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I was formerly diagnosed with Fibromyalgia for the first time in 1993, at age 11. This was after 3 years of attempting to figure out what was wrong. At that time, we were told it was a sleeping disease and my body just wasn’t recharging properly.
I had ups and downs throughout my life. I was even a cheerleader in high school, enlisted in the US Navy right after. I made it through boot camp. I remember pushing through worsening pain as the weeks went by. Because I couldn’t “walk right” at my first duty school I was sent to medical. I had 6 stress fractures in my shins. The pain wasn’t any worse than my normal, but because I had stress fractures, the doctor prescribed a low-dose opioid. That’s when I learned that pain meds (not OTC) actually helped the fibro pain. The two weeks I was on the meds I was able to sleep for hours without being woken up by the pain. I could walk up the stairs normally. But it was temporary, and I never dreamed to ask for pain meds routinely as that would be the end of my military career.
Unfortunately, a year in I found myself to be a victim of MST. Due to lack of communication/understanding, it resulted to be assigned to him as my partner for the next year. I developed mental health problems that, to this day, gets me told everything is just psychosomatic.
My health slowly deteriorated over the next 14 years. By 2012, everything I tried to get medical help was blamed on behavioral health or my weight. So to eliminate the weight “problem” I had weight loss surgery. Once I was down, for the first time doctors started to take me seriously.
I believe that the constant pain has messed with my mind. I began to lose work function because of it. In 2014, I was asked to retire. They told me, because I always looked to be in pain, I was making those around me uncomfortable. With several significant gaffes I made due to brain fog, I was retired.
After I lost my career, my doctor finally treated my pain with a pain medication (rather than meds for depression, seizure, etc). It worked. I was able to take ahold of my life. However, in the six years I’ve been on the same meds without increase, it doesn’t work as well anymore. Sadly, I have also put on a bit of weight too, which according to the manufacturer, reduces effectiveness. I also have longstanding side effects from previous medications (seizures).
Today I struggle with medication tolerance (which I have been told is a myth by other doctors), had specialists refuse to treat me because of my medication list, and be told that he can’t increase my meds because I’m at the top of the DEA allowance. Not to mention all the hoops I must jump through due to my pain contract. I am bedridden, and have had bathroom accidents because the pain is so severe on some days. I try to hide the pain as much as possible because I know it makes people uncomfortable.
When the CDC updated their guidelines, my doctor asked if I would be willing to reduce/eliminate the only one of my meds. At that time, I asked him to show me the studies that say opioids don’t help. He was shocked when he couldn’t find any.
My doctor is a good man and doctor. However, he has cited the CDC and DEA as reasons not to work with more pain meds, not his expert medical opinion. The DEA has no business in deciding my medical care.
I have had chronic pain since I was 12. I started having cysts on my ovaries. It continued into my twenties then I was diagnosed with endometriosis. I have tons of surgeries to ablate the web. Finally had a hysterectomy at 26. That was supposed to make everything better. It did for 3 years. Now I have migraines, fibromyalgia, and anxiety. I have had pain in my left rib cage for 6 months now. Spent months in and out of the hospital with no answers. This last visit I was left for 6 days without opioid management. It was what stopped the pain in the ER. I cried and cried. I actually had a nurse tell me to shut up because I was was disturbing other patients. I had a pain management team give me patches, creams and tylenol. I had discussed with them that nothing was helping. After I was discharged I got ahold of my records and was labeled a drug seeker and having such behaviors. They ran drug tests on me and all were negative. I’m still suffering and no one will help me. Pain management is overwhelmed in my area and don’t like to take on Medicaid patients. I’m so miserable, have 3 kids and just finished nursing school. But can not continue like this… so frustrated
I’ve been in pain since I was 9 years old and struggling with a disease that took another 17 years to diagnose. That was Hidradenitis Suppurativa. It’s considered to be one of the most painful and debilitating skin disease in the dermatology world, and often makes the top ten list of most painful in the world.
Since then I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, RA, Mascular Corneal Dystrophy, Raynauds, Psoriasis, PCOS, borderline Gastroparisis and I am currently being screened for CIDP. I also have CPTSD and untreatable depression. During my journey to find competent care I have found that I have several allergies that make treatment difficult. I can’t take any serotonin inhibitor medications due to multiple cases of serotonin syndrome, and no gaba receptor medications due to severe and potentially fatal side effects. I’ve had multiple surgeries and procedures to combat and manage my diseases – some helpful and others less so. I am also extremely sensitive to steroids and can only take them in very low dosages – almost not even beneficial for treatment. Opioid therapy seems to be the only treatment that has given me back some semblance of a life long lost and that my body hasn’t reacted to negatively. They believe the demyelination I’m currently experiencing is due to the biologic that has kept me in remission for the last few yrs from my HS.
We are a military family and often have to move. This always results in having to start my care over as there are no protections currently in place for a continuum of care for family members. We recently changed duty stations and here is where the problem started.
When we arrived I met with my new pain management doctor, if you can call him that. He told me I needed to be tapered as it was illegal to treat rheumatic pain with opioids in my new state, and that I needed PT and to see a rheumatologist. I didn’t fight him on this, I was compliant and did as he asked. I tried to get in with rheumatology and kept getting denied because of my allergy list … you can’t give me any of the commonly prescribed meds, so they always kick me back to pain management.
About two weeks into my taper my body went into shock from the rapid taper, and the stress of my body beginning to flare from all my diseases at the same time to the point that all my motor and neurological functions were running haywire. He prescribed me a taper medication that is usually used for blood pressure (mine is naturally low and it wasn’t really increased by the normal standard) it was high for me however. Within 20 minutes of this medication I passed out, and my husband ripped the patch off and watched me for the next 10 minutes, monitoring my vitals. I spoke with the doctor the next day and he told me all was fine, just only use it if my pressure exceeded the normal high. At the time I took it, I was at 150/99. Again sensitive to many meds.
At my next follow up I explained that things had gotten worse, I even experienced a flare in my HS that has been dormant for two years. I didn’t even at that point give up on the taper, I asked him if we could stabilize it for a week to give my body a break and then continue. He fired me as a patient that day and refused to prescribe anything more and told me to go back to rheumatology and my PCM. I did a walk-in the next day.
She said because I met with him that legally she couldn’t prescribe me any medication and suggested that I seek emergency care or a rehab center. I went to the ER and was refused care for opioids or withdrawal symptoms and was told to seek care from a rehab facility. I searched for a rehab and was denied twice because I was told that I was dependent, not an addict, and another because they didn’t do opioid detox, and yet another because they only treated people with mental health issues, and my CPTSD or depression didn’t count.
I ended up passed out in a VA hospital bathroom floor in their ER department. I was given an induction dose of withdrawal medication and referred to a detox center that would take me. I spent the next 11 days in a center medically detoxing, and was released with a diagnosis of opioid use disorder, and offered to stay on said medically managed treatment of that medication we cannot name.
For the next three months I suffered in debilitating pain while second opinion referrals were made to pain management. I haven’t been in that much pain in over five years, and contemplated ending my life several times during this period. My faith and husband saved me from making this choice. I was unable to walk, bathe, use the restroom or anything else during this time, and was denied palliative care. I thought I was dying.
In the course of all this I lost 52 pounds because I just couldn’t keep anything down from the pain I was in. I met with the new pain management doctor and had a very long talk with him about my allergies, history and all that had occurred in the last few months. He sat there in awe of my story, and as I talked to him he got increasingly upset and somewhat emotional about what he was hearing. He was the first person who was actually listening to me. He sent me home to get records and imaging required by my state’s guidelines, and on the next visit gave me about a third of the opioid therapy I was receiving before all this mess. It was all he could do legally for now.
Within this last week since receiving my meds I have been able to do Thanksgiving, get my kids ready for school, wash the clothes that had been piling up, make dinner on my own, and do the week’s shopping. I have gotten all the procedures, injections, had the weight loss surgery, done yoga, had years of cognitive behavioral therapy techniques, received acupuncture, did 8 months of chemo to reset my biologic medication, been through 5 rounds of physical therapy, been bed ridden for 3 years, fine septic twice, and practice mindfulness and meditation and prayer. None of that worked to manage my pain.
Opioid therapy has been the only thing to give me back my quality of life, and yoga like stretching has kept my mobility existent. Before all of this new CIDP and forced taper issues I was able to do CrossFit and train as a competitive weightlifter with the help of opioid therapy, on top of the demands of being a military spouse. Now I live in fear of getting cut off again, or building up tolerance and not being able to increase my dose, in a system that would deploy my spouse to fight a war while leaving me behind, bed ridden and with no home health care, or possibly ending his career because of being unable to do his job because of the level of care I need, and leave us without any healthcare at all. All because of a fake opioid crisis and refused prescription medications that were literally created for hard to treat patients like myself.
For the past 18+ years, I have been dealing with debilitating migraines, at least 2 per week. I have been on every medication to try and treat them and the only thing that works for approximately 6 weeks is Botox. I get a round of injections every 12 weeks. Even the neurologist PA who administers it comments on how tight the muscles are in my neck.
In 2014, I graduated nursing school and have been a registered nurse since. In 2015, I injured my back and herniated discs in my lumbar spine while providing care to a morbidly obese patient. Since then, I have had everything short of surgery done to manage the severe pain. I have been in pain management since then and for the past month, my doctor has been writing my prescription for less and less quantities without giving me any explanation. I have been 100% compliant with all of her requests, getting my medical records, urine screens, etc. I have never had a problem with pain medication. I take it as prescribed and it allows me to live a somewhat normal life instead of being bed ridden.
