Opinion: The Battle Against Opioids Could Mean Misery for Patients in Pain
www.westernjournal.com/opinion-battle-opioids-mean-misery-patients-pain/
While the United States is distracted by politics, a human rights battle to the virtual death is being played out in Oregon and no mainstream media outlet is covering it. The ramifications of ending Medicaid coverage of prescribed pain medication for chronic illness except for a very narrowly defined list in Oregon will affect every American whether they realize it or not within the next decade. The effects will be disastrous if it goes the way the bipartisan players desire.
Please consider the following:
You have been taking an antidepressant for over a decade with success. One day, you go to your physician for a refill and are informed that you are receiving one 30-day supply of the drug and no more, because people have been using it recreationally, so your physician is discontinuing writing prescriptions. You are dumbfounded. You didn’t do anything wrong. You always took your antidepressant as prescribed. You recall the horrible days before medication — agoraphobia, black thoughts, suicidal ideation — and you feel sick with dread. You ask the doctor what his treatment plan is. He says you should exercise more, lose weight and get out in the sun at least 30 minutes a day.
If that doesn’t work, there is another drug you could try, but it’s used for epilepsy and has some nasty side effects, hasn’t really worked well for depression, however, several depressed people have had little choice but to try it. You leave the appointment feeling dazed and sick.
After your prescription runs out, withdrawals begin. You knew this was coming and had tried to taper off the medication you had left, but 30 days is not long enough to taper off an antidepressant. Anyone who takes a medication long term will go through withdrawal without a planned long taper. Dependence is a far different animal than addiction. People go through withdrawal when they start a ketogenic diet and stop eating sugar and carbs, commonly called “carb flu.”
Brain zaps, insomnia, muscle aches, diarrhea, weepiness and the depression comes roaring back. You try supplements recommended online, but they are little help. You knew they wouldn’t help. Your sense of helpless futility is mounting because you already tried everything before asking for an antidepressant because of the stigma of depression.
One dark, hopeless night, in desperation, you go to the ER. The physician rolls his eyes and can’t mask his disdain when you explain yourself. You hear him clearly telling the nurse in the hallway that you are a drug seeker trying to score depression meds. You leave empty-handed.
You are forced to quit working. You lose friends because of your decline, have to move into a very different neighborhood because of finances. A 12 week trial of the epilepsy drug proves disastrous — horrible side effects, no help with your depression and it triggers another incredible round of withdrawal. Your physician is indifferent to your deterioration. Other conditions emerge, hypothyroidism and high blood pressure.
Suicide begins to become a very real and appealing option. One year ago, you had a bustling, thriving life, full of vitality. Now you exist. You did nothing wrong except require medication that others have abused. Your medical needs were weighed and determined to be of less value than those of an imaginary group of potentials who could become recreational users of medication you require to be a participant in your own life and do not abuse.
Replace the word antidepressant with opioid and depression with painful disease, and this is the true story of more than one patient I have spoken to this year in the United States.
Now Oregon is preparing to make thousands of people face this exact scenario.
We must step away from this rhetoric and wonder how and why the word opioid became weaponized.
Opioids are simply a class of medications to treat moderate to severe pain. They bring life and function to hundreds of thousands of people who suffer incredibly painful chronic diseases. You pass by people every day who use opioid therapy. You have people in your workplace who use opioid therapy. They do not advertise it and they are not addicts.
Opioids used by a chronic painful disease patient do not cause a high or euphoria as they do recreational users who are not in pain. They do bring moderate to severe pain down to a manageable level so that patients can work. They can take care of their children. They can clean their homes. They can have something that approaches normalcy.
Why do politicians, the media, and certain incentive-driven physicians strive so very hard to stigmatize and downgrade a large population that requires a medication to manage their chronic conditions? We all fall for the rhetoric. “Opioid” as it stands has successfully been negatively engineered to mean addict, dirty, unclean, bad parent, prisoner, felon, lawbreaker, thief.
In reality, over 95 percent of people who use prescription opioids prescribed to them by their physicians are responsible adults who have productive lives, only because they have their opioid therapy. Those statistics deservedly give opioids a positive name for thousands.
Keep this in mind as one looks into the players and machinations moving behind this opioid crisis and how politicians, drug companies, and very evil people are using this manufactured crisis for social engineering, profiling, records search without a warrant, certainly in part as a test drive for the implementation of socialism. After all, one of the pillars of socialism is one gives up theirs for the “good” of all.
