General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPrince's death should start a conversation about pain management, NOT pain med abuse
Last edited Wed May 11, 2016, 10:08 PM - Edit history (1)
It appears at least possible that Prince's death may be ascribed to excessive use of pain medication.
As is the case with most people who overuse such medication, the issue here is NOT drug abuse...few if any of those who fall into overuse(a term which I find more accurate than abuse in this context)do so out of a search for a "buzz" or a high. They do so because they find these medications to be the only way they can have any quality of life at all while battling chronic pain(as in the choronic hip pain Prince evidently lived with). Usually, as the years go by, these people have to use more pain medications as the years go by, because the body builds up a "tolerance" and the dosages they had used are no longer sufficiently control the pain.
Because chronic pain will not, in most cases, kill a person(and also, perhaps, because Big Pharma has enough political and industrial clout to ward off any challenges to one of the major sources of its profits), the medical-industrial complex, in this country and most of the world, has chosen to devote little time to researching and devolping effective alternatives to pain medication as a means of alleviating or eliminating chronic pain. Thus, the only choices offered to those facing chronic pain are overmedication or sanctimonious, puritanical admonitions to "suck it up".
Many of those who battle chronic pain are low-income or no-income people(the kind of people the medical industrial complex never does a damn thing to help). Some, unable to afford even the prescriptions, are driven to find alternative pain killers on the street(we all know what I'm talking about there). Others are driven to suicide. Others, such as my late wife, who gave up most pain medications in the last year of her life-she died almost twelve years ago now) die anyway, at least in part from the strain on the bodies caused by years of having to use pain meds just to be able to get out of bed and function as a human being.
In the warped, corrupt economic system we live under, it may take the death of a rock legend to get the medical-industrial complex to finally get serious about finding non-pharmaceutical methods(or at least non-lethal methods)of pain management. If so, so be it.
Even though pain is not, in itself, fatal, it is clear that pain, in the end, can kill. And that it has already killed way the hell too many.
Honor Prince. And honor the memory of all those not as famous as Prince who suffered as he did, and those who fight this battle still.
If any of you have stories about people in your lives with chronic pain issues and how the system has failed them, please share them here.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
yourpaljoey
(2,166 posts)
Brickbat
(19,339 posts)
Iggo
(47,549 posts)
KT2000
(20,576 posts)Except for one thing - pain can kill.
The new directives for pain medication are leaving many in pain. Someone I know was having his pain meds reduced even though he was telling them he was in serious pain. After 2 years a doctor finally found the problem - a botched shoulder replacement surgery had left him with metal rubbing on bone.
How many people is this happening to - the poor are drug seekers until proven otherwise is the new protocol.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)to millions of victims
Hydra
(14,459 posts)But maybe legalization of drugs will. When people can take what they like and it's still a problem, maybe some of the people who are not in chronic pain will begin to get the idea...but I still doubt it. I can't explain what being in pain all the time is like, but I can tell you what the brief moments when it's not there are: Heaven.
Ghost in the Machine
(14,912 posts)Ghost in the Machine
(14,912 posts)spinal cord and column replacement), it's the damned junkies. frauds who sell their pills instead of taking them, and the people who ABUSE their medications, instead of taking as prescribed, that's making it almost impossible for those of us who REALLY NEED it to get the help we need.
5 1/2 years in pain management, and I have only missed a pill count ONCE, and that was due to someone stealing them out of a locked gun cabinet, in a locked room, in a locked house! And yes, I have had the epidural steroid injections(had a bad reaction to the meds, made me worse and kept me in bed and didn't know where I was for almost 2 weeks, so no longer a candidate for shots), been through physical therapy 3 different times ( made the pain worse each time), tried chiropractic, therapeutic massage, back braces, neck braces, a cane.... NOTHING helps except for opioids. It's the ONLY relief I get, and the ONLY REASON I have any "quality of life".
I have turned in a few people, including a family member, who were getting pills just to sell. The ONLY DISCUSSION about it should be between a pain patient and their doctor. Period! And, in case you didn't know, trained Doctors EXPECT you to build up a tolerance over time, and will slowly increase your dosage when needed.
I'm sorry to hear about your wife. I hope that she tapered down slowly, or at least got something to help with withdrawals because withdrawals can cause death, too.
