I-Team: The Opioid Conundrum
http://www.lasvegasnow.com/news/i-team-the-opioid-conundrum/803064908
VIDEO ON ABOVE LINK
LAS VEGAS – Nightly newscasts across the country are filled with stories about the opioid epidemic — the opioid crisis. Tens of thousands of Americans who die each year are found with opioids in their systems, and so government at every level has stepped in to put limits on otherwise legal medications, including here in Nevada.
For millions of chronic pain patients, the crackdown has been a nightmare. They are the forgotten victims in the opioid debate.
Approximately 50,000 people a year die with opioids of one kind or another in their systems. The number you don’t hear is this one — there are as many as 25 million Americans who suffer with chronic pain. For many of them, opioid medication means the difference between leading somewhat normal lives, or surviving in constant agony.
These are not the people who O.D. on heroin or mix drugs with booze. For the most part, they suffer and die in silence.
“It was like, for the first time in my life, I wasn’t in pain anymore. I felt great for a couple of years and then they started this total crackdown,” said Gary, a chronic pain patient, who asked that his real name not be used.
Gary’s life changed when his spine was shattered in a rollover accident. After several operations, his doctors prescribed opioids and he was able to lead a somewhat normal life, even as the discs in his back crumbled further. But then the opioid crisis blew up. His prescriptions were cut in half and it became tougher to find a pharmacy that would fill them.
“I’d have to drive to 10 to 12 pharmacies just to get four prescriptions filled. Just to fill them,” he said.
Reporter George Knapp: “And they look at you like…”
Gary: “Yeah, like you’re a criminal.”
“The only ones who understand chronic pain are the ones who have chronic pain. When you have chronic pain, it’s on your mind all the time,” said Jeremy, a chronic pain patient, who asked that his real name not be used.
Jeremy is a self-employed business professional whose work requires him to both drive and walk daily. A skiing accident and later a hip replacement led to sharp, constant pain over half his body. He tried various surgeries, therapies, and medications but nothing worked until a time-released pain med called oxycontin was developed.
“You can go to work and function and chronic pain patients don’t get high off of oxycontin. It just alleviates their pain and allows them to function,” he said.
The opioid crisis has meant significant reductions in the amounts that can legally be prescribed for Jeremy, Gary, and pretty much every other chronic pain patient. Contrary to what their doctors recommend, their medications have been reduced by half, sometimes more. And they’ve been told, more reductions are likely.
For millions of people, the consequences have been immediate and drastic. They can’t sleep, can’t work, lose their jobs. Some decide to put an end to the constant pain by taking their own lives.
“People are dying. People are committing suicide right now because their doctor tapered them down involuntarily off opioid medications,” said Rick Martin.
He has seen it from both sides. He spent decades working as a pharmacist, and even though he has chronic pain from a deteriorating spine and hip, with medication, he continued to work and could also pursue his passion — landscape photography.
“I used to be able to do stuff by myself, but I can’t do that anymore.”
Chronic pain patients like Rick follow their doctor’s instructions, undergo monthly drug screenings and urinalysis and have become collateral damage in the opioid crisis. Most of the publicity has focused on overdose deaths among people who obtain opioids illegally, mix them with booze or other drugs including heroin.
The CDC, DEA, and various opioid task forces have responded to deaths caused by illicit drugs by cutting back on legally prescribed medications, the same drugs that make life bearable for millions with chronic pain.
Insurance companies have slashed coverage, and pharmacies now operate under strict quotas, to the point they won’t fill prescriptions for new patients, even those fresh out of surgery. Opioid prescriptions have actually declined significantly in each of the last three years, yet opioid deaths keep rising.
“The unintended victims are the senior citizens. If they can’t get their medications, they aren’t going to go buy heroin and shoot it and die of a heroin overdose. they’re going to suffer,” Jeremy said.
So, how do we explain that while legal prescriptions keep dropping, opioid deaths keep rising? It isn’t a simple issue, though politicians have seized on it as a winner. Cracking down on drugs is a tried and true political strategy, even though enforcement has never worked as a solution to drug abuse.
In the coming months, 8 News NOW will be looking beyond the obvious rhetoric about various opioid issues. As part of this project, we’d like your input. We’ve created a page where opioid patients, pain doctors, pharmacists, families of O.D. victims can share stories, either publicly or privately.
Filed under: General Problems
jmo,,the deaths keep rizen because people are being FORCED to use death as their only option to stop physical pain from medical condition that are painful,,or,,they are now forced to the street for pain relief,after being forcible dropped from their doctors,thus unsafe conditions,,,Alll of this is from,” denial of access to effective medical care to lessen severe physical pain,ie,torture,”,,
Furthermore ,,if the coroner does document as ,”suicide,” no life insurance,,,As ”we” tried before,,there needs to be a box available for all coroners.That box stating,,”death due to force physical pain,”…However,,if the government allows such a box,,,it would be allowing the truth to be told,,thus,,a legal record now of thee genocide THEY have done onto all medically ill human being w/painful medical condition,by forcible taking their MEDICINE away,,,jmo,,maryw
So, how do we explain that while legal prescriptions keep dropping, opioid deaths keep rising? I’ve told the answer to that for a year now, but no one out there seems to be paying any attention. Opioids are not the cause of addiction. The REAL Cause of Drug Abuse can be seen in a short form on the video here: https://doctorsofcourage.org/videos/.
And since we aren’t addressing the REAL cause of addiction, as more people are thrown to the street through the illegal attacks on doctors treating pain, the causes for addiction increases in those people, leading to more addicts. And even the people who don’t become addicts have to self-medicate with medications they can get off the street, which leads to people overdosing.
People need to learn the real cause and spread the word so we can stop this nightmare. Doctors being attacked need to stop taking pleas and go to trial. Then people who know the truth need to acquit them.
We have to stop the government propaganda because the only purpose is the jobs in the DOJ that they are protecting, not the health of the American people.
I looked up the program on Facebook, followed them and offered this comment:
Dear news team: I am the husband and father of chronic pain patients. I have been active in peer-to-peer patient support groups for over 20 years. I have published extensively on chronic pain and US public policy on opioid prescription and narcotic addiction.
From this background, I am convinced that the March 2015 CDC “guideline” on prescription of opioid pain killers is not only wrong on science, but outright fraudulent in its biased cherry picking of medical literature to support an anti-opioid political agenda. The guidelines are also horrendously incomplete and in error on basic principles of pain treatment. I am seeing a wave of suicides among patients who have arbitrarily been denied effective pain relief and forced onto disability because of this mistaken public policy. This atrocity is only going to get worse until CDC is forced to retract and revise these horrendously abusive practice standards and the Veteran’s Administration is forced to rescind its policy of forcing all patients off opioids, no matter how many of them it kills. .
If I may contribute to your campaign to show the so-called “opioid epidemic” from the patient point of view, please feel free to contact me by email at lawhern@hotmail.com. I can send you a five-page CV on my publications in this area of public policy. Meantime, I invite you to have a staff member review some of my work at http://www.face-facts.org/Lawhern.
FYI I will be out of the country September 4-12, and off line. But I will be pleased to talk with your team when I get back.