I have degenerative disc disease in my cervical and lumbar spine, with herniations in discs in both areas. It is now to the point where when I show up for my appointment, she no longer examines me but rather, writes the script with less quantity than the previous visit, walks it out to the front desk, they hand it to me and I leave, without even being seen or having the chance to talk to her. Yet … I’m still paying the same amount of money out of pocket to see her, without even seeing her. My last appointment was yesterday and the same thing happened. I ended up having a conversation with her about my upcoming epidural and my increasing pain in the waiting area surrounded by a half dozen people. So much for HIPAA.
I was stable on my medication and this unexplained decrease is really upsetting me because for the first time in a long time, I finally had my chronic pain managed. I want answers but she won’t even give me the time of day or a proper physical assessment. I am so sick of these games and people thinking chronic pain is a joke just because it’s an invisible illness. This has me feeling depleted and overwhelmed, wondering what I did for her to just decrease my medication without giving me any explanation.
I’ve had multiple surgeries after an injury and been on pain meds ever since. I would be bed-ridden without medication. Now, I’ve been stretching out my dwindling supply of medication for three months since the pharmacy said my medication is not available. I’m not able to get around except to struggle to get to the bathroom. I saw these questions somewhere and I think they are worth asking because something terrible is happening to pain patients and we need help. Here are some questions one should be asking.
Why are legitimate pain patients not being excluded from the so-called war on drugs? Why is the DEA and the State Medical Boards concerned about drug addicts going without even to the point of allowing city governments to create programs that deliver the drugs of their choice to them?
Why did Senators order continual reductions of opioid drug manufacturing to the point of causing supply shortages?
Why do these same Senators not want closed borders to help control illegal drug smuggling?
Why did the government create a program that pays doctors to force their pain patients to accept the extremely addictive Suboxone (buprenorphine) along with expensive and harmful epidural injections that replaces the patient’s usual medication?
Why is the government ignoring and even denying the deaths of pain patients caused by ending access to medication?
I am so grateful to find this organization. It’s time we all stand together to help each other fight for our rights as chronic pain sufferers.
Denying successful treatment to chronic pain patients who have a laundry list of incurable illnesses isn’t smart or preventive. It’s murder. One way or another, they will self-medicate or commit suicide. What kind of world do we live in where these are our only options. Pure negligence and malpractice.
Hi, my name is Autumn. I was hit by a semi truck about 13 years ago. I had no issues until that day. Fast forward now I have 3 kids and living in Cape Cod Massachusetts because my husband is in the service. I am in constant debilitating pain and I have to try and care for everyone else. I’ve seen so many doctors, but because of the new laws etc, especially here in Massachusetts I cannot find anyone willing to prescribe to me. I feel so depressed and hopeless.
My husband did two tours in Viet Nam and 23 years as a police officer. He has had back surgery, laminectomy L-1 through S-1, he has had cancer of the jejeum, right and left ablations, which did nothing for him, and he is in continuous pain. He was given a patch while he was in the hospital for cancer, and was on it with other opioids for a very long time. Unfortunately, his system was using a three day patch in 1 and 1/2 days. His pain doctor told him he would become used to it and it was not a big deal. In he meantime, he had suffered a heart attack, and this doctor wanted him to go through withdrawals every day and a half. His meds have been cut back and he is suffering like no person should. He is dependent on these drugs and is not abusing them, of course he is addicted, after 20 years of being on them anyone would be addicted.
He is going to be 77 this year and what is the difference if his meds are increased at this point? I would LOVE for him to have a Quality of Life, for however many days or years he has. It is a real shame that he cannot be increased. His pain doctor agrees, but his hands are tied. I have written to the President, the FDA, the CDC, congressmen and senators and have gotten nothing but a hand job stating that is my state’s maximum that he can write for.
What kind of a country is this? One size DOES NOT FIT ALL. Everyone is different and this is NOT being taken into consideration, with all this opioid abuse. It’s us older people and people that have real pain that are not being taken seriously. Something must be done to help people like my husband. We are not all junkies looking to get high or over, just people that are looking to have some kind of life.
I am 58 years young. I feel like I am 95 years old, and on the rare occasion when I am able to walk, I look like a decrepit old man hunched over and barely able to move. I had been active my entire life, weight lifting, running, jogging, swimming, biking, hiking, etc. Now, I am barely able to walk, sit, stand or move without excruciating pain and hundreds of volts of electricity going through my body. It’s not the worst I have heard of, but we each suffer our own hell, right?
Car accidents, work related injuries and genetics have all lent themselves to what has evolved over the years into two neck surgeries, one back surgery (three levels), knee surgery and foot surgery, which has left me unable to function anywhere near the way I once did, and suffering horrible bouts of chronic pain, which at times gets so bad I simply want to turn out the lights. In the past five years I have not slept any longer than 1 hour 20 minutes at a time, at which time I must try to sit on the edge of my bed for an hour until I feebly attempt to sleep once again… only to get maybe another hour of “twilight sleep”. You know, kind of like that moment when you are still conscious, but barely asleep? I can hear myself whimpering and crying from the pain.
I have tried all of the alternatives the so-called “pain doctors” claim to believe will work much better than the opioids will. What a joke!
When my “pain doctor” first told me that I needed to begin a detox from the opioids I had been taking for years, and the withdrawal symptoms began to be too much, he actually told me to take a cold shower and eat some chicken noodle soup. LOL… So, before I chose murder/suicide, I chose to go to the local methadone clinic which had saved my life, IMO… I know, no drugs… So, with that I’m finished…
A list of the non-narcotic treatments for the pain I suffer from… Surgeries – the results made me worse… Scores of shots in my neck and back… I will say that one shot I had in my back gave me wonderful relief for about ten years… Since then, no doctor has been able to hit the same spot, or in any way match those results. TENS unit – it gave me some relief, but upon turning off the unit, immediately put me right back in the same way. Literally 30 to 40 various non-narcotic pain relievers, none of which really worked. For the most part, most of them gave me horrible side effects, some of which I refuse to ever take again… Frankly, I’d rather suffer the pain. Accupuncture – nothing. Various forms of light yoga – nothing, sometimes caused more pain. Positive mental reinforcement – what do you think? Aqua therapy – wonderfully relaxing. Worked wonders while in the water. The combination of the heat and lowering the level of gravity was wonderful, but insurance would only cover ten visits. Then Covid-19 hit and the pool closed… Physical therapy – most of my pain is the result of an affected nerve in my neck, which is non-detectable through x-ray or MRI, so says the doctors… So, treating muscle spasms is futile… And, a variety of other mind over matter training – another case of – what do you think?
So, I am left to suffer. No doctor will give me even one lousy Vicodin, for what that might be worth. I feel like I am the only person that suffers from such agony. Obviously, that is certainly not the case.
So, in the meantime, we all sit here and suffer based on some “misinterpreted guidelines” the medical community has unwittingly misunderstood and turned into a living nightmare. These are men and women who for the most part have NEVER experienced anything remotely close to what we all suffer from, and therefore have absolutely no idea as to the real-world misery we all live with. Frankly, I have a huge problem putting much stock into someone that insists upon preaching to me some literal BS that he/she has only read about in some CDC handout!
Now, I don’t know if I actually blame the doctors or if I blame the entities that employ them. Most doctors these days work for a big medical center and are only puppets who do as they are told, and chances are even better that what they have been told to do even goes against their own better judgment! Still, they continue to refuse to help treat their patients with proven and effective medications that have for decades given chronic pain sufferers real relief! IMO, for a doctor to refuse to prescribe an effective treatment is just shy of malpractice, and certainly goes directly against the doctors’ Hippocratic Oath. I have literally been told by the nurses at the pain clinic I have gone to, that the doctors there simply “refuse to prescribe opioid pain relievers to ANY PATIENT, EVER!” This is a pain clinic! What a f*****g joke!
So, what to do? I am so miserable every moment of every day! My doctor has told me to take Motrin. She knows that my liver is in bad shape (I was treated for Hep C in 2001 with Interferon, successfully), but my liver enzymes have risen over the past several months that I have been taking the prescribed Motrin. I have no choice. Without it, I am in so much pain I would rather die!
Don’t even try to argue your point with your doctor; suddenly you are a drug seeker and all credibility has been shot! Frankly, I am sick of the whole ordeal…
I have broken Harrington rods in my back. I was a passenger in a car wreck 43 years ago that broke my back.
It was 1977 and there were no laws to make you wear seatbelts back then. But because she was a new driver I jokingly put my seatbelt on. The ambulance driver said if I didn’t have that seatbelt on, my head would have gone through the windshield and my head would have hit a tree because of the way we hit. He said I had angels around me.
But it’s 43 years later and I wonder where those angels have been lately? Especially since the opioid crisis.
I’ve literally had pain every day since that wreck. But 23 years ago I noticed the pain was different and much worse. I thought I had just done too much, or was having a bad day. Cut to two months later when my husband found me mopping the floor and crying. I told him of my back pain and he took me to urgent care.
The doctor was shocked. It looked like the Harrington rods and nuts/bolts had just been thrown around in my back. The rods had broken away from their original placement. After getting four second opinions, surgeons said surgery would leave me in worse shape because nerves and scar tissue had grown around the hardware.
One of the best (supposedly) surgeons said he would basically have to dig through bone to get foreign objects out of my body.
But I’ll NEVER EVER forget the first day I had the fentanyl patch on 21 years ago. Four to six hours after application I was out to dinner with a relative. When I saw the chairs we would be sitting in were wood, I got aggravated. I knew my already painful back and buttocks would be super duper sore because of no cushioning on the seat.
