Bookworm

Bookworm

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This isn't the fault of the people who are addicted; blame the Sacklers for treating opioids like a get-rich-quick scheme instead of a vital but dangerous substance.

I'm a chronic pain sufferer because of RA and most times I can handle a flare up. However, Occasionaly I need a steroid shot and a very low dose of morphine to get me thru it. Not a lot, just a day or two. I can go two years between flare ups this bad.and have no scrips for pain meds at all. I'm STILL treated like a drug seeker every damn time and am treated like lower than dirt by the ER staff.

Don't blame addicts for this. Blame pharmaceutical companies (Perdue)who advertised oxycontin as none addictive while knowing full well it was and the doctors who over prescribed these opiates for years and then cut patients off without getting them resources to deal with the addiction they caused.

I had a PHARMACIST literally mock me because I waited at the pharmacy to pick up my pain medication. It humiliated me. Like I want to be 43 and have RA

Every chronic pain patient has horror stories like this. And we are not all addicted to our opioid pain meds; we legitimately need them to function.

I have chronic pain due to several autoimmune conditions and physical issues, but my team of providers will not prescribe pain meds, muscle relaxers or sleep aids. I have to see a pain specialist every month for my one approved pain med, take a urine test, and sign a contract stating I will not seek pain meds from any other provider including hospital ERs. Yet I know people whose doctors prescribe controlled substances right and left, and hear "oh yeah I give them to my family members because I don't really need them" and I just don't understand.

I have been studying both the use and abuse of opiates for over 20 years. Doctors have become so cruel that they have lost the plot. What is the point of withholding opiates from a 70 year-old patient in chronic pain? Is there an actual medical reason? Because from what I see, there isn't one and it boils down to bigotry. They elevate addiction above all other illnesses and don;t take into consideration quality of life. Personally, I'd rather be addicted, and able to procure medicinal opiates, than suffer indescribable pain day and night. But they don't care. As long as you die sober, they could care less if you spent the last few miserable years of your life in torture-like pain. And for what? Because some people took drugs for fun? Does it really make sense to take a whole class of patients and refuse them proper therapy just in case one or two of them get high? And these are the same doctors that gave them away like candies 20 years ago. F**k them and the horse they rode on.

It’s nuts. I broke my foot In probably 2002 ish and they gave me so much pain medicine that I had pills saved in the freezer for years after. Now I can be in so much pain that I can’t stand up and they give you an advil. There has to be a middle ground.

I wish this was more common knowledge. I have 3 separate chronic pain conditions to the point I'll probably be in a wheelchair in a few years and junkies have absolutely ruined it for responsible pain patients. There is a difference between addiction and dependence. A lot of us depend on pain relief just to be able to function and have a slight quality of life. I hate that the system has lumped us all together. I dread ever having to go to the hospital for anything. They'll see the rx's I'm on and just write me off as drug seeking before even speaking to me.

Definitely!! I've been in chronic pain for 20 years. I was given opioids when I couldn't handle it anymore. Now I'm on 1 painkiller. I use my wheelchair more now, shower maybe once a week, eat crisps cuz I can't cook, in bed by 3pm, drank for 2 years, self harmed and tried to k!!! myself. I'm now with a different GP, still only 1 painkiller but I'm on really strong antidepressants, got counselling, quit drinking and hopefully volunteering at my local zoo. Still in lots of pain but mentally, I'm getting better. Plus, my pain specialist is going to be implanting a permanent TENS machine in my spine to help. So coming off opioids messed me up but how many others are going through this or worse because of not having the meds they need because of the opioid epidemic? I dread to think!!

I have always had a very high tolerance for pain meds (and several other types of meds). No history of addition / being due to tolerance build up. The trend mentioned above makes it more awkward when I actually need a pain med. Not with every doctor but it has come up before. Like in the military when they pulled all four wisdom teeth and gave me a grand total of FOUR tylenol 3s and expected that to last me until the pain from the stitches healed. For anyone who doesn't know - the generic standard dosage of these is "Take 1 to 2 tablets every 4 hours as needed for pain." So four was not enough to get me through a day, let alone several days.

Understand. Have been waiting on mine. Call the pharmacy today. They told me it was delivered. It wasn't. It was probably delivered to someone else. I probably won't get them. I'm not a happy camper.

I've had 4 discs removed from my back, at aged 40. I never expect to get back to full mobility, but I was given opiods when I awoke from surgery. I had no idea about the power of these meds until I was robbed and had these stolen (not knowing street value) and I had to produce a police report to get my script early. The feeling of not having them suddenly and I'm on a low dose is unbelievable. They terrify me as does the thought of not having them if I run out. It makes me feel so dirty and I never asked for or wanted for a single substance before 😪

The majority of people who are addicted to opioids, started taking them for legitimate reasons, they just got addicted to them, that's not their fault! Opioids are so incredibly addicting, the number of people who have gotten addicted before even renewing their first prescription, is absolutely staggering. Don't blame them, you just happen to be lucky that you're one of the people that didn't get addicted, the reason that you're not in their situation is not because you did anything better than them, you just got lucky.

When my Dr. suggested I try yoga and meditation for my pain, I gave her the dead-eye stare.

