Tell your story of living with chronic pain, by leaving a reply at the bottom of the page. Do not mention specific medications or dosages. Stories do not appear right away.
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Tell your story of living with chronic pain, by leaving a reply at the bottom of the page. Do not mention specific medications or dosages. Stories do not appear right away.
There are not enough words to express my concerns for not only my wellbeing but others also. I struggle with pain and the lack of proper health care has made it harder. I was seeing a doctor and because he got scared of the government he told every patient only a couple weeks in advance he was closing down. This doctor really was my blessing for a year and a half and since hes left I’ve been nothing but miserable for the last 4 months. Please dont punish us who suffer with pain no matter age, race, and other factors. Please consider the symptoms and that we haven’t chosen to be like this. I really just want to be where I was. I was able to care for myself more then this and I never expected for my pain to be completely removed but to a level where I can function. I’m crying typing this because I really know how much a low dose of opiods has helped me and it feels so unfair to feel stuck like this being 24 with so much pain I can’t get out of bed or hardly walk by myself. Thank you. God Bless.
My pain started back in late 1980’s, I was hurt at work. I was hit by a 2500# pallet of boxes of paper. After working for 15 years I was let go, no job with my injuries. As of today I’ve had , two lower back , one neck, three carpal tunnel surgeries. I also have diagnosed with neuropathy of my feet and hands. My Doctor of 15 years has reduced my pain medication by over two thrids and still taking more away to get to the 90mm. I can’t sleep and when I do yard work, I can’t move for days. If anyone knows of a Doctor with a heart in the Milwakee , West Bend WI. area, PLEASE let me know. I can’t take this F—– Pain anymore.
I’m a 60 year old grandmother living with chronic, moderate to severe pain. My journey with chronic illness began at age 5. My response to getting my school vaccination was to sleep the afternoon away. Called down for supper, I came downstairs, & fainted in the kitchen!
By age 11 I was having night time bouts of painful gastritis (undiagnosed); afraid to worry my mom, I never told her, although I wasn’t getting sleep. I must have complained of pain though, because at some point during this time I was hospitalized, with “growing pains” the only diagnosis. My fainting spells were more frequent; shocks to my system – like slamming fingers in doors – usually ended in fainting.
By now I also was having difficulty chewing without popping and pain in my jaws, which was not diagnosed for years as TMJ. Unhappy at home (I didn’t speak to my stepfather for years before his passing), I quit school after 11th grade, left home, got pregnant & married, and had my first baby att 17!
My chronic back spasms began during pregnancy. By age 21 I was a divorced mom of 3. At age 24 I started college part time (got my General Equivalency Diploma at age 20), at Penn State. It was difficult to pursue my education, because I was solely responsible for my children, the my eldest son also with multiple health/emotional issues.
By my 40’s I was remarried, with a degree from Penn State. In our small town good jobs are scarce; I’d ended up working in a greenhouse for many years, k doing very physical work. During one winter hiatus, my health fell apart. I’d had worsening symptoms and new issues creeping up ; they all coalesced to me hadly being able to function, let alone go back to work!
My doctor ordered batteries of tests – blood work, cat scan, x-rays. Over the next few years I received multiple diagnoses. Osteoarthritis in multiple joints, with tendinitis and some bursitis – I’d been suffering from severe plantaar fasciitis and Achilles tendinitis already – by this time I was also having trouble using my hands and one hip was severely painful. Fibromyalgia was diagnosed, along with chronic fatigue; migraines; IBS and chronic anemia tied in with the chronic gastritis and chronc inflamed stomach – diagnosed through multiple stomach scopes; Degenerative Disk Disease tied in with my lower back pain & chronic spasms; bladder scopes showed interstitial cystitis; my chest wall pain was chostocondritis; a broken foot years before had resulted in foot neuropathy. With even more health issues, I hurt so badly all very I could barely function. Over the years, as my health declined, I also had to deal with worsening anxiety and depression. My past major diagnosis was Lyme disease a few years ago. Addington to this was my responsibility to !y disabled son.
42 years ago I gave birth to a beautiful boy – who would not sleep! I tried everything, but he slept only a few hours at a time. He walked at 10 months – and by a few years it was obvious there were hyperactivity problems something I had no knowledge of, and the many pediatricians we saw didn’t either. Aaron was finally diagnosed with ADHD at age 5. At age 2 he’d begun making odd faces, then dd jerking arm & leg movements, then chronic coughing, snorting and throat clearing. He was prescribed Ritalin for ADJD – the nvoluntary movements went crazy. Again I was left searching for answers. A TV commercial done by William Shatner finally showed me the truth – my son had Tourette Syndrome – something else I’d never heard of (years later, after my nephew developed facial tics. my mother today me she thought her younger brother – by then deceased – had had a me form f the disease, so it was already in the family, along with undiagnosed OCD). By the time he started middle school, Aaron was suffering from anxiety and depression, due to the cruel teasing he endured. By high school my handsome son was the first in our area to be in both the gifted and learning disabled programs. I had had to advocate for him all during his school years. Both ADHD and TS can make concentrating, writing, and completing assignments difficult, and Aaron, although he attended the entire 12 years, he didn’t meet graduation requirements. He too got a GED – with the highest score they’d seen at this school!