About thirty minutes into the meal, I started to cry! My cousin asked what was wrong? You see… I never cry much.
I was sobbing because I realized my back DIDN’T hurt for the first time since I was 16 and before the wreck happened!
I’ll never forget the ride home. I wanted to roll the window down and yell to other cars and people on the streets, “My back doesn’t hurt as bad!” And I’m not kidding nor exaggerating!
Cut to about three years ago in 2017 when my pain doctor of ten years told me he was going to wean me off the fentanyl patch because he thinks eventually they were going to make fentanyl available only after surgeries.
I NEVER failed a urine test, nor a random patch count. But because some people abuse drugs AND apparently the FDA and our government doesn’t realize the difference between fentanyl from China and the fentanyl from CVS … my pain is NEVER lower than a 6. And that’s a good day!
I wish you could see a pictur of me before I was taken off the patch and a few months off the patch. I aged ten years! And you don’t have to be a doctor to look at me and realize I’m in pain.
And in my back x-ray you can literally see the metal hardware strewn around my spine. Nuts/bolts laying admist my central nervous system. And the medical field doesn’t think/realize I need anything to help me tolerate the pain? Are you kidding?
I just can’t imagine what people that have injuries you CAN’T see in an x-ray or MRI go through. Because I was called a drug seeker in December of 2018 AFTER I had been in a coma at Mercy West Hospital in Cincinnati Ohio for four to five weeks… I’d been laying in one of those “plush” hospital beds all that time and when I had finally “come around” I had asked twice for my pain meds in a three-hour time frame.
I just thought they forgot about me. A nurse’s aide said to me in a VERY nasty humiliating manner, “LADY!!! If you ask for pain meds once again we’re going to HAVE TO label you a drug seeker! We are running on a short staff tonight!”
I should have asked if I only would be charged half price since the hospital wasn’t able to take full care of me…
Plus… if you only knew how much I hate illicit drugs… and the reason why… you’d better understand why I DESPISE even needing to be on narcotics, and now I’ve had to go on medical marijuana because I’ll literally do ANYTHING just to have a TOLERABLE pain level.
I’ve learned I’ll never be pain free.
Here I am 60 years old and the drugs I stayed away from my entire life I have to be on just to thrive through another day…
And I promise if it wasn’t for my strong religious beliefs and the fact my husband has tried so hard to keep me alive, I prbly would do suicide.
But for now, I just pray every single night that God doesn’t make me wake up tomorrow.
How could this be changed?
I don’t know but I would love to be put back on the fentanyl patch. Maybe even that won’t help after all these years of going to bed knowing I won’t feel better tomorrow… has finally taken it’s toll on me.
I know this for sure… I have absolutely no hope for my future. I have nothing to look forward to because I’m 60… I’m only going to get worse… and probably so are the opioid crisis rules.
The only thing that I have to live for is to see my only grandson graduate and go into the Air Force. He’s wanted to do this since he was three or four. BUT… I probably won’t even be able to attend the graduation.
I have to think (and worry) about the ride there and what if my husband hits a pothole which increases my pain. I have to think about how many possibly slippery steps will be in the auditorium. What if my pain skyrockets and I have to throw up? Or have a seizure. Because both have happened MANY times. The medical field seldom believes me when I tell them I get seizures from pain.
I’ve started to cry as I write this.
Mostly because I feel like I just probably wasted another hour of my pitiful life. Because I’m an idiot for thinking anyone who could help me… will.
Not many people have in the 43 years I’ve had chronic pain. But if you even made it to this point… thank you. And I’m pretty much open to ANY suggestions.
We found out, by mail, Friday, that our long-time physician has unexpectedly taken a leave of absence. Since he is very close to our age (60’s), we do not expect him to come back from that leave. This is extremely upsetting, because he understood my husband’s pain (hit by a truck at 15, blew out his hip, knee and ankle. Extreme pain that makes even washing the dishes impossible). My own pain is from not one, but two shoulders that have no cartilage, bone upon bone and extremely limited mobility. And no physician wants to provide prescriptions anymore.
What the loss of our physician will do, is make it impossible for either of us to get through a day. It will mean we will have to sell our nine-acre property and probably move into a condo. It will totally change our lives.
We have never gotten “high” or any particular pleasure from the medication that we take. What it has given us is a quality of life that reduced the extreme pain to manageable limits.
I went to OHSU because I thought that having one ‘location’ managing my health might be a good thing. The physician I saw IMMEDIATELY made this statement: We need to get you off the medication. She had met with me for ten minutes. She had no idea that I had previously been working a job where eight hours a day I was moving very heavy dollies of product, where I was lifting cases of milk that weighed over 80 pounds, and only because I was able to mask the pain.
The mere mention of pain medication and they want us to see a ‘pain clinic’. We have done that three times, always the answer is … meditation, PT, yoga, aspirin… never anything useful or sustainable.
I was injured at work. For two years my doctor blew me off and labeled me a seeker. I finally convinced him after a very heated argument to do a discogram on my back. I had a severe Annular tear, and some less severe symptoms with my other disc. I had fluid leaking into my spinal nerves, which explained a lot of the reasons for my pain and weird symptoms. I had an Alif/Plif spinal fusion done. I have a plate and four screws to keep my new bone graft in place. I wasn’t even in the hospital for 24 hours before I was discharged. The nurse told me to take a muscle relaxer, that my pain couldn’t be that bad. I’ve tried discussing my pain management with my doctor, but he threatened to hang up on me and told me his terms were not negotiable. I’m two months post-op. They’ve started tapering my medications to the point of it being a joke. I’m now on Percocet and Flexeril every 8 hours and he just cut my Gabapentin dosage in half yesterday. I’ve discussed my nerve pain with him and I really think he did it out of spite, because I was “arguing“ and advocating for myself. I cried so hard yesterday and still am, as I type this. I can’t take the pain, I have kids and in no way am I a functioning adult. I’m in bed most of the time, every time I try to do something normal, a simple task, I’m not able to. It’s devastating to lose your life then have someone decide your pain doesn’t matter. I’ve thought of giving up, what’s the value of life if you can’t live one? My doctor said he would suggest a pain management clinic if that would make me happy. I don’t even know what to expect from them. I’ve never had to deal with this before. Is it a good thing or will I be in the same boat, drowning? I’m so devastated by his lack of empathy, I thought I could trust him to take care of me. Now that he’s made his money from my surgery it seems like I’m just someone to push out the door to get the next person in. Why do doctors lack empathy? You can see I’m hurting, you literally know what’s wrong with me, that it’s not phantom symptoms. So why be so cruel and let me suffer?
I have been on an effective, responsible pain med prescription for 10 years and accepted the dependence rather than suffer with Siatica. I’m a 63 year old heavy equipment operator with a vigorous job for the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Now because of these powerful, ignorant, greedy morons, I was cut off abruptly, then finally put on an insufficient low dose of medication. The catch is I cannot risk having an operation because if they end up causing me more pain, they’re going to cite the CDC and DEA asshole’s limits and say sorry for the inconvenience! And I always asked myself, How is making me suffer daily helping a supposed opioid crisis? It is purely driven by lazy, ignorant government agencies who actually think they’re making a difference, despite evidence that they’ve done nothing but cause harm to the Americans that employ them. We’ve given these morons unchecked power to make much too important decisions. And don’t politicize this truth. We truly need to get real, intelligent doctors in charge, not these government baboons. I’m talking people like Josh Bloom. The people and their advisors in power now are purely motivated by money and prejudice against meds and pharmacy and have set modern medicine back into the dark ages, causing pain and suffering needlessly.
I am 60 years old. I have been on my pain medications most of my life. One day I was told they could not prescribe pain medication anymore, that I needed to see a pain management doctor. That was a disaster because at the appointment you were questioned, belittled and treated like a seeker/addict. If you made it through that without crying or getting mad then you could have two weeks’ worth of medicine. I believe that was your reward for tolerating their rudeness.
So I am currently only taking one medication for pain. I have been diagnosed with MS, hip fracture, sciatica, severe osteoarthritis from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet, a very painful foot that has become infused because of doctors’ neglect. They kept telling me for a year my foot was not broken. Come to find out with an MRI it was, but healed and infused causing no movement in my foot, severe gastroparesis that caused me to have a JG tube that I will be on for the rest of my life and is very painful. The stomach acid eats your skin up. Spinal stenosis, bulging disk in my neck and lower back and cyst on my brain that is still there to this day.
In 2001 I was hurt at work; got my left hand caught in a machine where I needed immediate surgery to put my hand back together. After all these years I’ve been on pain meds, now they cut my dose to 5 and that’s all they’ll give me. They try any injections but I’m allergic to it so now I’m a “problem patient”.
As a retired RN, I have dealt with pain and opioid relief of it as both a caregiver and as a patient. I first came into contact with the US legal system way back when I was 16, and when I went with two high school friends down to Mexico simply out of a desire to see what another country looked like. Little did I know, until we were stopped going back into the US, that the owner of the car had stashed pot in it way back upon when we first set out from Dallas. Luckily for me, the Border Patrol people realized I was telling the truth about the numbskulls I was travelling with, and what they had done. I was released as they continued to process my two companions for possibly being drug traffickers.
During my career as a practicing RN, I routinely distributed narcotics to my patients, monitoring them, and often informing doctors when the medication dosage was not sufficient or when there was blatant individual recreational use of it, as opposed to use for medical reasons. After all I was with these patients much more than the doctors were. I was able to observe and learn, and did so.