That is exactly what chronic pain patients are being told to do — give up their prescribed pain medication for the good of society. These patients did nothing wrong to deserve having their medication taken away. Yet they are expected to willingly give up their pain medications for the common good.
Practitioners shame them, telling patients they have no compassion for their neighbor when they protest the loss of their life-saving prescribed medication.
The common good has shown that the forced compliance of giving up pain medication to stave off prescriptions on the loose is clearly not helping stop the rise of overdoses.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website.
Filed under: General Problems
Again,for anyone who has a doctor standing behind them,you can get your scripts filled at Optum RX in San Diego and California.Of course,you are at the mercy of the slow delivery of UPS[overnite,a $12.50 fee xtra]is usually 3 to 6 days.They usually do 3 mo.supply,but I was told they will fill 1 mo.supply as well.But with all the new laws ,I dont know if they will change that.Call them and find out 877-889-5802
.They screw up a part of the time unless you call everyday and repeat your instructions,but lately service is better.They do not go thru Canada or sell Canadian meds.It’s an idea if you are tired of being profiled,glared at or lied to.Hope they can help you all out there!
Thanx for your compassion,Canarensis.I love Oregon!After being a resident of Maui for 23 yrs.the state was an in between stopover on my way back to native Florida to visit.Many of my friends in HI.have passed to Jesus,so I find myself wondering what their situation is in this insanity.Hawaii was always a pretty fair minded place,as I found Oregon to be.I fully expected Florida to take their usual ‘;redneck’mindset,but it’s very scary that your state is being so hateful about it!!Montana is also a shock.If they dissed that lady policeman to the point of suicide,then that speaks volumes about the rest of us!The Eastern seaboard is usually asinine about matters like this,so when I see it’s the same out west,it’s really tragic.One thing I’d like to put out is the fact many more folks in our dilemma need to make themselves heard.Too many are giving up,and thats not how to make change.Senators in every state need to hear it 50X daily to get their attention.I intend to fight them to the end.My mom had a mangled foot in her old age and her dr.fought her about fentanyl till I threatened to file a suit.Mercifully,she died before all this.Her dr.was Brian McGrane in Islamorada,Fla.Keys.Yes,I’m telling everyone I can about YOU,dr.MIGRAINE!!!!Word of mouth is an excellent weapon against jerks like him.My dr.who I wont name cuz I love him,is deeply caring and is angry about this,wonders why there’s no war on tobacco,as it kills over a quarter million in the US every year,and that is strictly 2nd hand smoke!!Pretty anal.He’s behind his patients all the way,God Bless him,but how am I gonna fight Medicare?Am about to invest in an expensive mattress topper,cuz that is where I will be if,when forced down to 90 mgs.daily.Looks bleak.Keep praying!God is watching!
I totally am with you about the whole silence about tobacco deaths thing…the hypocrisy is breathtaking. Ditto with alcohol. I suppose they don’t bother because they know nothing will ever happen…if nothing else, Prohibition proved that does’t work. Wish they’d realize that stopping pain meds to legit pain patients will do nothing to affect drug abusers.
My mom had the incredible misfortune to die of leukemia during the last opioid hysteria go-round, in ’97. There was no question she was dying, but they refused to give her anything. It seriously about drove me insane, having to watch her die in agony & being able to do nothing about it.
I’ve spent a lot of time & energy writing & calling various Oregon pols & bureaucrats, went to the last meeting of the people who are considering the proposal, but the utter indifference is beyond maddening. They’re so self-satisfied, smug in their righteousness, it’s incredible. I’ve never seen a more dire example of style over substance.
This is amazingly well-worded.and cant be explained any better..I recall the 60’s and the ‘war on marijuana’the so-called gateway drug.Now they want us to use it![?]I deeply hope it wont take 30 years for them to sober up about opiods,cuz I dont have 30 left.Maybe they will declare war on suicides and restore things to normalcy?I even found myself hoping an upcoming biopsy would be positive for cancer so that I can battle for my meds.isnt that sick!Seems that destoyed bones are not severe enough.wonder how many suicides it will take before something is adjusted.Not to mention the probable increase in thefts and robberies circling around it.I have called the White House constantly about it and will continue.The doctor in Nevada coined it exactly right-“We have SO much abuse of handicapped parking spots!!What shall we do?Ah!Simply eliminate three quarters of those spots!”problem solved.Yeah,ok.That ought to do it.Let us take the helm of the 747,even though we’ve not had even one flying lesson….The AMA should file a govt.suit collectively,but sadly,many doctors dont care.Yes,a lot of crap has gone south,very quickly.Prayers for myself and everyone in my horrible situation.
andrew;
you have my most sincere sympathies. I’m in Oregon, and dreading the future more than ever. pretty ironic that Oregon is the foremost “die with dignity” state…die with dignity, but live in Hell.
