Just who is calling the shots?????????

What exactly is the risk to a person such as myself, who has an incurable condition, with becoming addicted to a medication that works. I have already gone through a couple of medications that eventually just stopped working. If something is working for me, couldn't I use it for as long as it works, addicted or dependent or whatever? I have actually had doctors warn me of using a medication due to the possibility of addiction. I've never had a doctor stop a medication thats working well. By the way, I only use medications properly as prescribed................

Thanks Splashdancer, what I was getting at is why would a doctor be afraid of me becoming addicted to a good pain med, if I may take it the rest of my life.............

Some doctors might fear that a patient could cross the line from being physically 'dependent' (which we all are with these medications) to 'addicted' (a pattern of behavior that leads to illegal activity). Some doctors don't know the difference between the two and use the terms interchangeably. Then you have the doctors who are in constant fear of the government agencies involved in OUR health care/decisions. I can't count how many times I've heard, or heard of, a doctor (or pharmacist) saying, "I won't risk my license for ANY patient!" And they're usually referring to an issue or incident that wouldn't remotely put their license at risk. It's all about fear, fear, fear.

Splashdancer, those are the types of articles I'm thinking about. But, even if there is a combination of meds, if they are taken as directed and no other substances are ingested that shouldn't be, it just doesn't make sense that all of the sudden that combination started people ODing. It isn't unusual, or use to not be, for someone who had chronic severe pain to take other meds like valium or soma. They help the other one be more effective. But, valium, soma and other meds in those classes have also been reduced or cut out because of those who abuse/divert them. Up until January 1 of this year, Medicaid in some states wouldn't pay for Benzodiazepines, period. Now they must pay for them in every state.

Just to clarify, when I say the specifics of the numbers of reported deaths. What I mean is how many people in each state, as well as cities. If "they" can tell us how many people have died from prescription drugs, they have to know the states and cities/towns they lived in. Also primary and secondary cause of death, as well as other info that would have been documented at an autopsy. That info is no where that I have found.

Post Edited (Mercy&Grace) : 4/13/2014 7:05:24 PM (GMT-6)

White Beard, I agree about people not wanting to be responsible for their own actions. If someone has to sign a Pain Contract, they need to read it and be sure they understand it, before signing it. It they do something they shouldn't do or they forget what the contract said and they can't get any pain meds, they have no one to blame but themselves.

If someone wants to abuse pain meds or any other drug be it there's or someone elses and they die, that is the consequences of risky behavior. It isn't the drs fault if they got a rx, or the pharmacist who filled it. It isn't their abusive parents fault, or the fault of someone who bullied them. They made the decision to do what they did and they have no one to blame but themselves. But, like you said White Beard, no one wants to be responsible for their own behavior anymore.

But, the pain patients who always go by the rules, don't engage in risk behavior and are responsible are the ones who are being punished for the chosen risky behaviors of those who abuse/divert these meds. On the other hand, one of the many things I have learned in my 60 yrs of living is that life isn't fair.

I'm going to try and find the paper that I wrote, because so much of what we are discussing now, I researched. White Beard - the rate of suicide among CP patients (untreated & under-treated) is actually quite high. But of course that's not something mentioned in the news. Guess those 'weak-minded' people just aren't important enough to mention (*sarcasm*). M&G - the vast majority of those overdose deaths that the media love to trumpet about do not involve CP patients. Many are teens, but most are ages 25-35. Since Florida began its 'War on Prescription Pain Pills' a couple years ago, those types of ODs have decreased - and now heroin overdoses are rising steadily! I've said it before and I'll say it again - an addict will ALWAYS find a way to get their high! The legitimate CP patients are the only casualties of this 'war'.

What we need is a lobbying group. As an example, look how powerful the NRA is and what an impact they have on prospective gun laws and regulations. That is exactly what WE need - a respected group that will go to bat for us in front of the house/senate every single time something comes up that infringes on our (human)right to have access to the medications we need as part of our lifelong battle with pain.