These days though, I now confront doctors as a patient in an uncaring medical system that has allowed its practitioners to function more as drug war cops than as though they were compassionate fellow human beings concerned with the welfare of the people they are charged with providing medical care to. Medical practitioner after medical practitioner now turns their collective backs on me and other patients, when all we want is for them to practice good and reasonable medicine and nursing care, which is to provide relief from needless and toxic pain to the elderly and sick.
I will stop here other than to mention that this is a worldwide problem we face, and not just one confined to US national boundaries. Worldwide, literally billions of people are now being denied when it is needed, adequate analgesia that works, all this due to prohibitionist conservative religious institutions, rigid authoritarian governments, and the policing organizations that get funded for their drug war measures of arresting, jailing, and convicting drug users whose lives and families are most often torn up.
I favor all efforts to legally move forward by publicizing the problem to those who are most usually propagandized to use repression against those they often condemn as supposedly being ‘Others’. The best way to do this is to initiate malpractice lawsuits against the political and policing regulators, the cowardly medical practitioners who refuse to practice good medicine, and all those other people who spread false disinformation about those who look for obtaining pain relief when needed. If I and others go to a doctor and they refuse to offer us adequate treatment for our medically related pain, then let them be sued in court en masse. That should be their just reward for their criminal disregard of those in need: prosecution and large fines. I suggest suing the CDC (the US government) first of all, since under reactionary political direction they have been currently botching medical care in multiple ways and with multiple medical issues.
Please send me info about all legal efforts to sue those who block our access to getting adequate analgesia. And PLEASE help start a movement to protest the CDC. They do not promote science based medicine at all.
I have been on pain management for almost 18 years. I have severe osteoarthritis, degenerative disc disease, degenerative joint disease, spondylolisthesis (from several fractured vertebrae that went unnoticed), bulging and ruptured discs in my cervical and lumbar spine. I also have an umbilical hernia that pops out causing me pain as well as poly cystic ovarian disease and uterine fibroids (all secondary to the other issues). I’ve had a botched hip replacement and need the other hip and left knee replaced.
In 2016 my doctor began titrating my medication at every monthly visit. I didn’t argue but was apprehensive. When I asked her questions about alternatives and how to cope with the pain she started using terms like ‘opiate use disorder’, psychological pain from trauma, and accused me of being uncooperative. I couldn’t believe it! I had been seeing this medical provider every 28 days for nearly 20 years, she knew me, my condition, and that I had always been a model patient, followed all medical advice, with no addiction or criminal history, never failed a drug test or doctor shopped, or visited the ER, yet I was being treated like a drug seeker. Eventually my medication was cut to 20 mg a day. I’ve tried everything from acupuncture to eye movement therapy to Radio Frequency Ablation.
Since then my physical health has degraded dramatically. I’ve gained nearly 50 pounds, my blood pressure, heart rate, and blood sugar levels have dramatically increased. My joints have dramatically degraded, my hair is falling out, my teeth are worn down and breaking from clenching and grinding unknowingly. I’ve aged twenty years in the last five. In the last six weeks I’ve fallen three times because I am so locked up with pain.
A year ago I was finally able to see a pain doctor who prescribed low doses of opiate medication after a bupinorphine drug made me deathly ill and several attempts at radio frequency ablation failed. When I tell him my pain is still unbearable he suggests that maybe I should just use Tylenol and Ibuprofen alone, because opiates have probably been the cause for my pain in the long run. Message received: grin and bear it, suck it up and shut up, be grateful for what you get because you might end up getting nothing. Which brings me to my next point: if I risk losing what I get now how bad would it be if I actually had enough medication to manage the pain and lost it?
I’m tired of the pain, sick of the shame, and afraid to complain. The future for people in pain is bleak. Alternative therapies are insufficient and not covered by insurance. The stigma of pain and bias against opiates is demoralizing, unfair and difficult to accept. The bureaucrats are punishing the people most vulnerable, forcing them to suffer, stealing the life force from people who still want to contribute to the world. The worst part is they’ve done nothing to fix the problem that caused the addiction and overdose crisis, they’ve only created another crisis.
This has to stop! Human nature dictates an imperative to survive and escape torture, laws and guidelines won’t change that, they will only drive people to seek and create other avenues to relieve it outside the law.
My story: just know four PM docs since 2016 have ruined my reputation, you can not charge them, no doctors will admit or testify against the other. Never tried to help me, knew I could not take any more dextromethazone injections, led to adrenal disease. But that’s where they make their money honey. I am not considered because not profitable for them.
Past 20 years diagnosed with IPD. Though getting appropriate extended release opioid (never increased) kept getting injections hoping I could be normal again. Never worked.
THE OPIOID PROBLEM
I’ve been on prescribed opioid/opiates (“opiates” are derived from organic substances, whereas “opioids” are synthetic, man-made chemicals that have similar properties / the terms are commonly used interchangably and I will do so here) to treat chronic pain for decades. During this period I have been prescribed almost every form of painkiller known to man. Pain management doctors all require a signed “Opioid Contract” wherein patients promise to comply with their treatment directives and not abuse, divert, or hoard the prescribed substances or use other drugs and/or alcohol. Non-compliance will result in termination of treatment. Most doctors told me they had a “zero tolerance” policy for violation, meaning that you will be cut off for minor reasons like drinking beer or using medical marijuana.
Only a few doctors I have treated with, of rare competence and understanding, recognized that a patient could benefit from medical marijuana and in fact reduce the amount of opioid use thereby. Unfortunately, 95% of pain management doctors will not treat medical marijuana users at all. They say that “there is no scientific proof that marijuana relieves pain”. Really? What about the testimonials of millions of Americans and the findings of the Arizona Department of Health (and the health departments of 31 American states). Even the federal courts have acknowledged that marijuana can “alleviate excruciating pain”. Raich v. Gonzales (9th Cir. 2007). If the patient believes that marijuana relieves their pain what is the harm? There is not a single case of a fatal overdose from marijuana use, even when used with opioids. When it comes to marijuana most doctors close their minds and increase the opiate dose.
When I first began using prescribed opioids the doctors handed out prescriptions for these substances as though they were handing out candy to children on Halloween. At one point I was receiving huge doses of morphine, along with sleep aids (Ambian) and sedatives (Valium). Dependence/addiction was almost never discussed. Now, because of the fear engendered by the opioid crisis it is extremely difficult for those patients who need these drugs for real pain to get treatment. Those who do are treated with suspicion and subject to monitoring similar to a criminal offender on probation, including urinalysis testing. The patient’s words are no longer trusted regardless of their history of compliance.
I have always complied and have never abused the substances prescribed. Contrary to what many believe, most chronic pain patients responsibly use prescribed opioids and their quality of life is greatly improved by them. The vast majority of overdoses do not involve those who use prescribed opoids for treatment.
Opiates have been used to treat pain for over 150 years. They are addictive substances which produce euphoria in most, but not all, users and are subject to abuse. Any competent doctor knows this. They have known this at least since morphine appeared on the shelves of drug stores in America over a century ago. We now hear doctors claiming that the drug companies somehow fooled them into believing that synthetic opioids, which have essentially the same chemical structure as opiates, were non-addictive, and that they were ineffective doctors for not prescribing them freely to combat their patients’ pain. They blame the drug companies for their own malpractice.
Everything seemed fine until former patients began overdosing and dying in huge numbers. Doctors became frightened and concerned about malpractice and began cutting off the prescriptions and terminating treatment altogether, knowing that withdrawal would follow. This is the day that all chronic pain patients fear the most – the day they are cut off. Opioid withdrawal is a horrible thing. I have seen it many times in family members and others during the past decades. It can only be described as the worst sickness one could ever experience. The doctors, however, didn’t seem to care what happened to their former patients because they were no longer the doctors’ responsibility. That’s exactly what caused the opioid crisis.
The snowball began rolling down the hill and the problem grew. More and more opioid-dependent patients were being “cut off” from treatment and left with nothing but “dope sickness”. They then turn to street drugs, opioids diverted from the medical system and/or heroin, which is readily available and relatively cheap. The vast majority of opioid overdose deaths are those of former patients who began with a legitimate doctor’s prescription. The equation is simple: Doctor (over)prescribes opioids to patient + doctor terminates treatment + patient suffers withdrawal + patient seeks drugs on street to combat withdrawal = patient dies from overdose, goes to prison and/or loses everything. Unfortunately, the medical profession could not “do the math”.
I place responsibility for the opioid crisis directly with the medical profession. It is a doctor’s job to treat patients, particularly when the patient has been put in a vulnerable position by their “treatment”. To simply cut off an opioid dependent/addicted (doctors make a distinction between “dependence” and “addiction” which is really one of semantics only) patient without also treating their dependence is absolutely absurd and irresponsible and, in my opinion, malpractice (the lawyers say it’s not malpractice if most doctors do it, as this establishes a “standard of care”). The treatment needs to be immediate and thorough. There are a variety of ways to do this, however, doctors have the problem of being too specialized. The practitioners who prescribed opiates/opioids say they are not addiction specialists and that is the responsibility of another specialist. They send the patient out of the office with a name and phone number of another doctor who may not be available for weeks, during which time the patient will suffer. All that claim results in is dead former patients.
Pain management doctors should never have a “zero tolerance” policy with regard to compliance with their Opioid Contracts and, when they see a problem with abuse, help the patient to resolve it by slowly reducing doses and, as a last resort arrange appropriate immediate interventional treatment. All chronic pain long-term opioid patients should be prescribed the drug Naloxone and their families counseled on when and how to use it. Naloxone immediately stops the effect of opioids and saves lives in the event of overdose. If nothing more, it lets patients and family know the seriousness of the opioid treatment regimen. Finally, doctors should keep an open mind when it comes to medical marijuana as an alternative, or partial alternative to opioids for pain relief.
