How Have the CDC Opioid Guidelines Affected You?
www.painnewsnetwork.org/stories/2017/2/15/how-have-the-cdc-opioid-guidelines-affected-you
By Pat Anson, Editor
Next month will mark the one year anniversary of opioid guidelines released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – guidelines that discourage primary care physicians from prescribing opioids for chronic non-cancer pain.
At the time of their release, the CDC estimated that as many as 11.5 million Americans were using opioid medication daily for pain relief. Many of those patients now say their doses have been abruptly lowered or they are unable to obtain opioids at all.
That could be a good thing, depending on your point of view about the nation’s so-called “opioid epidemic.” Former CDC director Thomas Frieden, MD, has called the guidelines an “excellent starting point” to stop an epidemic fueled by “decades of prescribing too many opioids for too many conditions where they provide minimal benefit.”
Many pain patients disagree, saying they’ve used opioids safely and effectively for years. They say the guidelines have had a chilling effect on many of their doctors and are being implemented in ways that go far beyond what the CDC intended.
“Last year, when the CDC ‘recommendations’ came out, the entire building of the only doctor’s office I can go to decided they were rules, and cut me from 210 mg/day morphine to 90 mg. Now they say they can only give me 60 mg/day,” wrote Eli, one of hundreds of patients we’ve heard from in the past year.
“I’m in so much pain I can’t properly care for myself, nor get to town for supplies when I need them. I’ve become increasingly more disabled and dependent on others.”
“My pain management doctor told me that the CDC required that all morphine be taken away from all Americans,” wrote a California woman who suffers from severe back pain. “He even stated that surgeons were sending home their post-surgery patients with Motrin, nothing else.
“What are you people in the CDC doing? Don’t you realize how paranoid doctors can get? You may think using the term ‘guideline’ will help them understand what you are trying to do, but you have created a bunch of neurotic paranoids. Stop it. Do something before you kill all of us.”
“I am a 76 year old intelligent woman who is not an addict or an abuser, yet I am denied relief from unremitting pain even after 20 years of trying every drug and treatment modality available,” wrote Roberta Glick. “I am at a total loss as to what to do, how to fight, etc. My physician is a strong supporter. He is not the problem. He also is a victim of misguided CDC attempts to curb drug addiction.”
Are the CDC guidelines voluntary or mandatory? Have they improved the quality of pain care? Are patients being treated with safer and better alternatives? Most importantly, are soaring rates of opioid abuse and addiction finally being brought under control?
Those are some of the questions Pain News Network and the International Pain Foundation (iPain) are asking in an online survey of patients, doctors and other healthcare providers.
“I strongly believe that as these guidelines are implemented by doctors and hospitals around the country there are important lessons to learn from those who are affected by them,” says Barby Ingle, president of iPain and a PNN columnist.
“I hope that pain patients and providers participate in this survey so that we can begin to show how deep the impact actually is to the chronic pain community one year later.”
The online survey consists of less than a dozen multiple choice questions, which should take only a few minutes to complete. Please take time out of your busy day and complete the survey by clicking here.
The survey findings will be released on March 15th, the first anniversary of the CDC guidelines. By taking the survey, you can also sign up to have the results emailed to you.
Filed under: General Problems
in essence they are giving medical advice without being medically licensed which is actually illegal,, oh but i forget they are above the law because they get to make it
they shouldve named it “cdc’s guidelines on how to kill patients legally” the govmt cant win their war on drugs so they turned it into a war on pain patients…. trading in death via the small percentage of prescription opiate overdoses by the patients they are prescribed to for death by suicide because of no more care… wheres the articles on the facts that the cdc left out of the studies they used to make these guidelines? the numbers of overdoses by prescription opiates are far less than overdoses by psychiatric medication and street opiates… but thats all the feds know how to do is lie, lie, lie…its population control via refusal of care
Freidmen was part of the arrogance ass’s who literally started the torture and genocide of the medically ill,,,,,,,by thinking they had the rite to decide who suffers in physical pain and who will not,,,They should all be charged w/torture,murder and genocide,,,,,and put in a cell for life,,,,,For ;logic,reason and truth,,dictates,,it is factually impossible,for anyone to physically feel the physical pain of another,,,thus,,,no-one has the rite,or capability to decide who is to forcible suffer in physical pain..As a humane society,,,it is INHUMANE to force anyone to suffer in physical pain,,when we have medicine designed specifically to lessen that physical pain,,,This is why for over 200 years that decision of how much was left to our doctors,,,not some shrinks or politicians,,,,they all need to be sued and locked in prison,,for LIFE!!!!maryw
i strongly believe that since the cdc cannot i fact feel the pain nor can they experience the incredible problems this has caused they nor anyone else should hv the right to change someone else’s life as they have. I agree that there is a very big problem on the street however it is not the fault of the chronically ill patients. So why are we suffering for someone else’s self inflicted problem. The govt has trusted doctors to make these decisions forever an now all of a sudden millions of people’s lives are turned upside down because the cdc and whoever else makes these determinations cannot do their job effectively and fight the street problem.
It is i fact a street problem not the problem of mine as fir example a patient who has suffered with RSD for 17 yrs an my pain is as real as the day is long. I am now suffering more an wondering how I’ll survive as they continue to have my meds cut by s scared doctor who I put my trust in 17 yrs. ago. Now he an thousands of others are scared they will lose what the govt gave them when they said, you went to school became s doctor you specialize in Neurology but now because these idiots on the street want to get high you the doctor whom many have put their trust in can no longer count on you to manage their chronic illness!!! So do what the CDC has scared you into because after all it’s not the law it’s a Suggestion!!!
I honestly hope that everyone on the board with the CDC goes through just a little of what has ruined my life, took away my livelihood and caused me to not be able to work anymore to support my family now that the illness has taken my life away the CDC an the govt wants to take away what allows us to get up everyday an try an function while in severe chronic pain around the clock. I hate to say it but I hope these people experience the same an cannot handle the new pain! An shame on you doctors for running scared not caring about the person who has not asked nor caused their illness yet has the most to LOSE!!! Shame in all of you!!
DITTO,,,,,,mary