In defence of Fentanyl: Patient speaks out against new prescribing guidelines
Chronic pain patient Dawn Rae Downton, 60, is considering drastic choices if she’s cut off the highly powerful painkiller Fentanyl — which she has taken for 12 years — thanks to new guidelines for doctors prescribing opioid painkillers.
“What I would probably have to do is try and bring in drugs illegally through customs from online sites, or look to the street to see if I could find a dealer.”
This week, a team of researchers from McMaster University issued new recommendations aimed at changing this statistic: Canadians are the second highest users per capita of opioids in the world.
Thousands of deaths across the country have been linked to opioid abuse, prompting officials to call it a crisis, an epidemic and a public health emergency.
‘I got my life back’
The Halifax woman, who suffers from a rare type of inflammatory arthritis, wants to make this clear: she doesn’t get high from taking Fentanyl, the lightning rod among opioids.
“Absolutely do not,” she said with a chuckle. Quite the opposite. She says she gets a low, weighed-down feeling from the medication.
Fentanyl medication can come in patches or pills. (CBC)
Fentanyl has worked to cut pain where other medications and physiotherapy haven’t, she says. “I failed everything, nothing helped my pain.”
A pain clinic specialist eventually started her on a low dose of Fentanyl in a patch, which she changes every three days.
“It made all the difference to me. I got my life back, basically,” says Downton.
Otherwise, sitting, walking and even standing would be “agonizing,” she says.
‘I probably would think about suicide’
Downton has looked up the new prescribing guidelines and asked her doctor what they could mean for her. She believes her dosage of Fentanyl might be reduced by 90 per cent.
“I’d be left really with no meaningful pain coverage.”
If she’s unable to get her hands on the medication legally or on the black market, “I probably would think about suicide. It would seem like a reasonable option.”
Blaming pain patients
She knows of two people in the last few months who’ve taken their own lives to end unbearable pain and yet, she says it is legitimate patients who are being made “a convenient scapegoat” in the politics of opioids.
“I feel like there’s been too much blaming of legal chronic pain patients for this problem. We have nothing to do with it. Nothing.”
She calls announcements by governments and prescribing guidelines, “optics that it’s doing something” to address the problem of opioid abuse.
The real source of the problem, she says, is overseas where chemical powders are sold and smuggled into Canada, and then pressed into tablets by drug dealers.
Filed under: General Problems
I get so angry every time I see opiates,especially fentanyl, vilified to the public! They fail to mention that the”fentanyl” that drug abusers are dying from is not the same thing that is prescribed by physicians and bought at a legitimate pharmacy! I was on a stable dose of fentanyl and dilauded for over eight years. NEVER would I part with so much as one microgram because I need it in order to have a semi normal life! Since the cdc “guidelines” made their way into the medical system my dosages have been cut by about 90% and my quality of life has decreased accordingly! It may not seem important to the idiots who came up with these “guidelines” or to the doctors and government entities who have bastardized those “guidelines” but after FORTY YEARS in an affectionate marriage my husband can no longer hold me close and the personal side of our marriage is nonexistent! I am one of the lucky few whose husband believes in the vows he took to be faithful in sickness and in health but all together too many marriages have already been destroyed by the lies and stupidity of the powers that be and even more are severely strained and will end up broken because of this travesty! I can still let him very gently and carefully hold me but if I am forced off my medication completely that will no longer be possible! So because of lies told for whatever reason not only are thousands of current and future chronic pain patients being forced to endure severe and unnecessary pain many are losing the most important thing in their lives, their close physical relationships with their loved one! Because of this many don’t see any reason to continue living tortured lives and turn to suicide! I have two months of medication left and because of a very necessary move no doctor so my future is also in question. I am desperately looking for anything to ease my pain enough to keep living. I don’t want to leave my precious husband and children alone but so far it’s not looking good. It may not be socially acceptable to say but I hope with every breath I take that all those involved in this torture suffer unimaginable and untreatable pain and live to be100!