This is truly an insane time…I call it the Age of Sadism. How foolish of us to choose to have dreadfully painful chronic conditions!
Prayers, indeed.
I find it interesting (in a rag-inducing sort of way) that Oregon –where I live– is about to pass an across-the-board ban on pain mediations for all chronic conditions, no exceptions, for all poor patients …and no one is rising up to scream “discrimination!” except for us poor schmucks who are about to have our lives destroyed. Chronic pain patients are apparently the one group that’s it’s not only okay to discriminate against, but societally encouraged & cheered: “Good, make those lazy lying addicts stop being useless parasites & get a job!” seems to be the attitude. Even confessed heroin addicts get more compassion; the perception seems to be that somehow they’re more noble than pain patients –at least they admit to being addicted, whereas pain patients sit around & insist they have real health problems, aren’t addicted, and need those medications to function. This is actually the truth, but the anti-addiction narrative spun by those who stand to make millions off cutting off our pain meds has become so strong our voices are neither heard nor believed. And when we start committing suicide in skyrocketing numbers because our lives are intolerable due to untreated medical conditions, either it will be ignored or covertly seen to be a good thing –getting the worthless, parasitic leeches off the body of society. Maybe history will who this Age of Sadism to be what it is, but I’m not optimistic that anything more positive will happen sooner. I’ll keep fighting, but…
I personally feel that any Doctor, Politician, insurance group that takes a patient that has been taking any medication to treat a symptom or condition and has been feeling great benefits with minimal or no side effects and then reduces that amount due to nothing more then a BS excuse of they feel it is unhealthy or because somebody else has abused a medication should be legally held responsible for discrimination due to profiling, failure to provide proper medical treatment (or obstruction of patients right to proper treatment).
Physical and mental torture,
If a government holds hostages and tortures them or denies them medical treatment society looks at them as evil, charges them with crimes against humanity etc.
I honestly feel the treatment of pain patients by reducing amounts to some magic number someone pulled out of air with disregard to history of benefits of medication amounts taken is nothing less then knowingly torturing a person and if said person is on disability the charges should be treated as discrimination of a person with a disability and torturing a person with a disability
James: couldn’t agree with you more. And I wish there was a way to edit comments, so mine didn’t start out with “rag-inducing” when I meant “rage-inducing”…inducing rags doesn’t sound very meaningful.
At any rate, you’re right. And I also find it rage inducing that the ACLU refuses to have anything to do with this clearly blatant discrimination against the poor & disabled (but they’re all about fighting for heroin addicts in jail getting their meds)…God knows, hundreds or thousands of pain patients have contacted them, over & over. And been turned away without discussion. Makes me wonder how much money they’re getting from the “anti-addiction” people driving this false narrative.
This is so true. It’s evil what’s being forced upon people who have Chronic pain. For Common Good? No, It’s discriminating, no other words for it.
I don’t suposse enough people would speak out even if this were antidepressants. The public has been brainwashed, hook, line and sinker.
This Story just made me cry, (not for myself as I have to take pain meds) but for someone I care about that Probably will not be here next year if this BS is followed through. I could of wrote this story almost word for word as to what has happened to her since 2012 when Kaiser decided this discrimination and treat pain Patients as if they are worthless and need to go away.
I have tried filing grievances (which btw is a joke and they just come back with whatever action doctor took was justified including Lying and entering outright lies into the Medical record that you cannot get removed) I have explained my observations of this person I am an aid to and how they went from being able to have small flower bed and be happy to 90% of time being housebound , incapacitated and in misery.
to me this treatment is right up there with someone attacking a family member doing horrific damage, yet no legal action is an option. .
There are some great movies along those lines where the remaining family goes all out against those responsible o get justice.
I am waiting to see this in real life as I know if there are anywhere close to the # MSM spews about Pain Patients there is a great amount of people who will be left without loved ones.
Not to mention you put people in a position where they have nothing to loose and a whole lot of shit can go south very quickly