As a final comment, something needs to be said about opioid addiction treatment. Heroin was once touted by drug companies as a cure for morphine addiction. Then methadone was a drug for treatment of heroin addiction. Now buprephenorphine is being prescribed for opioid addiction. All of these drugs are subject to abuse and can be bought on the “street”. Buprenorphine is an opioid that is 30 times more potent than morphine. Giving people another substitute opiate to “cure” opioid addiction doesn’t make sense to me. People are just dependent on another drug. Heaven help them if they are ever “cut off”. The goal should be to slowly reduce dosages until they are free of the dependency. That is the only way to stop the snowball from rolling.
I hope that doctors will open their minds and understanding of these issues as they are so important to those of us who suffer daily from pain. There are good doctors out there but they are rare.
Anonymous
On March 8th and 15th I had a radio-frequency ablation procedure on the nerves on either side of my right and left lumbar spine, respectively. The procedure was done at OrthoIndy Hospital South (OIHS), located in Greenwood, IN, without proper sedation or pain management. Each time, I was given only four milligrams of I.V. Versed (midazolam) and was injected with small amounts of lidocaine (in my lower back) as a local anesthetic prior to having my spinal nerves burned off. I was then given an ice pack and told to take Tylenol at home. It was awful and extremely painful.
I was told that I would experience “twilight conscious sedation,” which was a falsehood. When I had to have a celiac plexus nerve block years ago (before pain was being punished as it is now) at a different practice, I was given I.V. doses of Versed AND Sublimaze (fentanyl) for true twilight conscious sedation (along with lidocaine as a local anesthetic). I didn’t remember the procedure, nor was I in any intense pain during or after the procedure. I’ve also had endoscopies requiring twilight conscious sedation that utilized Versed and Demerol (meperidine) each time.
For some reason, OIHS thinks that making a patient comfortable for a very painful procedure just isn’t appropriate. That’s despite the reality that there is no way for medications necessary for true twilight conscious sedation to be abused, either, as they’re being administered by professional medical staff in a highly supervised setting. And with Tylenol, my post-procedure pain was 7 to 8 out of 10 for a minimum of 18 hours within the first day. #DontPunishPain
Hello, I suffer from CRPS, pudendal neuralgia and interstitial cystitis at 24 years old. My doctors won’t allow me any pain meds. My doctor actually even took me off Gabapentin because she didn’t want a 24 year old on pain meds for invisible pain. A woman in my Facebook support group took her life because she couldn’t get pain meds, and everyone in our group could relate to her pain and suicide ideation from not having pain meds. Do you know a doctor in the Philadelphia area who would manage my pain? I’m willing to travel.
I’ve been a chronic pain patient for a very long time. I have bulging discs in my Lumbar and cervical area, osteoarthritis, degenerative disc disease, sciatica, meniscus pain in both knees that makes it hard for me to walk, and geographic tongue which is a very painful at times autoimmune disorder of the mouth. But I still manage to go to work. I’ve been driving a forklift for almost four years. Before that I was a nurse’s aid for 22 years … that I can no longer do because my pain is not managed. It’s getting to the point where I am not going to be able to drive a forklift any longer. The doctor I am seeing for my knees wants me to find something else to do. But my primary care doctor and my knee surgeon will not say I’m disabled. With as bad as my pain is, I think I’m disabled already.
I really am suffering, but I do not tell pain management how bad I’m suffering. I take the medicine they give me because I’m afraid if I tell them my pain is worse than what I tell them, then they’ll act like I’m drug-seeking for more drugs, and then they will just take what I am getting away. What I’m getting doesn’t control my pain adequately but it does make it almost manageable enough that I can go to work, but by the time I get home all I want to do is cry. I just want to be able to have somewhat a normal life. I know I will never be totally pain-free, but I would love to have my pain controlled enough that I could do the simple things in life without crying out in pain every time I stand up. And I’m tired of doctors and Pain Management acting like the goal is to make your pain tolerable but not to make it go away, when they’re the ones telling you what is tolerable. Why is pain management deciding when my pain is tolerable? I should be the one doing that.
I have congenital disk disease, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, and nerve damage in my left leg. I have been safely taking pain meds for over 20 years. I have followed all the rules outlined by my doctor. Now due to the war on opioids my doctor of 30 years is afraid to continue with my prescriptions and wants me to taper off and quit taking the only thing that helps my pain and allows me to have some semblance of a normal life. The only alternative for me will be to find something off the street at great risk or live on my sofa in constant pain or decide life is not worth living at all. I am 70 years old. I do not care if I am addicted, all I care about is having a life without the constant pain. If you have the name of a doctor in PA who could help me and understand and be able to help me keep my quality of life please help me
I have psoriatic arthritis and degenerative disc disease. I live in Arkansas. I was diagnosed in 2006. My rheumatologist steadily increased my dosage over the years. And when the new CDC guidelines came along I was drastically tapered, and to make things worse my rheumy completely got out of pain management. So now I was at the mercy of pain clinics in the midst of this war against pain patients! They initially began to cut my dosage drastically. Which caused a huge spike in my blood pressure due to the onset of pain. The clinic then increased me but they refused to go past the CDC guidelines. Every single visit I explained that I needed more. Until just recently when they decided to fire me. Citing that they couldn’t fulfill my expectations!!! So now I am completely lost. I am a single father, been raising my daughter since she was 7. I have been disabled since 2006 when I had to give up a company I had to work hard for years to build, due to this disease. I don’t know what to do. I have lost all hope. I tried for months to get into a clinic out of state. Only to finally get there and be told that they don’t prescribe. Even though the nurses informed me that they did and that my med levels were too low for my condition. The doctor there offered me a referral and it’s been two weeks!!! To add insult to injury I was fired from my current clinic just for requesting an increase!!! All hope is lost. I am doomed. I am in hell. If anyone knows of a pain doctor who can help me. One that is compassionate. Plz help. I am willing to drive.
Hello to all.
In 2005 I had a prothesic disc replacement at L5-S1. The surgery was done anteriorly. The surgery was not successful and the doctor that performed my surgery is on administrative leave because of cocaine and alcohol being found in his system. I do not, and cannot, find ANY information regarding this. The conglomerate of doctors at this center did have my pain managed, which took some time to get the dosage correct. I was living some semblance of a “normal” life without crushing pain. That ended in 2016 and I have been suffering since. No doctor, and I’ve seen a plethora, will actually TREAT my pain level, reducing me to a point where it is nearly impossible some days to even get out of bed. I was informed by my last pain management doctor that I needed to get a letter from the Governor in order for him to adjust my medicine. I began the task of producing this letter. After about two months of me contacting through the appropriate channels, I received an email and a phone call. They sent me a letter from the Department of Health, Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, stating that I was to be given the proper dosage of medicine. This letter was, in my mind, very positive. I thought I’d soon be getting some relief. My doctor told me that the letter didn’t mean ANYTHING to him. I asked him why, if this is what he wanted, and was met with animosity. I was discharged from his practice the following month. I have been trying to find a new doctor, but have been met with NO’s. They either will not take me on, or they say they will not dispense medicine, even at the lower dosage he was giving me. I could go on and on. I feel like I am a criminal, that’s how I’m treated at most doctors, and also by the pharmacies. I feel like there’s no help in sight. I’d like to be able to get through a day without crying. I’m a 52 year old man that used to be strong. I feel helpless. The past five years have been intolerable. I’ve read articles stating that they misinterpreted the “guidelines” the CDC issued in 2016 with more and more frequency, regarding those chronic pain patients that have been neglected. I have lost my “life” in all this. I’m permanently totally disabled, retired from my job where I worked for 18 years until this happened. I live in Long Island, NY.
I feel lost, sub human, depressed, miserable.
I’m reaching out here to see if anyone can provide me with a “light”. I feel useless and defeated.
I couldn’t even read all of these horrible stories. I hope that the CDC and all involved doctors and pharmacies realize that without pain meds you have sentenced most of us to a life sentence of torture and pain. Shame on you. My body my choice, not yours. I guess I’ll just continue on my journey nowhere and just sit here in pain waiting to die and it is taking forever … but at least I haven’t overdosed and died. Gtfoh with your BS laws that directly interrupt my pursuit of happiness. Thanks for the prison sentence. I’ll be sure to haunt those responsible when I die.
Hi, I have been punished with pain and abuse by some docs since 1990. I was at death’s door in ’95 but an angel doc intervened. I ended up on methadone which was a life saver. Only one doctor was able to help with procedures and the methadone needed to almost be pain free until the government and CDC stepped in. They made me change doctors because I had moved from SC to FL. I drove to SC monthly until scripts could no longer cross borders. Since then no doctor has been effective with procedures. Now I am being forced to cut the methadone to beyond what is tolerable, which is a death sentence for me. My days are numbered, if I don’t find a doctor who will fight for me. I started on a proper fairly low dose. After 10 years I went up 25% then back down, now 30% less. My body is on fire, so if anyone knows of a FL doctor who is able and willing to help please let me know, thank you; very sincerely thank you.
