Well, as some of you know, I have a bee in my bonnet about this issue --- and have had ever since my surgeon refused me adequate pain medication after I came home from the hospital following some major abdominal surgery -- surgery that involved life-threatening complications, as it happens.
Painkiller Access Debated as Patients Suffer
This kind of sums things up:
"All of the witnesses began their testimony on the assumption that there is a prescription drug abuse epidemic in the U.S., and that access to controlled drugs, benzodiazepines and especially opioid painkillers, needs to be restricted, or at least monitored.
"Noticeably absent from the hearing, however, was anyone living with chronic pain, or anyone even to speak on behalf of pain patients. Patients and their advocates say last week's hearing is typical of the lack of balance in the public debate over painkillers.
"It's not hard to find such people. Since the first two installments of this series were published, HuffPost has heard from over 300 people who suffer from chronic pain and have at some point found relief from prescription painkillers, but have since been unable to find adequate treatment."
I remember after my surgery having real anxiety episodes about perhaps being in severe pain again at some time in my life and not being allowed any help for it. It seems to me to be an example of true societal cruelty that medication is often not available to legitimate pain patients just because we believe we have to be absolutely sure that nobody gets high. That effort isn't working, anyway. Criminals can get hold of the medications while law abiding citizens cannot. That's just wrong.
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But so what if you were looking to get high? Who cares?
ReplyDelete--Bryan Doug
Well, of course, I completely agree with you, Bryan. I intended a tinge of sarcasm when I said that, actually: about making sure nobody gets high!
ReplyDeleteI suffer from chronic pain due to stenosis in my cervical and lumbar spine. After years of trying to find the most effective dosage and type of pain medication we finally have found the ideal analgesic. The path to this success has forced me to undergo "spinal stretching," chiropractic treatment, epidural injections, anti-depression therapy, and numberous drugs meant to treat other debilities, but which some deluded physician thought preferable to oxycontin. I have even been told by a nurse practitioner that she would not prescribe pain medication because it might be stolen from my house and used to drug and then rape young women!
ReplyDeleteNow, although I am currently taking a minimum dosage of oxycontin which allows me to functiom although I still feel pain at all times, my physician is constantly trying to find a different medication so as to get me off the oxycontin. I am not addicted to the oxy, although all the physicians seem to think that addiction is inescapable and all the physicians seem to think that we're all trying to get high.
I am a former hippie. I know about getting high. Oxycontin, in the dosage I am taking, does not produce anything like a high. It simply diminishes the amount of pain I experience. I think it is shameful that modern medicine has extended our lives only to force us to live with chronic high levels of pain. I'd rather die. And, if they ever stop my pain medication, I will probably end my own life. Period.