There are different types of lobbying groups. In a case like this, we would want people in both the business and private sector: medical doctors, psychologists, attorneys, patients, etc.. There are already organizations, both non-profit and for-profit, that exist - they just need to be encouraged to unite and organize. But like you said M&G - emails, letters, and phone calls from us 'little people' definitely help and are a place to start. It's a matter of finding out who to contact. A good place to start is to find out which legislators see things the way we do. It just takes a little bit of research (ok, maybe a lot of research!). Most movements begin with just a couple of people who have the same ideas on an issue......

Post Edited (Splashdancer) : 4/13/2014 11:08:21 PM (GMT-6)

Where is the war on alcohol? How many lives are effected, destroyed every day? How many deaths? Accidents, health related, directly or indirectly by the addiction to alcohol? How many teens, young people die each year? Families destroyed? The *#@* numbers are staggering!!! Yet nothing more since prohibition has been enacted? I can buy a teen a beer and get a fine,give him a lortab and my life would be over.

It takes driving under the influence at least 3 times before your license is suspended for any great deal of time. Get caught with a concealed gun and your right to own one's forever revoked? Sell one pill and your likely going to spend years in prison, bootleg alcohol on Sunday and the fine's about equal to a parking ticket.

A politician can get a DUI,beat up his wife,and it may or may not make news,a Hollywood star Od on his prescription meds and it warrants an entire community raising cane to change laws and the said celebrity goes down in history as the one that was a junkie and not the one that starred in over a 100 films in his career.

This war has just gotten so out of proportion. The stats and numbers are skewed, the casualties are not directly even related to the foundation, and one death becomes an epidemic in a town.

Drs are in fear of an organization that was created to protect them...

Prescription drug abuse is as old as time itself! This isn't a new concept by any means. With the discovery of landanum centuries ago abuse and death's became possible. During my early teens it was qualudes,placidil,seconal,and various other drugs in those categories. Moving into the 70-80s saw the rise in abuse of Talwin, darvon,tylox and these meds underwent changes to hinder their abuse potential. Yet the next century saw still more prescription abuse with Oxycontin into the 90s and so it goes. Addictions not a new disease yet older then the hills from which moonshine was made. Regulations didn't change the number's of alcoholics in those poor mountain communities.

I have said it over and again that until successful treatment is in place there will be no relief in those numbers. If they stopped production of all opiates today would the abuse stop? NO,they would turn to something else, anything that feeds the craving. Our kids have become smarter and today's teen can brew up a batch of lethal substance with household objects in the bathtub.

As for suicidal death's related to pain? They get lost in the toxicology report. The depression diagnosis that the family fails to associate with CP. It gets lost in the pointing of fingers at a Dr who relentlessly and compassionately tried to bring you comfort with medication.

No way can family, friends, Drs,medical examiner,or police understand how pain could possibly cause you to call upon Smith &Wesson!!!

Pardon my sarcasm, excuse my outright madness, but how on earth did anyone get that my treatment for pain,my quality of my life's salvation, alone warrant this absurdity? This thinking that addiction, abuse, diversion and greed is tied only to a prescription medication to relieve suffering? If that were truth then the problem would have been solved with the first regulations to control.

The question is as always, how do you change the minds of a closed and archaic way of thinking?

