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Federal Gov New strategy on Pill mills!

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Posted 4/19/2011 8:17 PM (GMT 0)
 

    Thought this may be a good read for those of you interested in this.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110419/ap_on_re_us/us_pill_mills_us_response

    Not sure how and if it will affect us!

    SE wink

Posted 4/19/2011 8:48 PM (GMT 0)
I suppose how it may effect those in genuine need will all depend on exactly what is done. If they make the training and/or licensing requirements, not to mention record keeping, too strict it very well make it harder to find doctors willing to prescribe these medications.
Posted 4/19/2011 10:00 PM (GMT 0)
I posted on another thread about how hard it is for me here on Maui.

My primary doctor actually cut me off cold turkey from my pain meds because he decided to no longer handle pain management patients because of all of the abuses.

I had to pay out of pocket ($150) to go see a pain doc who didn't even examine me, just wrote me scripts. It really bothers me. I'm not a drug seeker. I am just in pain every single day of my life and I have been for over 15 years. I don't even take that much medication. Just the norcos. (only 4 per day)

I even had problems during my open heart surgery! Because I already was taking 4 norcos per day, the usual pain meds weren't working for me. I had a nurse who thought I was drug seeking! Drug seeking! Not even 24 hours after open heart surgery! They had put me on a fentanyl drip and this nurse didn't think I should be on it. She called back in the Pain Management Dr. who put me on it to examine me because she thought I was acting strange. That Dr. was a little miffed and said, You are fine! What is her problem???? And just how is one supposed to act after having their chest sawed open, your heart stopped and but on a bypass machine for 6 hours, then your rib cage wired shut! Let alone the lovely chest tubes. ugh I have no idea what kind of strange behavior I was exhibiting. I couldn't even get out of bed.

Anyway, don't get me started.

OY Vey!

Bottom line is that Docs are already getting very skiddish about prescribing pain meds. It makes it so difficult for those of us who truly need them.
Posted 4/22/2011 11:53 AM (GMT 0)
As a resident of South Florida I can tell you how bad this issue is here but I do not support a database tracking my prescriptions...and I think if you are going to impliment something like that it needs to be universal...track everyones mediciations of every kind, don't single out the chronic pain patients! I mean honestly, the gov't cannot manage to keep THEIR classified information from being hacked into, how am I suposed to have faith that mine wont be? And once something is in a computer like that its there, it isn't going to go away, and who knows how it could come back to bite us in the butt 10 yrs from now.

This article is incorrect is saying that Gov Scott is back on board with the pill database for our state (unless something has changed in the last few days and I somehow missed it in our local news, which I highly doubt). I don't support Gov Scott on much but I do support him on this. I think they need to focus on these pill mill offices and not on punishing legitimate patients. The fact of the matter is that the people who want to abuse drugs are going to do so...they launched a hardcore campaign against OxyContin not so many years ago so the abusers found something else.

You can spot an illigitimate office a mile away, and as legitimate patient I avoid them like the plague...if an office only takes cash payments, is running their own pharmacy, accepts mostly walk-in patients and has a line a mile long outside the door its kinda obvious what they are doing. My doc doesnt accept walk-ins, never even has a full waiting room let alone a group of people waiting outside the office (I've honestly never been in the office, door to door, longer than 30mins for routine appointments), and I am drug tested "randomly" (every 3 months) We already have to jump through hoops (docs wont prescribe narcotics on 1st visit, no matter your history, drug testing, etc.) just to get the medications we needs and all those steps do is make it more difficult for those of this who legitimately need these medications, how many abusers is this actually stopping? Very few from my experience b/c they know they can just go to these pill mill offices and get whatever they need and not have to worry about the hoops.

We need to crack down on these crooked doctors who are prescribing hundreds and hundreds of pills per patient every month, passing them out like Skittles, and gladly feeding people's addictions to line their pockets.

Just my 2 cents :)

Posted 4/22/2011 3:14 PM (GMT 0)
This article wants to make the "States" to track medications, not the Federal Government.
My hubby was USAF and the military had records hacked, the States could easily
be hacked...Did you know that the Ipad has a tracking device on it, I don't have an
ipad for that reason, it can be tracked, you can get your house broken into if yoou
post a picture from the ipad...They have to find a better way to stop the aduse than
to track medications....
Posted 4/23/2011 5:24 PM (GMT 0)
The thing is that the main drug under attack is oxycontin and the main area of attack is Florida. I think the issue is that so many people go down to Florida for bogus scripts and then sell them in other states. Ofcourse, it hurts our case because other states might look at the situation and florida and revise their policies.

I honestly think once florida comes on board with a prescription monitoring plan, it will allieviate some of the situation.

There are new medications in the works that are supposedly "stronger" than oxycontin, but they are possibly years away from phase 3 realities. I think the intention is to eventually replace oxycontin.

I'm not sure how this will affect things, but IMHO, I see it having less of an effect on pain killers with low popularity such as the newer less abusable morphine pills, demerol, codeine, and tapentadol, but I think its possible we could see tighter regulation of hydrocodone, oxycodone, hydromorphone, oxymorphone, and the non transdermal versions of fentanyl.


The thing is diversion needs to be addressed so that those with chronic pain can get their relief without stigmata. However, I just hope it does what its intended to do and helps our cause, not hurt it.
Posted 4/23/2011 5:47 PM (GMT 0)
I was in Ft. Lauderdale, Broward County last year for 7 months taking care of my daughter.

I went there because she told me she was dying of Endometrial Adenocarcinoma Stage 3B. I left my entire life here on Maui to go be with her.

Long long long story. Turns out she was addicted to Oxycodone. She was buying off the street from guys who got their drugs from the pill mills there. They are everywhere. My daughter knew of my pain issues, obviously, and tried her darndest to get me to go to a dirty doc to get pills.

I refused. Her addiction was severe and although she doesn't use them now, her mental state has never returned to normal. She never had Endometrial cancer, however, she is now saying she has a brain tumor.

It is sad. I saw first hand the effects of these medications when abused. It tore our family apart. My daughter lost custody of her beautiful 10 year old daughter. I lost my daughter. She is alive, but she isn't the daughter I know.

It was terrible to see the strip malls with Pain Clinics in them all over the place. Something has to be done regarding places like that for sure, but hopefully not at all of our expense.
Posted 4/23/2011 7:09 PM (GMT 0)
Hello Lolly88!

I wanted to stop by and say I'm sorry you had to witness this problem in true life and especially with a child.

I do also commend you for sharing with us, and above all your understanding of the difference of those of us who need these med's to have some sort of quality of life.


Take care,

Bless you sincerely for sharing this heart breaking story.

SEwink
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