How the opioid crackdown is backfiring [View all]

[DonViejo]

Hundreds of chronic pain patients responding to a POLITICO survey describe being refused opioid prescriptions they had relied on for years with sometimes devastating consequences.

By BRIANNA EHLEY 08/28/2018 05:06 AM EDT

Last August, Jon Fowlkes told his wife he planned to kill himself.

The former law enforcement officer was in constant pain after his doctor had abruptly cut off the twice-a-day OxyContin that had helped him endure excruciating back pain from a motorcycle crash almost two decades ago that had left him nearly paralyzed despite multiple surgeries.

“I came into the office one day and he said, ‘You have to find another doctor. You can’t come here anymore,’” Fowlkes, 58, recalled. The doctor gave him one last prescription and sent him away.

Like many Americans with chronic, disabling pain, Fowlkes felt angry and betrayed as state and federal regulators, starting in the Obama years and intensifying under President Donald Trump, cracked down on opioid prescribing to reduce the toll of overdose deaths. Hundreds of patients responding to a POLITICO reader survey told similar stories of being suddenly refused prescriptions for medications they’d relied on for years — sometimes just to get out of bed in the morning — and left to suffer untreated pain on top of withdrawal symptoms like vomiting and insomnia.

“I was pretty much thrown to the curb,” said Denise Pascal, 65, who had taken pain meds for decades after six back surgeries. Then her pain doctor cut her off and closed her practice without connecting her with another specialist.

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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/28/how-the-opioid-crackdown-is-backfiring-752183