Peace,
Ghost
zappaman
(20,606 posts)I'm giving them to my dog who has arthritis and it seems to help her mobility.
http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/10/cbd_marijuana_compound_has_no_high_but_relieves_pa.php
http://learnaboutmarijuanawa.org/factsheets/cannabinoids.htm
https://healthyhempoil.com/cannabidiol-pain-relief/
Ghost in the Machine
(14,912 posts)her once she gets it. Right now, she is in pain so bad she can barely walk at times, but refuses to go to pain management. She went a couple of years ago after a very bad bout with shingles, and said they treated her like a criminal! This is a woman who has had 5 heart surgeries, a hysterectomy, gall bladder removed, appendix removed, has RA, and lord knows what else... and hasn't even had so much as a ticket in 50 years!
Believe me, dude, I used marijuana for almost 7 years to avoid going into pain management, but it got to the point that I was spending $300 - $400/month on weed, and was running out of money, when I thought "Hey! I have this insurance card in my pocket with zero co-pays for doctors visits and, at the time, $1.10 co-pay per prescription. I can get a whole months worth of relief for $1.10, plus the gas to go to the doctor." Now my prescription copays are up to a whopping $2.95/ea!
IF I was a scammer, and didn't need the medications, I could very easily turn that $2.95 into $2,400/mo in extra income... but with MY luck, the first time I sold a pill I'd get busted and lose everything I have. IT'S. JUST. NOT. WORTH. IT.
Good to see you around, my friend! 
Peace,
Ghost
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)As rx drug availability has been tightened up, there seem to be more and more posts like yours. We need to make developing far better methods of pain control and elimination a serious political priority.
Issue: Pain control.
Ghost in the Machine
(14,912 posts)There are some days that you feel like eating a bullet rather than keep living like this, but I, personally, could NEVER do that. Think about it?? Yeah, for a fleeting moment.... but then you think about what you'd be leaving behind, or at least I do, and I could never do that to my family or myself. The thought of my family is what keeps me going on.
I still think that the ONLY DISCUSSION needs to be between the patient and the doctor, and the Government needs to keep their noses out of it... unless they just wise up and legalize everything, knockingout the black market and the crime that comes with it. Leave the other issues to the local law enforcement agencies. They can deal with the "pill mills" when they pop up in neighborhoods, and enforce existing laws. The Feds have *some* doctors so scared that they won't write you a prescription for pain meds if you come into the ER with a broken arm, leg, or whatever...
My life has been one hell of a white-knuckle rollercoaster ride so far, with everything that I have been through. I always tell people "The only reason I haven't killed myself is because I want to hang around and see what happens next! I've got a one-way ticket on this ride, and I'm NOT going to jump off prematurely, I'm gonna ride this f**cker all the way to the end!"
Sorry to take so long to respond, but I have been down for a couple of days..
Peace,
Ghost
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)So many people are suffering that pain is finally being regarded as a national public health issue that must be addressed; yeah, yada-yada, still need the funding, but with all the amazing advances in neuroscience in general, while pain research always was a poor stepchild, surely some real advances are inevitable.
Your posts hit home too much because our daughter has a bad spine. Two operations now, but she waited too long before having the first done and is now in sometimes intense post-surgical pain from the second waiting to see how much benefit it will bring. She's a young mom with all the physical demands of small children, but the pain's so serious that for the first time ever she's being very careful and trying hard to heal herself.
On top of worry about her now, what if she ends up needing chronic pain treatment? As you make too clear, this is a bad time for people in that situation.
Take care.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)What I'm saying is that a lot of the problems I'm talking about here come from the fact that the medical-industrial complex has no economic interest in working towards non-narcotic methods to alleviate or eliminate chronic pain.
The things you describe in that post are caused by the fact that, at this point, Big Pharma has made sure that there are no alternatives to narcotics OR unrelenting agony for chronic pain sufferers. They know that, if such alternatives are found, a lot of profits will be lost.
The discussion I'm trying to start here is about spurring the development, by whatever means is needed, of pain management/alleviation methods that do not involve narcotic and possibly addictive medications. It's part of the reason we need something like single-payer, so that treatments can be developed for all kinds of health issues whether or not somebody gets rich off of those treatments.
Nothing in my OP was intended as a defense of people who steal pain medication for their own recreational purposes. Sorry if I gave you that impression.
Best wishes to you on getting out of the nightmare you are living.
