Suicide Due To Pain: A Letter From a Desperate Patient
https://siebe2020.com/blog/f/suicide-due-to-pain-a-letter-from-a-desperate-patient
In 2016, while I was fighting for those suffering from chronic and debilitating pain to keep their Opiate pain management, I received this plea from one of my friends, Michelle Bloem, begging for the government not to cut her life-saving pain management.
Like me, Michelle lived with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), also known as Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD), Every day was agony for her and the only thing that was keeping her alive and functioning with some hope was her opiate pain management.
In fear of losing her pain management, Michelle wrote this letter and sent it to whoever would listen.
To whom it may concern,
I have CRPS/RSD and am currently seeing a doctor that monitors my progress and medications. I was diagnosed in June of 2010. After trying every treatment modality including physical therapy, anti-seizure medications, biofeedback, etc. I was put on OxyContin. After having 8 brachial plexus nerve blocks and 5 lumbar nerve blocks, my neurologist/ pain management doctor kept upping the dosage of it because I was getting no relief and we could not figure out why. He ended up upping the dosage so much I was only experiencing side effects, no pain relief. I decided to leave my pain management doctor at UCLA and seek out another doctor that could find out why I wasn’t getting any pain relief. I finally found a doctor that did many tests on me including: Neuroinflammation blood tests, Genetic malabsorption blood work-up. My doctor was able to figure out that I cannot absorb oral opioids due to a genetic malabsorption defect. He put me on a trial of subcutaneous Dilaudid. I had experienced instant pain relief and received my quality of life back. I have been on this medication for two years with no side effects. This medication has to be compounded, which my new insurance will not pay for. Dr. Tennant has saved my life and given me my life back. You must understand that we chronic pain patients cannot be punished for the people that use opioids illegally. None of us “want” to be on these medications, but have no choice. After trying everything, we just want quality of life. The restrictions that are already put in place are making it harder and harder for the legitimate chronic pain patients to get their medications that give them quality of life. Please consider that we are carefully monitored by our doctors and take our medications as prescribed only. We should not be punished for the street abusers that only want a “high”. I have never experienced a “high” from my pain medicine. There are studies in the process that have to do with different medications to help us, but it takes an extremely long time to get the FDA approved. In closing, I hope you will kindly consider our circumstances, that we have families, and only want to be able to participate in daily activities without suffering inhumanly.
Thank you,
Michelle Bloem
No one cared enough to listen to her plea.
Not long after writing this letter, Michelle’s worst fears came true. She was forcibly tapered from her opiate medications for no reason other than an arbitrary policy set in motion by the January 2016 CDC Guidelines for Opiate Prescribing.

Michelle was a proud mother to her beautiful, beloved daughter, Ireland. Wife to her loving husband. An activist. Advocate. She was an example to me and many others on how to survive this condition with grace, self-respect, and dignity. She was always willing to help her fellow Chronic Pain Warriors, be an ear to listen, and a shoulder to cry on. Losing Michelle was a blow to the whole community. The United States lost someone truly special and inspirational when we lost her.
Because of the way our government is responding to the ‘Opiate Epidemic’–which is actually a heroin and illicit Fentanyl problem–patients with treatable conditions are dying. All Michelle needed to continue living was the medication our government just forcibly took away from her. Taking away life-saving pain management without taking away the pain only drives patients to the bottle, the street, or suicide as means of pain management–if they don’t die from a stroke or heart attack first. On average, a patient with chronic pain will last about 2 weeks without proper pain management before taking their life. The lack of hope that the pain will ever go away is a death sentence. It was for Michelle and for so many others.
We need to stop slaughtering patients with chronic and debilitating pain.
We need to stop criminalizing addiction, which is a medical condition.
We need to stop incarcerating doctors who do their jobs and treat pain.
We need protections for patients.
We deserve better.
To see a partial list of those we’ve lost to suicide since the CDC Guidelines, click here.
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