Half of Patients Have Trouble Getting Pain Meds
www.painnewsnetwork.org/stories/2016/9/12/half-of-patients-have-trouble-getting-pain-meds
By Pat Anson, Editor
A new survey of chronic pain patients found that over half – 56 percent — have experienced problems getting access to opioid pain medication, either from a pharmacy or their own doctor. Nearly half of the patients surveyed also said they have contemplated suicide.
“Access continues to be a problem and a growing problem for patients living with chronic pain,” said Jeff Dayno, MD, chief medical officer for Egalet, a pharmaceutical company that conducted the survey along with the American Chronic Pain Association (ACPA).
The online survey of over 1,000 patients was conducted in 2015, before guidelines were issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that discourage primary care physician from prescribing opioids for chronic pain. Although the guidelines are voluntary, they’ve had a chilling effect on many doctors and pharmacists since their release in March.
“General practitioners who don’t have as much experience are having somewhat of a knee jerk reaction. Either they’re not prescribing opioids at all or taking a very cautious approach,” said Dayno.
“The broader medical community is backing away from the more effective type of pain medications and opioids specifically, even at the pharmacy level in terms of stocking them and having them available.”
Nearly two-thirds of patients (63%) said their pharmacy carries only a limited supply of pain medication. And nearly four out of ten patients (39%) said their physician no longer prescribes pain medication.
“Since the push to combat prescription medication abuse has risen, so have the number of calls we have received from individuals expressing their frustration about accessing their prescription medications,” said Penney Cowan, founder of the ACPA. “The study found that access really is an issue for individuals; they struggle to find doctors who are willing to treat them, and pharmacies that stock their medication.
“For individuals living with chronic pain, access to medication is vital to functioning in their everyday lives. Doctors would not withhold prescriptions from patients with other medical conditions such as diabetes or heart disease. What’s startling is the high percentage of individuals who have contemplated suicide.”
Forty-seven percent of the survey respondents said they’ve had thoughts of suicide.
“The statistic around patients contemplating suicide, we’ve seen numbers like that in the literature before. And that’s a very concerning and frightening aspect of the impact of limited access to effective pain medications,” said Dayno, who believes the number of patients complaining about access would be even higher if the survey was conducted today.
When asked by Pain News Network if he thought the CDC even considered suicides and other negative consequences on patients when it was drafting the guidelines, Dayno said no.
“I don’t think that dimension was clearly considered in the guidelines. I think it was much more of an evidence based, clinical approach on the pain management side. But the impact of potential barriers to access to these medications was not factored in to that assessment as part of the CDC guidelines,” he said.
A noted expert on pain management says he’s also seen “anecdotal reports” of primary care physicians and pain management specialists dumping pain patients since the CDC guidelines came out.
“I think some doctors are increasingly uncomfortable with continuing to prescribe what has been a higher dose of opioids, uncomfortable with the scrutiny that they’ve gotten, and as a consequence they are discharging patients from clinics, urging them to find care elsewhere,” said Sean Mackey, MD, Chief of the Division of Pain Medicine at Stanford University.
Filed under: General Problems
They government does not care about what the people want. They care about how much money they make in office. They care about nothing else. We really need to shorten terms that’s the only thing that will help the people. They will understand that . No money coming in is all they care about. Stopping them from getting it short terms please fight for it.
Sandra G
To ,”judy” can u please tell me what a ,”pill mill” is???and what ,”horrible outcome,”,,,,
Torture is forced endurement of physical pain,,,genocide is the WILLFULL death onto a group of people,,,our government is guilty of both,,,,They created this hole mess,,,These so-call rehab centers are filling up due to doctors forcing their once patient to endure their physical pain from medical illness by stopping the medicines,,,The chronic pain people are not there because they want to be,,they are forced their because their doctors have dropped them,,,thus forceing endurement of physical pain,,people,,,Some who are forced to endure their physical pain will refuse to live a lifetime in physical pain,,thus they are forced to choose death,,ie,,death unto a group of people,,,ie,,,genocide,,,,,,This whole mess, was due to klondynes delusions of grandeurs,,ie,,psychotic mind believing he has the divine rite to decide who is to suffer in physical pain and who is not,suffer,,when it is literally impossible for anyone to physically feel the physical pain from medical illness of another person,,,So ,,,we all suffer,,,because of some psychotic government official,,,gee sounds like hitler to me,,jmo,,mary
pss,,Ill be getting my shit together about contact another international legal firm,asap,and survey,,,mysteriously my meds never got mailed by a nurse who hates chronic pain patients,thus a week late,,sooo,,,,,we all suffer,,,,
They bury their heads . They don’t care to answer the people’s questions because they don’t have to. They do not care what we feel . Why should they they are above the law.
They answer to no one!
With the first suicide, or perhaps the 2nd or third…reassessment of these new CDC recommendations should have started. What did they think would happen? The better question needs to be…What are you going to do now? Your recommendations have been misconstrued, with your power are you going to make changes? Yes, there have been horrible outcomes when pill mills started up. But not to be clear about how that problem needed to be handled, you have just created more deaths. Do something now!