I was a long time patient of a pain pain management in Spartanburg South Carolina. I was stopped for a license check. I have my prescription bottle with my prescription meds in my pocketbook on the passenger seat. The officer saw the bottle and asked to see it. And because of the warning label on the bottle about not operating heavy machinery, my bottle was confiscated. I made a new appointment for my pain doctor and he saw me pretty quick but he had to inform me that because my bottle was confiscated by the police that I could no longer receive narcotics through a pain clinic! I also tried to talk to my family doctor and explained to him what had happened! He said that he could not prescribe any narcotics because of the incident either and that I was labeled now as a drug seeker, and blacklisted from receiving any narcotics for pain (which I desperately need). I have gone through tremendous withdrawals and depression and thoughts of suicide because of the pain and not being able to have a prescription! I fell three weeks ago and broke my hip. I had to go through surgery and my surgeon refused to give me narcotics for the pain! I am suffering so bad because of the situation! I have never failed a drug test or missed an appointment! I never asked for more than the doctor was already giving me, and never took more than I was supposed to! I want to support you and Don’t Punish Pain Rally in any way I can! Thank you so much for giving us a voice! we are not drug addicted! For anyone who reads this, beware – don’t drive with your medicine in your vehicle; they will take it like they took mine, and they ruined my life all because of a license check!
I am a 51 year old male. I was a commercial plumber in 1994 where I fell 16 feet down a shaft. I broke my neck, my back, both my legs, my left shoulder, and left wrist. I was put through h*** having multiple surgeries. After two years of suffering on enough pain medicine to where I would actually burn myself on the heating pad because I would lay on it unconscious, I was told by my doctor that you would be better off if you would have died instead of living through this. I got so depressed that I nearly tried to kill myself. I’ve been to rehab and always fallen back in to the pain medicine. I was sent to a physical therapy rehab for three months to where I was taught how to stretch and how to basically live with pain.
After leaving there I was prescribed enough narcotics to kill three people just so I would shut my mouth. I’ve suffered from extreme pain for over twenty years. I’ve been addicted to opiates for over twenty years. I’ve tried everything that you can think of, from marijuana to illicit drugs, just to try to get a night to sleep. I found something that truly helps me having the chronic pains that I have – it is swimming. I have to get up and swim for 45 minutes in the morning and 45 minutes in the evening, keeping my body loose so that I can get 2 hours of sleep.
I still suffer from anxiety, mania, sleep apnea, you name it. I’ve tried to ask for help in different ways and every time I’ve asked for help I was labeled a drug seeker, a drug addict, a loud mouth. I’ve even been arrested for crying and telling my doctor that I should break your a** apart like mine was, just so you could feel the pain.
With that I moved to Florida in 1998. The atmosphere in the heat from the sun down here in all the water has helped me tremendously. Not to find a terrific doctor, and that’s a really big word. You have to go out and actually test drive all the facilities. There is a big thing down here to where they call themselves an intervention pain medical clinic. This is where I was forced to have multiple injections every other month, and my prescriptions were basically hung in front of my face, and if I refused injections then I was refused my medicine.
I finally found a doctor that actually cares, and I mean out of thirty doctors this one doesn’t want to use me as a pin cushion – he truly wants to help. I mean he calls me just to see if I’m okay. When Covid-19 hit and I contracted the virus this doctor called me once a week to make sure I was okay and still alive. The staff is tremendous. Yes they offer injections but if you don’t want them you don’t have to have them. There is truly an epidemic with opiates in our country, and it’s not the pain doctors as much it is the patients. We the patients become so addicted to the medicine and we don’t know which way to go, so we start adding a little alcohol, maybe some marijuana, or maybe something stronger.
We were not trained as we were brought up on how to deal with pain. We live our lives trying to be normal, we heard ourselves and from our grandparents to our parents to stop the pain is to give us a pill. Mainstream pharmaceuticals like Tylenol, Ibuprofen, all have terrible side effects, but they don’t tell you about those. I am not perfect. I do know from all the years of psychiatry that old man time is what’s going to get me, but I’m afraid after twenty years of taking pain pills at high doses that eventually my liver or my kidneys or my whole body would shut down due to abuse of opiates. Whatever you do, don’t give up – there’s always someone out there that wants to listen.
I am a 39 year old mother of five and I cannot get help anywhere. This last Saturday I was in the ER with a huge cyst in a very painful area, and they lanced it without pain meds or giving the numbing agent a chance to work. Then once it was done they told me they were getting me something for pain and gave me one hydrocodone. I have never in my life screamed and cried like I did then, but the woman just kept going.
Back in 2014 I was diagnosed with Diverticulitus and have had SEVERAL flare-ups to the point where I am in the ER in pain at least once every other month. They don’t want to operate on me because of scar tissue from my five C-sections and the exploratory surgery I had to have when I was diagnosed with Diverticulitus. But yet I cannot get any doc to give me anything for pain.
Back in 2008 I was in a car accident and vertebrae C2-C6 were crushed, and I ended up having a spinal fusion done. The pain and migraines I get now are unbelievable but yet no help with pain meds. I can’t even get into a pain management doctor to talk to them because nobody will refer me.
I just need help and I need someone to see. I am not just drug seeking and that the pain is real!
I’ve been suffering since 2012. But in 2019 my pain jumped significantly. I am in Einstein Network in Philadelphia PA. They will give you nothing for pain and if you want release you have to go to pain management. All they want to do is stick you with needles to the detriment of your health I believe. My story is very simple. I am suffering so bad every day. My will to live has been tested and is being tested. I cannot believe they treat us like this. It’s inhumane.
I find it unbelievable that the P.T.B. who haven’t a clue as to what someone who has been injured beyond medical surgical means or the ability to repair injuries of people who are being removed from necessities such as opiods without another proper means to help people like me is stupid, dangerous and scary. People who have been injured beyond surgical means. I myself have had five major surgeries in five years. Massive cranial nerve damage, damages to my entire body from my hips to my head, esophageal damage from the initial massive injury I sustained … that I’m only trying to survive. Everyone who knows me, knows I’ve almost died multiple times, during multiple surgeries of which the last one was seven weeks ago, with a 60/40 survival probability. But I’m still here.
Did I mention that my primary care provider notified me that she was retiring on December 31 2020, while I was in the hospital for passing out three times from extremely high blood pressure and a heart rate average of 110 bpm siting and 140 bpm when laying down at the end of November into December 2020 … from injuries I sustained years ago. The hospital, who didn’t want to give me my medication, and then discharged me after five days, to only have me find a great surgeon immediately … who also ended up being the student of my initial surgeon who saved my life … who with one look set up surgery and saved my life.
My last life saving surgery was March 19 2021. Massive scar tissue, adhesions from multiple massive surgeries was impairing my blood flow dramatically. It was a life saving surgery, but it was a bandaid, not a cure. I’m labeled an opiod addict and I’m currently in a severe insane position. Pain, withdrawal, migraines and more. I still cannot sleep as the damage to my throat and esophagus doesn’t allow me to lay down to sleep. I’ve seen six new primary providers with my records since January and I’ve never seen anything like it. “Run Forrest run” fits so well. The tracheotomy in my neck for the last three years is just jewelry. All I hear is how good I look, as it’s covered by the face scarf for Covid.
From now on I’m going to not shower, not shave, not put on clean clothes to see these so-called professionals who took an oath. I’m going to look the part of a traditional drug addict, unimaginable, pathetic, covering their azzes … the P.T.B. are causing more pain and unnecessary insanity than any person who’s not in my shoes could ever comprehend. Anyone who’s taken injuries beyond what most could survive and fight to survive haven’t a clue. Yes I’m an opiod addict for multiple insane medical conditions, but the P.T.B. haven’t a clue. We all know who is causing this crisis in America. Insanity on steroids, stupidity beyond anything ever seen before…
Currently living through this. Had surgery today. Walgreens is refusing to fill my post operative prescription for Percocet because I “have enough oxycodone.” Hey, @Walgreens Percocet is not the same thing as Oxycodone. This is all because of our government’s interference and general ineptitude. The statistics for drug addicts taking heroin and whatnot they buy illegally, their overdoses are lumped in with legal patient use. The result is that legitimate use is being denied by, not doctors, but by pharmacists. Pharmacists, while highly trained, are not doctors. They are, least of all, doctors specializing in pain management.
I learned all about “Pain Management”, they have managed to keep me in pain for years. Just one look at the Eiffel Tower of titanium in my neck would convince any rational human being that my pain was intensely real. I am very fortunate to have worked and saved all my life. I am also very fortunate to have moved to Portugal. My doctor is wonderful, he knows my condition will get worse and worse, but he does his best to keep me from going mad with pain. You don’t have to be wealthy to move here, but you must have some kind of pension or income. I have actually been called a traitor for leaving the U.S. No one can really understands our pain, except us. Best of luck to you all, Stan
I’m so tired of living in constant pain! Every doctor I see just says the same old crap about doing another procedure (that I’ve already tried a dozen times) and basically to just take two Tylenol and to suck it up buttercup!!!
My arm hurts 24/7 and sometimes I wonder if it was to get cut off, living without an arm would be less of a struggle than living with one that hurts so bad that I can’t sleep, eat, or live a normal life!
This opiod epidemic was caused by the same incompetent doctors who are now too scared to treat the patients they have sworn to heal!!!
If they could live a day in our shoes, this pain epidemic would disappear in record time!!!
Shame on the doctors and politicians who have allowed this chronic red tape of neglect to devolve to its current inhumane state of liable disgrace!!!
To hell with them all!!!
I came to North Carolina four years ago and they took me off my pain medicine cold turkey. I laid in bed for six months and could not eat and almost died; lost 40 pounds. I am back on pain medicine but it is not enough to control my pain. I need help but I cannot get the help I need, please help
I’m 38 year old mother. I’m a retired/disabled local government employee. I have multiple disabilities including Bipolar, PTSD, OCD, Agoraphobia, Epilepsy, Degenerative Disc Disease and Severe Spinal Stenosis. I have severe back/leg pain and now have to use a wheelchair. I can’t sleep because it hurts so much. When I can’t sleep, I have very bad seizures. My primary, surgeon and ortho doctors all refuse to prescribe pain medication or refer me to someone who can. With my illnesses, I have a high risk of suicide. This is inhumane. A risk of dependence is better than dead.
