seems like their only humane option.
via @Toni_Airaksinen
I'm convinced that future historians are going to look at this decade as a benighted and shameful time in American history, because of the incredible number of irrational, prejudice-driven moral panics. And the flippant dismissal by the medical industry of chronic pain is one of the worst. Now that it's emerging that most "opioid" overdose death are actually the result of using opioids in combination with illicit drugs, the rationale for imposing arbitrary restrictions on opioid availability to chronic pain patients is gone. At this point, it's just an exercise by people who see themselves as morally superior.
My mom suffers from chronic back pain. It's nearly impossible for her to sleep, because pretty much the only way for her to not be in pain is to remain standing up. Doctors are just passing her around; none of them will man up to the AMA or the DEA and say "this woman needs pain meds, so fuck you". We're seriously considering how we can get her some meds from Mexico.
(And as an aside: this is what happens when you have government deciding what health care people should get.)
Cousin Dave at December 21, 2018 6:51 AM
Note the provision for opiod and other medication management in this health care plan.
Radwaste at December 21, 2018 7:56 AM
I have degenerative disk disease. The pain will never get better, only worse. I'm fortunate that in TX, I can go to Mexico when it comes to that. If pot isn't legal here by then.
For now, biweekly cash-paid chiropractic visits keep me at a 4 or below, improved from a constant 6 before trying chiropractic, which up until desperation drove me to them, I thought of as quacks. Of course, the cost for this is nearly $200 a month. Norco would be like $2 a month.
Extended-release morphine is just about the best chronic pain med there is. Theres no upper limit on dose, it can keep increasing if tolerance becomes a problem, indefinitely.
I hope, sincerely and with every fine of my being, for chronic pain to come to stay with these assholes playing God. Horrible, agonizing, lifelong pain.
Momof4Mom0 at December 21, 2018 5:51 PM
I have degenerative disk disease. The pain will never get better, only worse. I'm fortunate that in TX, I can go to Mexico when it comes to that. If pot isn't legal here by then.
For now, biweekly cash-paid chiropractic visits keep me at a 4 or below, improved from a constant 6 before trying chiropractic, which up until desperation drove me to them, I thought of as quacks. Of course, the cost for this is nearly $200 a month. Norco would be like $2 a month.
Extended-release morphine is just about the best chronic pain med there is. Theres no upper limit on dose, it can keep increasing if tolerance becomes a problem, indefinitely.
I hope, sincerely and with every fine of my being, for chronic pain to come to stay with these assholes playing God. Horrible, agonizing, lifelong pain.
Momof4Mom0 at December 21, 2018 5:52 PM
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