Ghost in the Machine
(14,912 posts)They already have plenty of non-narcotic pain meds. They just don't work on me at all. I had an Orthopedic Doctor prescribe me some Amitriptyline once, telling me it was pain medication. I got it filled and started taking it that day. By the next night, I found myself sitting in the dark in my bedroom, SERIOUSLY thinking of ways that I could kill myself without leaving a mess for kids/family to clean up. It really freaked me out, and I snappeed out of it. I joke around sometimes and say that some days I feel like it would be better for me if I just ate a bullet instead of ealing with this pain, but I am never serious, and could never do that to myself, or my family. The ONLY TIME that I ever had SERIOUS thoughts like that was when I was on anti-depressants, so I looked the medication up, and sure enough, it was a tri-cyclic anti-depressant. I went back to that doctor the next day, without an appointment, and cussed him up one side of the building and down the other, then told the girl behind the desk to cancel all future appointments with him, and be expecting a call requesting my medical records.
I still think that the ONLY discussion should be between a patient and their doctor, and the Government needs to keep their nose out of it. Your doctor can tell whether you are taking your meds right or not, and every prescription for controlled substances has DEA number on it. The DEA can monitor if they feel a certain doctor is over-prescribing narcotics.
Nothing in my OP was intended as a defense of people who steal pain medication for their own recreational purposes. Sorry if I gave you that impression.
I never thought that way for one second, *I* apologize if I gave YOU the impression that I did!
Thank you very much! I think the only thing that will help is if they can give me a spine replacement, though. So far, besides the relief from opioids, everything else has just been like throwing spears at airplanes. The attempt was good, but the outcome was futile.
Peace to you and yours,
Ghost
blue neen
(12,319 posts)It is the tylenol that does the killing by destroying the liver. Percocet is 5 mg. of oxycodone and 500 mg. of acetaminophen (tylenol).
Acetaminophen is very hard for the human liver to metabolize. Straight oxycodone is available for prescription, and many surgeons are prescribing Oxycodone 5 mg. for their post-surgical patients.
People don't realize how much acetaminophen is in over the counter meds and how dangerous this generic tylenol really is.
REP
(21,691 posts)Acetominophen and opioids are some of the few analgesics kidney patients can safely use. The amount of acetominophen in Norco, Percocet etc is available in different strengths.
blue neen
(12,319 posts)The "Gold Standard", though has been the 5/500. When I worked as a pharmacy tech, we filled this prescription constantly. This and the Vicodin ES, which used to be 7.5/750! Thank God they've reformulated that to 7.5/300.
We just got Medical Marijuana legalized here in PA. Although it will take about 18 months to get this up and running, I'm hopeful that it will be another option for people managing their chronic pain.
REP
(21,691 posts)I keep testing to check ... The Norco I take doesn't block my pain but it does usually take it down about 40% to where I can function.
Ghost in the Machine
(14,912 posts)At one time, I was on 30mgs roxies 6x/day... 1 every 4 hours! Then I was on 2 Oxymorphone 40mga/day with 2 roxi 15's for breakthrough pain. Oxymorphone (generic Opana) is the parent drug of oxycodone, and metabolizes as morphine in the liver.
I can't take Hydrocodone or Hydromorphone, as they increase the pressure in the Cerebro-Spinal Fluid (CSF), and that is part of my problem. I have Cervical Syringomyelia, which is a fluid-filled cyst, called a syrinx, inside the spinal cord that extends from T-5 and has grown through into my brain stem, which has caused me some short term memory loss. The syrinx caused by a small tear in the spinal cord which allows the CSF to leak inside the cord, making the cyst grow, and basically destroying the spinal cord from the inside to out. The acetaminophen in percocet or hydros also make my ankles swell and my joints to ache. NSAIDs and other anti-inflammatories had the same affect, as did gabapention and a few other meds for Neuropathy (nerve pain) I have a LOT of nerve damage due to the 2 major neck surgeries, 2 months apart.
On top of all of that, I have degenerative dick disease in my Thoracic AND Lumbar Spine, with 9 or 10 bulging and/or ruptured disks, along with nerve impingement, moderate stenosis, small synovial tears in 3 disks and tethered cord syndrome at the C 4 level. Like I said upthread, unless they can do a spinal cord/column transplant, leave my damned meds ALONE!
Peace,
Ghost
blue neen
(12,319 posts)Sometimes people don't realize how challenging daily life can be for some.
It sounds like you don't metabolize acetaminophen or NSAID's very well. I don't either. Believe it or not, that is genetically based and there is genetic testing to prove it. It has to do with the P450 liver enzymes. If you ever want more info on that, send me a PM.