I have Fibromyalgia, connective tissue disease, Celiac disease, and a hypermobility syndrome that has damaged/destroyed most of my joints. When they started the opioid hysteria a lot of us with chronic pain were suddenly taken off our pain meds. I'm lucky I found out about Kratom before my taper off finished. I've added a couple other herbs that help too. It takes the edge off enough that I can function some and not be bedbound. The thing is they don't even have an alternative to offer.

Three years ago my husband needed a new hip and he was only 51 years old. I called around to different doctor's offices and I would say "Hello, I'm trying to find a orthopedic doctor for my husband" and they'd immediately say "We don't prescribe pain medications" and I was just like "He's not looking for pain meds....he needs a new hip". It was ridiculous!

Well then blame the pharmaceutical company who pushed them for profit, getting people addicted, and the out of control doctors writing these prescriptions, months, and sometimes years past any reasonable time needed for a temporary pain. Four of the largest U.S. corporations have agreed to pay roughly $26 billion to settle a tsunami of lawsuits linked to claims that their business practices helped fuel the deadly opioid crisis. Johnson & Johnson, the consumer products and health giant that manufactured generic opioid medications, will contribute $5 billion to the settlement. The company announced in 2020 it would get out of the prescription opioid business in the U.S. altogether. Three massive drug wholesalers — AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson — will pay a combined $21 billion. Many Americans with opioid use disorder have shifted from taking prescription pain pills to street fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is far more powerful and lethal. Drug overdoses now kill

Blame the Sacklers.

Opioids may possibly help to cause some negative health benefits but the positives are a lot better than the negatives, because chronic pain is MUCH, MUCH worse (I imagine, not speaking from experience) than whatever negative thing it is that opioids can cause that people may unluckily develop anyway from some other reason. Just let the people who need them have the pain meds because that is 8,000,900,000 times better than being in pain everyday and so miserable they’re not even living.

OmG Thank you do much for posting thus, it's something I have been saying to my family for years. My issue is that my pain started at 29. So now at 53 I am.at a high dosage of opcodes. I recently had one of them.increasee by my doctor but when I went to the pharmacy he told me that because of all the lawsuits they had capped the morphine equivalent at 200, I was just over, so the solution became to lower the dosage of the other med. OK so that is working OK right now, not as good as it could have been, but what am.i going to do in the 5 to 10 years that I can stretch out the diminishing relief I get, I will have nowhere to turn and will basically have to go as long as I possibly can before I take my own life after the pain has driven crazy. Thanks a lot Pfizer.thatnks doctors who wanted free trips in exchange for posing the drugs on patients. Look I knew that these drugs were seriously addictive, so how is it u bought the sacklers b******t about none addictive at any dosage (limi4less)

Don't get me started....

cont..... Drug overdoses now kill more than 100,000 people in the U.S. every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In some cases, drug wholesalers continued shipping vast quantities of pills to small rural communities despite red flags that drugs like OxyContin were being diverted and sold on the black market. One email shared among executives at AmerisourceBergen — made public for the first time during a state trial last year in West Virginia — disparaged people addicted to opioids, describing them as "pillbillies" and referring to OxyContin as "hillbilly heroin." With this $26 billion settlement now approved, negotiations continue over a separate opioid deal involving Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, and members of the Sackler family who own the private company. https://www.npr.org/2022/02/25/1082901958/opioid-settlement-johnson-26-billion

Couldn't agree more, I am on a non scheduled med that can cause seizures if I run out. They make me wait until the absolute day I am out to get it filled, (because some people abuse it, and some people think it should be scheduled) but I dont, and its not, and it could literally kill me.

Seriously. I had a prescription for tramadol on an emergency basis for when I had a migraine that the other meds weren't touching. I moved, and my new doctors refuse to prescribe it even though it is sometimes the only thing that worked. Currently on day 3 of a bad migraine.

I hate to go to the doctor, but severe pain will get me there. No pain medicine!! Doctor said to try acupuncture. I'm wondering how much pain I can tolerate without pain medicine. Guess I'm about to find out. Thanks for your post.

It's all true. It is not only a daily struggle because of the pain issue but having to be extra stressed at the end of the month because you fear what happens if there's a hang up at the pharmacy is adding insult to injury. I also love being drug tested randomly.

My best friend of 35 years died of ovarian cancer in February 2020. She also had RA. When she found out she had 2 weeks to live, she was allowed 1 5mg Vicodin every 6 hours. They didn't want to give her more because "she might get addicted". Her last 24 hours was absolutely horrific.

I have been through he'll with this issue. Without my pain meds I would be bed ridden, and still people look at me like I'm an addict. I don't get any high off them at all, just pain relief. I take what I'm prescribed only. Thanks alot to every doctor that was to much of a pussy to help these people.

As someone who has been taking anti-seizure medicines for 2 years, yeah, few people really understand the magnitude of the side effects they cause. And it doesn’t exactly help that they’re nearly invisible to anyone else.

So, so many of "the people who abused opioid use" also had/have legit problems. That's *why* we have the epidemic. People went to their doctors, their doctors prescribed. They prescribed under the premise that "you cannot know someone else's pain." Who started *that* premise? The drug manufacturers. This has been discussed extensively in court, and you'll learn all about it if you take naloxone training.

Yes yes yes! A thousand times yes!

I wish opiods worked for me. But there is such misuse of drugs that people need to survive, that it is hard to get them Bad, bad, bad.

I have the same problem getting anxiety meds.