Vicki, you bring up some good points. The alcohol issues are a great example of just how one sided this whole thing is. It reminds me of when I tried, half in jest, to get my doctor to prescribe medical marijuana. Surprisingly she didn't have a problem with it, but because the facility she works for is federally funded, no medical marijuana for me.
Here in Maine, medical marijuana is perfectly legal. However, like in other states, Federal law takes precedent and if they can somehow use federal laws to block it's use they do. Their reasoning? It's a schedule 1 drug, I guess that they assume that because it's a schedule 1 drug, it's mind altering, causes homicidal rage, causes men to become uncontrollable, just to mention a few. That last part may sound like I'm being sarcastic. Actually those were some of the reasons used when it was first declared a schedule one narcotic, I think it was back in the 1800's, and mostly aimed at the slaves.
I can give a little comparison test here between Alcohol, which is perfectly legal, and Marijuana, a s1 narcotic. Since the age of 18, I worked as a truck driver during the day, and on week ends,off and on for nearly nineteen years, I worked as a bouncer in nightclubs from Boston to Maine.
I will swear on a stack of bibles, that given a choice, I would much rather have a club full of Pot Heads, than a club full of drunks any day of the week. My job consisted of breaking up fights trying to stop fights before they began and basically insure that paying customers had a trouble free night. I was a busy man, anyone who has ever witnessed a room full of drunks will agree, why they allow alcohol and demonize marijuana, has got to be a political thing. I can't even remember a pot head causing any trouble, except trying to understand them from time to time. Alcohol, just made people mad. Don't get me wrong, I'm no teetotaler. I am a witness to insanity, legalized insanity.
I think the only remedy will be in exposing this colossal injustice to as may people as we can. No one is going to stand up and declare that pain patients are being victimized by the very people who's job it is to care for them. No they won't demand any change until they know about it, and right now not many people outside of our little community know whats happening. Maybe it's time to spread the word, I'm going to write some letters to the editor type stuff, I blog in some local newspapers on line already, every once in a while I come across a local politician who I've somehow ruffled his feathers. It couldn't hurt to go after him for some answers.......................

I am willing to bet, and I rarely bet on anything, that if any politician or member of their family suffers from chronic severe pain, that they receive what they need to control their pain including pain meds. I'm also willing to bet that not one of them have to do tox screens or pills counts. The politicians in Washington D.C. of all parties, are removed from reality, ie life for regular folks.

I agree about the alcohol. But, it is legal and that seems to be the difference. It doesn't matter how many people die/are killed due to it's use. There also seems to be a connection between being able to get something yourself without having to depend on someone else. For example,if someone dies due to ODing on alcohol, that is one thing. But, if someone OD's on a prescription pain meds they or someone had to get a prescription for, then it is the drs responsibility and the drug manufacturers. Look at the mandatory reduction of tylenol in rx meds. Many drs are telling their patients to just add tylenol to the rx meds. I doubt if any of thee drs are writing down in the patients medical records that they told them to add tylenol. The difference is that a prescription isn't required for tylenol so the dr can't be held libel, and without proof in the patients medical records that the patient was instructed to add tylenol, the dr can't be successfully sued. With the warnings on the labels now, the manufacturers can't be held responsible if someone takes too much tylenol either.

The chronic pain patient that commits suicide will be looked on as mental illness and nothing to do with not receiving proper pain management.

As silly as the comment about being killed by being hit by a car and it being the fault of the victim seems at first, there is truth there. I agree they would list the death as due to drugs because the drugs impaired the victims judgement and reflex time resulting in their death.

Electrify, If the politician hasn't had to change his way of life because he isn't able to do basic things like take a shower or prepare a basic meal due to severe chronic pain that isn't being treated. Or if the politician doesn't have to worry about being able to continue to get adequate pain meds because he can't afford to take off of work to go to his drs or because he doesn't have insurance and can't afford to pay out of pocket, or for any of the reasons many chronic pain patients worry about this. Or if they don't have to go through the looks and attitudes most of us do at the pharmacy, or be denied pain meds because of tox screen results. Then they have no idea what reality is for more and more chronic pain patients.

Unless chronic pain patients begin dying from not having their pain managed and it is able to be medically proven that is the reason and it makes the evening news, the politicians will have no clue what is going on in the real world.

Thank you for posting this, Electrify. It's like we live in "Alice in Wonderland"...what's up is down, what's down is up. The law makers, beaurocrats etc. who have no understanding of chronic pain are like mad hatters at a tea party. Meanwhile the DEA, 'some' doctors, insurance companies, etc play the ultimate uncompromising, uncompassionate, decision wielding, mess up our lives --- Queen of Hearts. Off With Their Heads!

Well, I don't live in a movie but I fell down the metaphoric rabbit hole when I developed chronic pain. And I've been trying to climb back out ever since, with little help from the very people that are suppose to help me! Makes not a lick of sense!