Good luck.
Ghost in the Machine
(14,912 posts)My mother can't take acetaminophen or NSAIDs either. They make her joints swell and hurt, too.
Peace,
Ghost
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)and I'm sorry, but if someone in terrible pain WANTS to try yoga instead of meds, hey, great. But when doctors are terrified to prescribe due to the DEA, we end up with people who have legitimate pain needs, suffering.
That is unacceptable.
Yes, some people abuse these drugs. And what happens when the prescription varieties are harder for them to obtain? Do they suddenly start going to NA meetings? No, statistically what happens is, many of them turn to street drugs like heroin. Which is how you get the growing "heroin crisis", now complementing the prescription drug one.
The answer, to my mind, is to offer treatment on demand to people who have addiction problems, approach addiction from a harm reduction standpoint instead of a punitive, law enforcement one- and yes, research into other, less addictive and lethal forms of pain management is also long overdue and warranted.
We actually have one, it's called cannabis, and it can be effective for many people in terms of relaxation and some pain relief. Unfortunately we throw people in prison for using that one, too.
I get wary when politicians go overboard into morals panic territory about things like prescription drug abuse- not that it's not a problem, it obviously is- because the answer INVARIABLY is some new iteration of "more restrictions, more laws, more drug users in prison" and even though these addicts aren't chasing a "buzz", the popular puritanical perception is that they are: so in the process of trying to "stop" them from doing so, the fallout is that real pain patients suffer.
I'd rather take the risks of having these solutions available to those who need them, as opposed to "cracking down" and "getting tough", and inevitably making life difficult for people in pain.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)to find effective NON-medication(or at least non-narcotic) pain management approaches.
People should have to choose between agony and possible addiction.
It's the usual market economic thing that working for a real cure to something(as opposed to treatment)is likely to reduce somebody's profits.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)But I also think that people who need powerful narcotics for serious pain should have them available if they choose, and not be forced to suffer just because of drug warriors with an agenda.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)There should be serious work being done to give people better choices than that, though.
Ghost in the Machine
(14,912 posts)That is unacceptable.
Many doctors are so afraid of the Feds that they won't even write you something if you come into the ER with broken bones!
The rest of your post is spot on, too!
Peace!
Ghost
tblue37
(65,319 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Ghost in the Machine
(14,912 posts)and medicaid WON'T help pay for it, so how would it benefit the poor, or the disabled, who aren't even making it from month?
Peace,
Ghost
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)I get quite a bit for free, for example. Regularly, every month like clockwork.
Ghost in the Machine
(14,912 posts)between $30 - $40 1/4 oz or an oz for between $100 - $120....
I don't smoke anymore due to being in pain management, AND because fools here in East Tenn are trying to pass homegrown off as something they call "Loud" for $20/gram! I can remember when $20 got you a 4 finger baggie, stuffed!
If it was legal, I could have some from seed to smoking in 90 days!
Peace,
Ghost
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I didn't say legalization was a solution to the entire issue.
CTyankee
(63,902 posts)which is covered by my Medicare. One laser treatment sent me into worse pain so that's no good. I'm hoping the nerve blocks will work.
sendero
(28,552 posts)... experience with this in my past and IMHO the PROBLEM is that opiates are a horrible solution for long term pain. Tolerance is built up, addiction (i.e. try lowering your dose and see what happens) is inevitable.
If one wants to argue there is no alternative to opiates well I an not a doctor and and not in a position to disagree. But anyone who thinks opiates are a reasonable long term pain relief solution should do more research.
taught_me_patience
(5,477 posts)Someone will always complain that they are over prescribing or under prescribing. In general, Americans just want the pill to cure their ills and not do the hard work to really cure the root of the problem.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)If those can be found, the dilemma you describe might be avoidable.
Skittles
(153,147 posts)I try to imagine what it would be like to always have that pain, even if it's just a dull ache, and I can see how it would wear you down. I absolutely agree with you, something needs to be done to help these people. Under our current system they seem to be treated like drug abusers, not people in chronic pain.
Beaverhausen
(24,470 posts)...over 15 of them. Surgery won't help him so he has taken opiods for years.
His pain med doctor, at the direction of the CDC, is slowly weaning his dosage down.
My husband is still able to work even with his pain meds. If he has to lower his dose or god forbid stop taking them, he will be unable to work and possibly wheelchair bound.
Thank you for your post. This issue hits close to home for me and I wish more people understood it.
