Little Mini-rant on prescription painkillers...

[Lyric]

31. Anyone who uses opioids without a prescription is labeled an abuser.

Even if they are taking the medicine because they're trying to self-treat terrible pain that the medical establishment won't do anything about, they are still lumped in with the people who take them recreationally. People like my Mom, who suffered debilitating post-chemotherapy neuralgia and spinal nerve root neuralgia, people who have tried NSAIDs, Lyrica, Neurontin, people who've been subjected to endless bouts of "physical therapy", the code words that doctors use to shove pain patients out the door without actually HELPING them.

My Mom was forced to buy pain medication from the "black market" for YEARS. That was after years of jumping through hoops and suffering agonizing pain every day. She had seemingly-uncontrollable high blood pressure and heart disease (four heart attacks, three stents, and a bypass). We suspected that her constant pain was largely responsible for being unable to control her blood pressure. Did anyone care? Nope. Miraculously, once she started buying pain medication and actually treating her pain, her blood pressure was suddenly back to normal again. What an amazing coincidence!

Yeah, sure--lots of people in America "abuse" painkillers. But how many of those "abusers" out there buying pills are people like my Mom? People who aren't junkies. People who don't care about "getting high". People who just want their pain to go away, but who can't find a doctor willing to prescribe those lifesaving opioids once all other options have been tried and failed. There are so many people out there who are labeled "abusers" simply because they have been forced to buy painkillers off the street by paranoid doctors and a "war on drugs" that has left them bereft of legal alternatives.

Mom died in 2013. Thank god Hospice took care of treating her pain, because until they took over her palliative care, her pain was STILL being ignored by her physicians.

Two weeks ago I saw a neurologist who took one look at my lumbar spine MRI and asked me how on earth I'd been living with pain like that. I told him the truth--I haven't. I've been living my life confined to bed, because my pain was unbearable and I am no longer allowed to have NSAIDs. Too much ibuprofen tore my stomach to shreds. But what else was I supposed to do? Like my Mom, I have severe spinal nerve root inpingement with neuralgia, spinal stenosis, and herniated discs, plus peripheral diabetic neuralgia. Like my Mom, I've done physical therapy endless times, Lyrica, Neurontin, cortisone injections, TENS units, and I ate NSAIDs like candy for YEARS to try and stay at least partially mobile. And when all of that failed, I was told by my orthopedic spine doctor that nobody treats chronic pain with painkillers anymore. Sorry. Have some more physical therapy. :eyeroll:

Well, the new neurologist has put me on 10mg oxycodone, four times a day. Today I cleaned my bedroom and cooked dinner. Yesterday I was able to sit outside and watch the Perseid meteor shower with my beloved. I'm going grocery shopping tomorrow, and then I'm going to work on my rose bushes, which have all overgrown like mad since I've been housebound for so long. I am starting to LIVE again. Until you've had your life taken away from you by pain, you can't understand the hopelessness and despair that pervade every moment of your existence. You have no time to focus on anything except the pain. Does this position make it worse or better? This mattress pad? Can I get away with a topical NSAID gel? Should I save my last hydrocodone for my son's middle school graduation or for his high school orientation? I can have one, but not both. Can I make it to the toilet by myself today, or does Ben need to come home from work every few hours to take me to the bathroom? It is HELL. And with this medication, that hell has gone away. The pain is still there, in the background, but I can handle it. It's a four, not a nine.

I saw my psychiatrist for a med check a few days ago and upon realizing that I'd been prescribed an opioid, he grabbed a higher-ranking colleague, at which point they started team-harassing me about how opioids for chronic pain are a terrible idea, and have I tried Lyrica, or maybe physical therapy?

I seriously almost lost it at that point. These people are beyond reason or help. Good effing grief. I got my refills for my Lexapro and got the hell out of there.

And for the record, it turns out that I don't HAVE "chronic pain". My neurologist says that I have "intractable" pain. Chronic pain comes and goes; intractable pain never goes away. So yes, opioid therapy is PRECISELY what I should be receiving. I should have received it years ago, when all the other treatments failed. Our system is so screwed up that new doctors are unable to distinguish between chronic pain and intractable pain--or they're too frightened of the DEA to do anything about it, even when they know that they should. My blood pressure was 190/120 before my pain treatment started, and that was AFTER taking my nitrate, my ACE inhibitor, and my beta blocker. I had a heart attack a year ago. I wonder how much of that was due to YEARS of constant, untreated pain? How much of my Mom's heart disease came from the same thing? I wonder what role the years and years of elevated blood pressure and the constant high levels of pain-induced cortisol might play in heart disease?

Anyway...sorry for the rant. I'm still pretty emotional over this. If I hadn't found this new neurologist outside the university's health system, I might have been dead by next year. Untreated pain KILLS people. I'm tired of pain patients being considered acceptable collateral damage in the War on Drugs. Here's one last thought. How many of these heroin overdoses have happened because a pain patient couldn't access legal pain treatment and naively tried heroin as a cheap, last-ditch desperate alternative to painkillers? I know of several, myself. But in the news, they're just called abusers who overdosed. Nobody realizes that people are killing themselves trying to treat pain...like women used to kill themselves trying to end unwanted pregnancies. All due to a lack of access to proper medical care that society doesn't like.