I am a 54 year old wife, mother of 6, grandmother of 12, and soon to be great-grandmother of 2. I have degenerative arthritis, gout throughout my body, and congestive heart failure with A-Fib. I have had two lumbar fusions, one neck fusion, both of my knees have been replaced, I have a TENS unit running up my spine and I have carpal tunnel and neuropathy in both of my hands and arms. I had been on pain medications since 2009.
Then in June 2020 in the mist of the pandemic my pain management doctor cut me off of all of my pain meds. He told me he will no longer be prescribing my pain medications because my test came back with another medication in it that another doctor prescribed for a cough. If I am not the definition of a person with chronic pain, then I don’t know who would be.
At this point I wake up and go to sleep the same way, in pain. Some days are worse than others. My husband is very concerned about my mental health. He is afraid that I may take my own life. I would not do that to my husband, but I would be lying if I said I haven’t thought about it. Anyway I’m glad I found you guys. Thank you.
Hello my name is Lisa, I live in Syracuse New York. We have not one intractable pain center, only a few chronic ones. A surgeon left broken hardware in my cervical spine. Since he did not install it. He made me wait long on an emergency surgery list. It plunged though my right ventral thecal sac. It began to saw my bone out. One private pain doctor was shocked. Only because the pain was unlivable. He increases it until surgery. The surgeon did a seven-hour revision. My tech told my parents something’s very wrong. Revisions for this should take four hours. So when I thought I had healed, she had a new surgeon take me. When he heard the story, he didn’t want to get involved. He told me to go cold turkey off all meds. If you do, come back in a month. I did it. I felt a plate hanging off inside my neck. My pain specialist was mad. He didn’t believe me; the surgeon told me no help unless I follow his directions. I knew he didn’t think I would, so after I seen him he walked out of the room. Sent his desk worker with a bottle of red soap for surgery.
She said to me, “Are you going to sue the neurosurgeon? Because this surgeon does not want to be forced in a law suit.” I knew I needed help. I knew other surgeons here refuse to take someone who had surgery by another surgeon. And after this revision I found out why I was in pure agony. The tech in the room helping with my case. My child’s great coworker friend. So this surgeon knew. And didn’t want to be blamed for my severe injuries?
My cervical facet bones looked like mashed potatoes, he told my child. From trauma, being sawed constant. Blood supply could not reach it. So I was closed up and told I would need one more revision. He forced an ACDF post and inter. He should have put a rod. But he was making contact with the neurosurgeon, who was pissed I reported him I told everyone.
My child did. How he covered up my injuries on my medical report too. So on my record. The neurosurgeon has say still. He told this surgeon I would greatly benefit from ACDF. When he was going to have me come back and get a rod. Since I didn’t, he was pissed. He had this surgeon cause me more pain. He fused my entire neck. I didn’t understand, now I do.
He took my range of motion away. I have to flip my entire body around. No facet bone. The rest of it all fractured, and he severed all my medial branch nerves. He told my child I would not have nerve injury. Two years later, I woke up with my arms on fire. The center of my spine feels as if I have been shot, like electric agony pain.
New surgeon helped me. I was vomiting. My pain is unlivable. He placed a nerve stimulator in my neck. He was very honest. He said all the pain would stop in both arms. But he could not direct it to my main injury were the pain comes from – the medial facet bones. The machine is so powerful, it would blast more spine bone out. So I was placed back on pain medication.
Stable for four years, I never asked for an increase. Because this is a female doctor. She offered me methadone for pain four years ago. I pleaded not yet doctor please. I asked other doctors about it, and they said it’s too hard to titrate for extreme injuries. Because nothing short-acting holds up to methadone. So she did something sneaky and horrible.
In 2012 the big pharma wanted to make huge money. She changed my medications to tamper-proof. For three months I cried. Told my family I was amunded to my medications. So I search the web constantly about my injuries. Help, any new up and coming medications? These abuse-deterrent ones look the same, little different. So my pharmacist said different generic one. They are allowed to tell us. Tamper-proof is way less. No euphoria also. My head was a mess. Constantly her nurse would call me right back. So I knew. When I complained to my doctor about it. She said, “Well at least you’re not tampering with it, or you would have called the very first day.” Three months later she has forced me in the corner. I am so afraid. Told me Methadone for pain or stay on the tamper-proof. I was stable under the 90 MMLs for years. She had forced me in a dirty way. She told me methadone is pennies to the dollar. I cried, “A surgeon left me for dead!”
I have fought so hard. I never sued. I was promised kind de ent cate. That I would never have to plead. I called a mental office. I work with a therapist. I told her my pain is one hundred percent dangerous without proper treatment. This pain doctor told me, “You better hope the methadone helps.” She also told me her patients want to hug her after.
Let me tell all this. A girl I know, her dad at sixty was put on it for pain. After twenty years. They refuse to increase it for pain. He went though perpetual withdrawals constantly. It took him forever to get off it. At a drug center they raised it to 200 MMLs. In pain management 10 MMLs. I know people whose loved ones were forced off opioids ten years ago. Those people I knew after many spine surgeries sad took their life.
Please come to Syracuse New York – we need a rally here. We have so many dangerous spine surgeons. This group is everything to us. I want to tell my story publicly. I want to help save a life! I am here. Thank you so much. Sorry my texting stinks
Hi, My name is Jeffrey Sellers. I live in St. James Missouri. I have had four back surgeris, new fusion on my hips, three car accidents. I had very bad accident at work. I been on morphine for 25 years. The doctors started me out with [a certain dosage schedule]. Then [a lower dosage schedule]. Did that for 15 years.
Now the doctors are taking my morphine from me because DEA and CDC said so. I am 67 years old, plus I have to show my driver’s license to get my pain medicine. The doctors are so scared they will lose their licenses if they don’t listen to the DEA or CDC. Sounds like the Nazi Party is controlling me, the doctors, and I am living in NAZI Germany … history coming alive again. How about the Trail of Tears and 1885 Wounded Knee – where were the Indians’ rights at? Nobody tell what to do, I’m 67 years old.
The DEA took 300 million dollars to start a marijuana farm in New Mexico this week. Taking a higher dose of morphine helped to work out at the gym 4 hours 4 days a week. DEA going to give the marijuana to taxpayers FREE.
I was on an opioid pain med for 18 years, then all of a sudden opioids were no good because people making meth were using them. So we who needed the meds for pain were cut off cold turkey – that really hurt. I have severe neuropathy and the doctor said he can’t prescribe any meds for chronic pain. I have been asking him for over a year now to send me to the pain management clinic; he is with the VA and the VA has a pain management clinic. I have a home health nurse and she suggested hospice, but the VA won’t agree to that. I am 74 and I would like to live out the rest of my life as pain free as possible … retire and go fishing my ass.
My name is Rachel Watkins and I’m 73 years old. I have been taking pain meds since 2009. One clinic I was at for five years. I think it was a pill mill. It was closed down, with nowhere to go for help. I jumped through hoops until my new family doctor gave me meds for pain. He found me a new pain doctor who I’ve been with for about five years. My meds have not changed, and I am having a hard time functioning.
I’m my 81 year old husband’s caregiver. I bathe him, shave, cut his hair, do all the food shopping, cooking, and house cleaning. Thank goodness we do have pets. My husband was told by the Veterans’ Hospital in Asheville NC in September 2018 he would be lucky if he lived two years. We think our pets help him enjoy his life. I have Osteo arthritis, severe bone density, fibro-myalgia, torn rotor cuff, sciatic nerve that’s giving me extreme severe pain from my right butt all the way in the back of my leg to my right heel. The pain gets so horrific it makes my life miserable, and my husband’s. I think my doctor is more interested in procedures. He admits that I’ve developed a tolerance to this medication I’ve been on for five years, but I can’t get him to change it.
I’m not asking for stronger, I’m asking for a different type. I don’t know if that would help, but I think it should be tried. I’ve done a lot of research on pain and I did find out one of my primary doctors told me that there is no real pain teaching in America’s medical universities. I have asked several other doctors in my research, and the only two countries that do have classes in medical schools on pain management are Australia and China.
I need help and I don’t know where to go. I’m not having any more needles put in my back. Now my pain management doctor that’s an anesthesiologist, and I’m sure he’s had some courses in pain management, now he wants to go and insert a device between L4 and L5 – they’re touching in my spine. I have 9 bulging discs, my feet have hammertoes, piggyback toes, my hands hurt, and fingers lock up. Most of the pain I can deal with, but the heel and buttocks pain have made my life not functioning. I don’t want to get high, never drank alcohol, I just want to be able to live with dignity, care for my husband, clean my house, shop for food, work in my flowerbeds, and take care of our living pets.
