FROM ANOTHER FACE BOOK POST:
This is not an easy post to write, and I have had reservations about posting it all. I just thought it was important to let people know just how serious these battles fought with chronic pain can be. A very dear friend of mine that has been like a brother to me for 40 years lost his battle with chronic pain early this morning. His battle started at 17 y/o with cancer and
an arm being amputated. For many years he fought
ungodly phantom limb pain. There were more surgeries. Medical complications just seemed to persist, with small intervals of happiness and joy. I can not express to you here, how much my friend/brother meant to me. I love him, I will miss him terribly. It’s a
rare thing to put in that many years, with the good, the bad, and remain so close through it all. I called my buddy, “Jay” . Towards the end Jay was battling many issues. He told me on his last visit to his pain management he noticed the waiting room was rather empty, and, most of people waiting were elderly. Jay was 56 y/o. Jay said he inquired as to ” what was going on “? His doctor told him due to the CDC guidelines they were weeding out the younger people and keeping long term patients. He was a bit worried even though he’d been going to this doctor for 20 years. Jay said they told him he had nothing to worry about. However, it concerned him as his dose was very high. Battling chronic pain for an extended period of time can wear a person out. Now with all the people being tapered ( me as well ) many patients are fearful.
It is more than taking someone’s opioids away. It is a direct threat to their well being and quality of life. It
takes so long to rebuild a life that has been torn apart by pain and health issues. As far as I’m concerned the CDC has my friends blood on their hands. Call them guidelines, suggestions, whatever helps you sleep at night. Imagine the thoughts my friend had to endure, as he pulled the trigger, to end the concerns the CDC put in his mind. There will be more. Will you give the same attention to the new statistic you’ve created, as you’ve given to the so called heroine epidemic.My pal
never failed a drug test, never abused his meds, yet
your asinine guidelines are causing many problems.
Chronic pain will not disappear just because DR.Tom
Frieden decides it should be treated with Advil and Tylenol. I apologize for ranting, I’m just so hurt, tired, and confused.
Filed under: General Problems
I am so sorry for your loss Steve. There are no words. I have lost friends due to untreated chronic pain and have contemplated taking my own life many times due to continuously being medically abandoned and losing pain control. Things were already out-of-hand….now it’s just insane. Ignorance, opiophobia and public hysteria has not prevented one person from abusing or overdosing from drugs….but it has started a new chilling effect….scaring away doctors from treating pain… causing irreparable damage to society.
You are in my prayers.
I to have been on pain management for 8 yrs.and it is coming to were pain meds are being weeded out.what I worry about is people getting the idea that suicide is the way out.
Withdraw from meds increase the pain level and I think that is a big problem facing a lot .
My other half has cancer in both lungs. He is stage 4, he is dying and I promised to be by his side until he crossed over. My pain started in 1997 – they don’t know what caused it until we ran across information on Ft. McClellan, Alabama – a super site for EPA. We ate, drank, bathed, and ran in the toxic chemicals left over from the Vietnam war and some genius decided to use “live” chemicals to mist over the areas we marched in, they carried off exercises with open burn pits and hid the goats in cages near the barracks – if the goat died when they were burning chemicals they stopped until the wind changed. It was in the water that we drank – the water was imported from Anniston, Alabama, a small town right outside the gates of the base. The Monsanto plant made PCB’s and PCE’s and Agent Orange – – they paid the town 400 million + dollars to compensate for the cancers and the hysterectomies and the sick people there. To this day there are signs posted everywhere that warns against eating anything grown in the soil or on trees. That was where the pain came from. My spine is collapsing (degenerative disc disease), my kidney produced a kidney stone the size of a walnut and for 6 years I fought to have someone look at the kidneys because the pain was so bad. My sense of smell is gone – everything smells like burning plastic. My shins and my knees are labeled as “osteoarthritis and osteoporosis, I suffer from charley horses constantly in my arms – they lock in a position where my wrist turns in and up – it is horrible pain. I don’t sleep because there is something wrong in my brain that won’t let me sleep more than 15 to 20 minutes at a time – a long sleep is 4 hours and that is very, very rare. I am in pain every day, 24 hours of the day, I cannot sit up for more than and hour at the most, I can’t sleep on my side or my back, I have to sleep on my stomach – I wake up from the spasms that signal the charley horses are stampeding into my body. I scream so loud that it scares the bejezzess out of my partner – he is dying, I have to stay alive as they reduce my pain meds by a pill per day per month. I try to remember that I just have to stay alive until he dies. Heroin is the choice for most chronic pain sufferers – and the papers are full of the “new epidemic of suicide of veterans by heroin” – the things we saw, the things we had to do, the things that haunt and torture us are bad enough – – – the pain is the thing that will push us over the edge. This period of time will go down in history as a shameful, shameful act of cruelty by the CDC and those whose main concern in life is how to make more money spending less and less with no liability. Congratulations – the undertakers are going to have a very, very , very good year.
