BREAKING NEWS ~ A Human Rights Lawyer has joined our Board of Directors for Give Pain A Voice, and will be consulting for us on how to address discrimination against pain patients this coming year !! Makes me so happy.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Pandemicofdenial
For all of you healthcare professionals who are “not comfortable” treating chronic pain pts and those with subjective diseases that are covered under the Americans with Disability Act… you can hide your head in the sand.. but your ASS is still sticking out and it is about to get KICKED !!!
Filed under: General Problems
Awesome, that’s such great news!
I’m wondering though, who’s ultimately responsible for this evil policy that causes innocent people to have to live like they’re being tortured. It would have to be legislators, right? The DEA, the pharmacies, everyone else is just trying not to get in trouble or lose their jobs, liscences, etc.
great blog, TONS of great information here . thank you steve
Dr. Ibsen,
I’ve read about your case and the charges against you. It is mind boggling. I’m very proud of what you have done to help people in pain. It takes guts to do to right thing when the consequences can be dire to you and your family. Many doctors refuse to help people like me precisely because they may lose their license or possibly go to prison. You are a hero. Thank you for being a voice for those of us who do not have a voice because of the pain terrorist that has attacked our very souls.
I has a kyphplasty to fix two small compression fractures in my lower back. The doctor told me that the procedure, non invasive and not risky….a simple safe solution to fix my problem. I was 46 years old at the time. I had 11 different surgeries at time. So I knew how I felt after waking up from surgery. When I woke up from the kyphoplasty I was screaming in pain. I screamed out saying I Want to DIE! I had my son at home with midwives and no drugs at all. Natural childbirth is no joke. But the pain I was in after the kyphplasty made the pain of labor seem like a walk in the park. About 3 months after that procedure I woke up with pins and needles type pain. My left foot felt numb but very painful.
I went to one ER and they had no idea what was wrong. I went to a different ER and was admitted for 5 days. They still didn’t find out what was wrong. I went to see a pain managing doctor who right away told me that I have RSD. I did the NCT and EMG. The finding was: High Sciatic Mononeuropathy with severe axonal loss. I kept asking the question to every doctor I saw. What cause this? They all said that they didn’t know. But I know that I did not injure my foot. I even asked if the kyphplasty could cause this. They said no.
I finally got to see a neuro surgeon. He reviewed my MRI and he noted that the bone cement leaked into my epidural space which caused me to lose axons.
Funny what I found. The FDA published a warning back in 2002 about using bone cement in procedures involving the spine. If the cement is too watery it can leak into the epidural space. And if the needle was not inserted in the correct way that also can complications. Using bone cement in the hip or arm is a horse of another. Your spine is the master control center of the body.
Florida has a two year statue of limitations for patients to file a malpractice lawsuit. But I only found out the cause of the nerve damage after 3 years. There is not enough money in the world to compensate me for being in pain 24/7. Not enough to compensate me for being unable to attend his baseball games. But, only living on SSD I see no way I will be able to pay the mortgage. It’s been very hard to go from a CPA making 6 figures to now being flat broke.
There’s no cure for CRPS. I have tried everything. Various blocks, different combinations with no success. The opiates can only help so much for nerve pain. I only get about a 25% pain reduction from the opiates. Hell, its better than taking. I am on 30mg 3 times of ER Morphine and I am also given 4 pill a day of IR 30 mg. That’s a grand total of 210 mg a day. That certainly is not over prescribings. I am opiate tolerant after 5 years on meds.
Here in Florida you have to seach high and low until you find a doctor who is willing to write a script. Once you find one then the real fun begins. You can easily go to 25 different pharmacies and be told that they don’t carry that medication. Or they don’t believe that you are in pain behind you don’t look sick. Then you finally get lucky and find one that will fill your script. But not so fast! You have the same time the following month. You keep looking high and low for the meds but no one will fill it for you. You have started to withdraw. Welcome to my nightmare. 8 to 10 days of being in dire pain with the RSD and going through withdrawals on top of it.
It’s a really sick existence. All the friends you had when you were healthy have disappeared. Your spouse leaves you. I have no family except my 11 year old son. I would have given myself a huge amount of insulin so that I would not have to be stuck with this disease. I don’t owe any body anything except for my son. We are very close and he would hurt so much if I were to do that.
Take care and thank you for all the work that you do to bring attention to the untreated and under treatment of pain.
Chrystal Weaver
oh, this is great news. there is only so much i can fight with my body screaming like it does.
Can’t access the page, as I’m not a member of Facebook.
This is incredible news, the pendulum needs to swing back a little towards helping patients in chronic pain! Thank-you for all your help Steve!
HURRAY!! Thank you Tina for ALL your work on getting an attorney aboard to help everyone with pain, who is being discriminated against.
Thank you Steve for announcing this and ALL your hard work too in helping to get these problems into the light!
Thanks to ALL patients, caregivers, healthcare professionals, everyone else that is helping to #Give pain a voice!
Please keep us updated on what we can ALL do to help. 🙂
Awesome news!!