Thank you this is a much-needed program that you’re running. I hope I can become a part of it to fight for myself and others living with chronic pain. This Dr. K has never had physical pain. He’s making money for himself, and he knows nothing about chronic pain. I Hope you can understand my text; I’m using this microphone to tell you this. Thank you, Rachel Watkins
I am 69 years old. I have chronic pain 24 hours a day. I was born with M.D. and have Lupus, one kidney and I am constantly battling open wounds. My pain level on a daily basis would be 7. Right now I have been forced to go to a pain clinic for the past three years to get my medicines. At this pain clinic they make us do a variety of things. I have been asked to do floor yoga, dance, and many other humiliating “dog tricks” in an effort to stop me using pain medications. I am in an electric scooter and even sitting on the floor would cause great pain and it would take at least three people to place me back into the scooter. So, if I stop using pain medications and do yoga my pain will go away? At this point I am making arrangements to kill myself if need be. I am o.k. with this. I used to run my own catering business. Yes, I had to take a variety of pain meds to carry on, but I did. Now, there is no hope, no quality of life. My husband retired from the Fire Department and now has become my caregiver. We had hoped for so much more…
I am a 36 yr old mom to two amazing teens. My 16 year old got early acceptance to college two entire years early. The last three years have been a nightmare for my family. I began having pain everywhere but specifically my legs feet and nearly all of my joints. I began bruising, itching, and was beyond exhausted. My PCP IGNORED me the four times I went to see him and begged for a simple LFT (liver blood tests) to be done. I KNEW something was wrong. Well after three years I got the tests done and it turns out I have a VERY rare chronic progressive autoimmune liver disease. It is killing my liver slowly which is killing me and the life I once had.
I am in pain 24/7. This disease causes your liver to rob all vitamins and calcium from other parts of the body, bones being the first and worst. My bones are becoming so weak and painful, I cannot do the simplest of tasks such as walk on most days. I’ve had to crawl to use the bathroom in my home. I cannot take any Tylenol and only sparingly with ibuprofen. Even that is not good for my liver. My rheumatologist said Percocet with no Tylenol would be perfect but instead tried another medication used for neuropathy. It barely takes the edge off and I am on a higher dose of it.
I understand the tough position I am in given the disease I was dealt, but at what point does quality of life come into play when dealing with a rare liver disease? I don’t believe these physicians are taught pain management at all. I also believe they are heavily regulated by the CDC, FDA, and more importantly, the DEA. When did the DEA start employing MDs that are pain medication specialists? I don’t believe the DEA, CDC, or FDA should be given complete control and a say in my care as a patient in pain. That should be between my doctor and myself and nobody else. If that’s how they want to conduct themselves, I guess I can have a say in how they parent their children as I was a social worker? I don’t think so! This is such an unethical breach of so many people’s rights to live. This pain… isn’t living, it’s death slowly creeping in to remind me that it’s going to take my ability to work, parent, hike, go to the gym, etc.
I’ve already mourned the life I’ve now lost due to the unbearable pain I constantly have. Before I know it, I won’t be the only one to have to mourn… my loved ones will soon be mourning me. That isn’t fair to them, nor is it fair to myself to be forced to suffer this pain. The government has ABSOLUTELY ZERO place in my medical care yet there they are… threatening the physicians. Threatening to TAKE their livelihood if they are “too empathetic” of their patients’ pain and give them some kind of relief in the form of medication. This type of strong arming of these MDs is unethical and is not okay in any capacity! Things NEED to change and they need to change NOW before it’s too late.
I was in an accident that crushed my vertebrae in 2006. Since then, I have been on mostly the same dose of opioids daily, able to go to work with my managed pain, and support me and my three children. I was able to be present for their sports games and activities. Now, I just sit on the couch and cry. I have fibromyalgia, which my original doctor that retired diagnosed me with, saying that it may have been brought on by being so sedentary after I was cut cold turkey off of 15 years of daily opiate regimen. I never asked for a higher dose, or took more than prescribed. The only thing I did was, in 2015, switch to a fentanyl patch for more pain coverage and to lessen the pills I have to take. I still had endocet for breakthrough pain, but barely had to use them, because the fentanyl patch covered my pain. Sometimes I would need to take it on the third day wearing my patch, or if I sweat and it came off. This was working fine for three years.
Suddenly on July 26 2018, my primary doctor, who was prescribing, said he was flagged by the DEA, who paid him a threatening visit, so he had to make this month’s script my last. No weaning off – I was dependent on these pills, NOT addicted! I am not, and never have been a drug addict! However, this is what I was treated like with every pain management doctor I tried to get an appointment with.
When I went to the ER with excruciating pain due to no more meds, I was labeled as a drug seeker. They would give me a shot of morphine via IV and send me on my way. No plan or referral to pain management, just a temporary relief … it does me no good to seek care at the hospital. These hospitals don’t care if you are in pain, they will accuse you of seeking drugs.
I can say that I have never once felt high on my medication. I never took more than was prescribed. My doctor used to ask me in my appointments, how I was doing on the meds, asking if I needed an increase. I always said fine, I don’t need an increase. Now, I am some “drug seeker” because I have chronic pain.
The worst part is that my family has to see me in pain all day, every day, I’m broke because I can’t work, I have no aid of any kind, living off savings that’s running out. I hate America – what it has done to the pain community is abhorrent. I would rather die than live in 24/7 pain, I think most chronic pain patients would agree.
We are on five YEARS with these CDC guidelines, and no one has even tried to fix the damage done to millions of chronic pain sufferers that must go UNTREATED. If you don’t want medical marijuana, which doesn’t work for me, I also don’t like the feeling of being high! It did nothing for my pain. If you don’t take MMJ or useless injections that make bones brittle and pain worse, there are NO OPTIONS for you. Listen to “soft music”, one doctor says. Is that what he went to medical school for? To be a puppet for the government? They are so scared of losing their livelihood that they forget all about the Hippocratic Oath they took on becoming a doctor. They do not care about patients, can you blame them?
There’s a doctor who got forty years in prison for prescribing opioids. Ridiculous! A family man with young children! Dr. Joe Smithers. Sad, this government has waged genocide on millions, and what are we doing about it? Ten people showing up to a rally?! Come on! That doesn’t represent the problem in America. Every chronic pain patient should be at the steps of Washington DC, demanding that laws get changed for chronic pain patients! Where is everyone???
Since equity groups have bought out hospitals and doctors’ offices they don’t want big pharmaceutical companies making money they can control by forcing patients off opiates. They know chronic pain patients will be suggested surgeries and physiatry which increases profits.
We the people didn’t push for additional coverage for physiatry. Also president and senators have millions in big pharmaceutical companies … Tubi has a documentary. The Slacker family didn’t get hurt in court. But all part of the fake narrative. When put on opiates for chronic pain doctors’ only choice is to put opiate use disorder. Physicians / nurses start padding character accusations against you. Has PROP or any of these people realized the guidelines they construct will someday hurt them or their loved ones or family, generations in the future, or they’re so psychological/psycho they don’t care.
No studies have been done for long term use of opiates or studies to ask people if their pain has been untreated or treated at all. Or studies done on physicians who treat pain – how they manipulate / lie about character assinations against their own patients to prepare to eliminate care for patients. Ask Google for common top-ten surgeries – it only comes up between 2003 to 2012, with 4.9 increases for ten years. Number 3 and number 5 are spine surgeries and spine fusion. Where are the years after 2012?
CDC says they don’t track all overdose deaths, so how can they make this guidelines? Haven’t heard anything about the meth crisis in the news. Why aren’t physicians regularly tested for alcohol abuse? I think including myself, if all people who had chronic pain just stopped seeing all doctors if possible for a year, it would hurt the medical and equity groups’ wallets. Maybe then they would realize they need us too.
Four years ago I moved from Miami to North Carolina and started seeing [a doctor] in Conover North Carolina. He took me out of all of my pain medicine and all of the other medication, and then I was on cold turkey. I was very sick and in the bed for six solid months. I lost 35 pounds and had to have my gallbladder removed. I have a lot of health issues as I have osteoporosis, fibromyalgia, degenerative disc disease, also have neuropathy and rheumatoid arthritis.
I was in severe pain. I asked for something to sleep such as Ambien. He told me it was a narcotic and he could not give it to me. I didn’t feel that he had the right to take everything away from me cold turkey, not caring that I could go into seizures or have something else happen to me such as sudden death. He had no caring whatsoever for his patients. He is only there for the dollar that he makes. These doctors [are supposed] to do no harm, but they do not realize the harm that they are causing all their patients that live every day with chronic pain.
I would like to know how to get in touch with the medical board in North Carolina or with my representative of North Carolina to make a complaint against this doctor. I want to join the fight Don’t Punish Pain because there are a lot of good God-fearing people out here in this world suffering because of the CDC and because of doctors that are too spineless to do their jobs.
I have psoriatic arthritis, degenerative disc disease, osteoarthritis and Gerd. I live in Arkansas and was taking 30mg 6 times a day for over a decade. Now I can’t find a pain clinic who will treat my pain. My initial doctor got out of pain treatment completely. My most recent doctor actually got onto me for taking CBD when I first got to him and I was on a bridge script and seeing him for the first time! When I told him the dosage I need to control my pain, because duh I ought to know, he argued with me.
I really wanted to move to Springfield Missouri but my attempts to find a doctor there flat-out failed. One doctor put me on Baclofen. All it does is put me in a good mood. Only to have the new doctor say that my blood pressure problem are mood-related and have nothing to do with pain. But not until after three weeks of excruciating knee injections!!! Of course he didn’t share that detail with me before hand. Now I am facing eight days without pain medicine when I’ve already been under-treated grossly for over two months.
By the way the CDC lied about the number of people dying of overdoses. Cut their number in half – and even that is suspect. They lied completely and they stepped into the FDA’s regulatory shoes. There is no excuse for this. Folks this is where [capture and corruption of] regulatory agencies [and non-government entities like CDC] has brought us. Time to clean house in congress, state and national. I’m in serious trouble and need help.
I am 59 years old. I have had pudendal nerve pain for approximately 8 years. I have found in my search for relief that there are a handful of doctors in USA that are even aware of this horrifying ‘thing’. Please do not punish my very life-altering chronic (meaning every day of my life) pain. Please change laws for folks like me who are not (and don’t want to be) addicts. Please hear our pleas for help.