I have had,and do sometimes have pain.I've passed kidney stones so I know what truly severe pain is.It can be overwhelming.
But I don't have anything near to the agony that many in the Chronic Pain Patient community have.
It doesn't take long to tell these are people suffering from devastating medical conditions.Many have a very poor quality of life.And not very much left.
Their stories are soaked with pain.
Then the so-called opioid crises hit.I remember the stories on the NBC News site.The Opioid Crises.The Heroin Crises.Day after day by turns for months.
The mainstream media had a full bore, five star meltdown.The nefarious monster Big Pharma.The dirty doctors over prescribing.The cavalier attitude to popping pain pills.The junkie horror.The abandoned babies."Think of the Children!"
Every trope in the journalistic book.
The reality is opiate over doses were happening.It is a tragedy.I don't blame the media for covering it.But they played it so damn hard.And I'm afraid they made it,and still do,look relatively uncomplicated.T H E opioid crises.It's pain pill prescriptions.It's 'drug seekers'.
But it's not that simple.
Now here's where it gets worse.The Government got involved.Politicians started screaming about it.Crack Down!!! We shall crack down,and stamp it out.
This is a long complicated story which is beyond me.But the CDC's reported numbers have been questioned.It's claimed they inflated the opiate deaths by listing multi-drug overdoses as opiate caused.They find opiates,benzodiazepines,cocaine,and alcohol in someone's system,and say it was the opioids.In truth it was the whole load of drugs.
(But who wants to admit that? Not a young man's parents.Not when they can blame an oxy tablet.)
The politicians were certain they knew the root cause.Big Pharma,and their dirty docs.Simple.Stop that.Crises resolved.The lawmakers and enforcers have saved the day like J. Edgar Hoover.But it isn't working.They did shut down some genuine 'pill mills'. There was criminal diversion.It's good that was addressed.
But the more they squeeze the hand full of sand,the more it runs through their fingers.
Why? Fentanyl.
(information on Fentanyl )
Illegal Chinese produced Fentanyl types.It's a nightmare.
Substances in this category are astoundingly powerful.A tiny amount can be transported,and distributed easily.It's practically unmanageable.Prince,and Tom Petty had both taken illegal fentanyl.
So controlling an old lady's pain pills won't fix that.But that's what they're doing.
They're passing massive bill packages against all opiates.Denying veterans,and medicare patients use of all narcotics.Force tapering,and forcing off.Force.
To get the blessed numbers down.To make it look like they're winning the score.But you can't because they've targeted the source that's easy to attack instead of the real supply of death.
They're shooting fish in a barrel.
They force the pharmaceutical companies to produce less opioids,including less morphine for cancer patients.The Feds have now driven the supply so low it's causing shortages in hospitals.
Federal,and State law enforcement are pressuring doctors to stop prescribing opiates.Driving pain clinics out of existence.Threatening,and charging doctors who write prescriptions for legitimate medical patients with devastating conditions.Many of whom have been stable on pain care for years.They're cracking down,and stomping and destroying people's lives.The lives of the injured,sick,elderly,diseased.They are treating weak people like a stat on the butcher's bill.The acceptable cost of controlling the pain pill crises.
Now most doctors frown,shake their head,and push miserable pain patients away.
I follow a number of people on Twitter,and read the Pain patient sites.It's heartbreaking.
I don't think I'm a terribly soft person on hard issues.But I have to feel for them.I'm angry,and hurt for them.They're being tortured for a problem that's beyond their responsibility.
I follow a very angry man who's mother is in bad shape.She's under medicated.But in the midst of his anger there is clarity, as well as blame.He may sound like he's ranting against the powers that be.But he nails the problem.Over weaning micromanaging from the government over what is essentially a health care issue.Monitoring patients,pill counting,suspicion, etc...
Treating patients like criminals.
And they can't prove themselves to be innocent,and deserving because taking the opiates in the first place makes them guilty.
They're treated like they want to get high.They want to feel good.To feel ok.To live a worthwhile life.
So they're drug seekers.
It's turned into an unfalsifiable.
They're being increasingly denied the effective drugs that make life bearable.Law enforcement busts another hapless doctor,and scatters his patients to the wind.No help.No recourse.Tough shit.
Some people are calling this a genocide.That's very melodramatic.But it stinks like the foul instinct to cull the herd of the old,weak,and sick.
Infirmicide.
Kill the cripples.
Sure as hell looks like it.
It's so easy for society to treat the severely disabled pain sufferers like lepers.Like the weak link in the chain of the opiate problem.If we could just get rid of them... we could control the addicts.
It's been pointed out that we are all an accident away from needing pain care.
Or old age,and illness.Give it time.If you're lucky,you'll get there.
One of my elderly relatives was told by her doctor that he "didn't have anything left in his tool chest." She was referred to a pain clinic.She has some medication for now.
Pain patients are in agony,and angry,and they should be.
This is grotesque.
It's not going to help the addicted either.They can always find the illegal supply.
Here is an interview with Dr Josh Bloom from Oct 2017 that explains the cost of punishing pain patients.
I really can't do this subject justice.But the information is getting out.
I'll keep being a supporter of severe pain patients.I can only hope the brutality of the politicians,bureaucrats,and law enforcement improves.
Where is the mainstream media on this?
Only lately starting to catch up.I'm afraid they're still mostly a part of the problem.
It's just too irresistible to show an old person's hand holding a prescription pain pill next to a bottle.
That's still the standard picture.
They're getting the picture wrong.That pill is likely counterfeit.
I'm getting to the point of expecting far too many important issues to be bungled.It's time for self correction,and rationality to gain ground.
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