If we as pain patients were put on unsafe, dose as of opiates, and mixed medications for up to 10 or more years. Why do we not ha a recourse to a lawsuit for being unsafely prescribed these meds. Furthermore, the CDC Guidelaws, Lawlines, or whatever they choose to call them verify this improper prescribing especially in the face of the now abandononing patients with absolutely no recourse. Come on ACLU get creative. Don’t be scared. These are medical malpractice issues that can not be allowed to let stand. They will never prescribe opiates for chronic pain again, especially once your off them so don’t kid yourself.
Ironic that my new doctor tells me I have to make a choice between my pain med and the benzo I’ve been on concurrently for 15 years, given that it was a doctor down the hall in the same building, that prescribed the benzo, knowing I was on an opiate in the first place.
I remained alive all that time on five times the dose I get now. Suddenly it’s a problem. What an amazing world.
Only recently have I had the courage to finally put it out there, and call it what it is; GENOCIDE!!!
Chronic Pain Patients are a financial burden on society, our employers, family and friends. There is no cure for pain, but I ask you…How much money is being spent on research for Aids, Cancer and Heart Disease? How much has been allotted to research Chronic Intractable Pain?
PHAROAH TRIED, KING HEROD TRIED, SADAM HUSSEIN TRIED, THE EARLY AMERICAN MILITARY TRIED TO EXTERMINATE NATIVE AMERICANS….AND SO ON. So, it Is Not too far fetched to conclude that our government has the same plan where Chronic Pain Patients are concerned. After all, what good are we to them? Just take me for example: Lost my career in 2009 and was forced to file for SSD benefits….With my husband out of work since December and my limited income; We were forced to apply for Food Stamps…Since we live at poverty level, I must have assistance paying for my medications of which I am on over 15! And all of this began as a result of outpatient surgery which I had in June of 2009 where I contracted the first of 4 deadly infections from hospital equipment. AND NO LAWYER HAS THE COURAGE TO SUE!
People have been dying from this Frenzy of Fear for quite some time. A fact that many people still don’t understand is that we can and do die from the effects of Un-Controlled Chronic Intractable Pain. in addition, combine all the associated issues, and you can see how readily Suicide becomes as ones only option to escape the agony which could very well be treated quite successfully, but for the government officials, CDC, DEA, LAW ENFORCEMENT, THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY and PHARMACIES, WHO ARE JEOPARDIZING OUR VERY LIVES BY THIS GAME OF RUSSIAN ROULETTE.
It is a travesty to learn of yet another death whose blood lays formidabley upon the powers that be…. I know that if not for my Faith, I would have become just another statistic; But my life and those of over 100-Million fellow Chronic Pain Patients across the nation are at jeapardy as our medications are being taken away. My INSURANCE CO tried in February and again just 2 days ago to with hold my prescribed medications!!! And yet family members and friends alike seem to not even have an interest in the issue. SOMETHING IS WRONG…VERY, VERY WRONG!
Thank you for dramatically demonstrating current problems for those being treated for chronic pain. I addressed a similar situation in my blog at https://kcroes.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/want-to-feel-like-a-scumbag-have-refractory-chronic-pain-relieved-only-by-opioids/comment-page-1/#comment-912.
Correction to the URL on my blog post: https://kcroes.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/want-to-feel-like-a-scumbag-have-refractory-chronic-pain-relieved-only-by-opioids
Thanks for the link! I moved to a different state a couple years ago, only to learn I would be denied pain meds. 2 years of no pain relief. 2 years of no anxiety meds. Ever been in so much pain it brings on panic attacks? Now do it all day. Every day. How long can a person live like this before insanity takes hold? Or the person is forced to make a decision they normally would never think about?
As Churchill said: “Never give in. Never, never, never, never, in nothing, great or small, large or petty, except to convictions of honour and good sense…” So, hang in if you can.
This was heartbreaking to read & hit so close to my own home. My nephew’s dad, who was also named Jay, suffered from severe MS for years. He got to where he could no longer work, therefore losing his ins. & his good pain doc. He was sent to a new doc that drastically cut his meds. even though he had always been very compliant & stable for many years!
He begged her for help; but she said that he had become too dependent, which in her mind meant addiction & instead of helping him, she took him off of everything except for tramadol in which she gave him 28 pills per mo. to take as needed!
Her advice was for him to join a yoga class that would teach him how to deal w/ the pain in a much better & healthy way instead of just masking it!! We later found that she was a proud member of PROP & worshiped the ground Dr Kolodny walked on, which explains a lot!!
Sadly, Jay ended his horrific suffering w/ the pull of a trigger that left 2 boys w/o a father, a sister w/o a brother, & a mother w/o a son!
WHY!?