I then began fighting to get my son into a local campus of Lock Haven college. I fought and won funding from a government agency that helps the disabled, and along with loans/grants he began college. His second semester (started at the main campus) he came home complaining of pain and numbness down his leg. His journey with chronic pain had begun.
X-rays and cat scan and showed DDD, with a ruptured at L5S1. An orthopedist suggested mmediate surgery, but we anted to first try injections. At the first injection, they discovered a spinal deformity (our family doctor now says it is a familial trait – thus an inherited family problem. The series of injections didn’t work, so his first back surgery as done at Hershey Medical Center. Unfortunately Aaron’s had 2 surgeries since, to excise scar tissue. Scar tissue has damaged the nerves to his bladder, causing severe urethral pain. His bladder can’t fully empty, causing constant discomfort. He has constant back pain, with increasing damage along his spine, plus arthritis, with additional damage to the joints he consistently “tics”.
My 40 year old daughter started having back spasms at age 19 (same age my son’s issues began, 2 years later than mine). At 27 she had her first child, after a battle with premature labor; he was 3.5 lbs, taken 9 weeks early via ceasarean, after Adrian developed toxemia. This was the beginning of her pain journey. A few months later my daughter was back in the hospital – having her first of THREE neck surgeries. They removed half her thyroid, due to a semi solid cystic tumor (my niece had hers removed a year earlier due to cancer). A year later the other half was removed. A few years ago a third surgery was done to remove scar tissue. She now has another unidentified growth in her neck, meaning a possible fourth surgery in the near future. We found out that a malfunctioning thyroid can cause problems carrying a baby full term.
Since the loss of her thyroid, my daughter’s health has collapsed. She’s been diagnosed with osteoarthritis (she needs a knee replacement), fibromyalgia, IBS, migraines,
Lyme disase, DDD, etc. etc. She recently had a cancer scare; the possibility isn’t fully resolved. After having 5 teeth removed a few months ago, she’s developed chronic mouth ulcers, leading both her doctor and dentists to suspect an autoimmune disease. She’s been having monthly issues with manic behavior -she’s s heduled to see another endocrinologist for both the mana and mouth problems.
I live n chrnic pain from multiple health issues, as do my son and daughter also – by no fault of our own. I take opioids to relieve my past n and enable me to take care of my family, especially my son, my 71 year old husband (dying of heart disease and COPD) and the grandchildren in my household. If we lose access to our meds – the current restrictions are making it increasingly difficult to fill prescriptions – there will be NO adults able to do the cooking and housework. I try periodically to go without my meds, to see if anything has improved, to no avail.
My son (me) is battling the insurance company for preauthorization, because he needs both a fentanyl patch for urethra painand, oxycodone for breakthrough pain and lorazepam to help him sleep, and help his back spasms & anxiety. They say he’s over the limit with the 3 meds.I wrote out a detailed health history to include with the doctor’s request. If it’s denied we have no recourse other than filing a grievance. And complaining to the insurance commissioner. My daughter’s been lucky so far in getting her pre-auth. I hear that medicare will be tightening there requirements and allowances next year. Medical assistance can’t be far behind. I’ve been happy that my youngest son has been very healthy through his 38 years. He’s now having nv issues with his uonar nerve causing his hand to go numb. I pray it resolves itself. No one should have to live in chronic pain. And worry that their meds will be torn away.
I have been living with the constant all over pain of Fibromyalgia since 2008. I believe a flu that effected all my muscles was the start. The fibro fog caused me to struggle at work. Then the pain escalated and I left work. I spend one to two hours on heat after rising each morning as I am in the most painful part of the day. I hurt so badly toward the end of my medication that I want to just curl up in a ball and cry.
While walking the two miles to work, a car came around a corner much too fast for the conditions (the sun was shining at 8:45 am, but it had snowed a couple of inches of heavy, wet snow earlier). It was January 10, 2003. I almost made it to work. When the driver saw me he stomped on his brakes causing him to slide into me broadside…There was nowhere for me to go…it happened so fast that there was no time for any thought beyond, ‘Oh, $hit..’ When it struck me I evidently tried to push off it just as the tire slid over my foot (it wasn’t rotating just sliding)..As I pushed, hard I couldn’t go anywhere as for that brief second my foot was pinned…I felt a fast and hard yank from the base of my skull to my feet. I was thrown about 15 ‘ partly over and partly into a snowbank that was hard as cement…The driver hesitated for a moment and then fled …It was a while before I was seen..
. If I’d been given an MRI instead of or in addition to x-rays, sometime in the next week, they would have seen two tiny chips off a vertebra in my lower back.. These chips migrated around and managed to puncture three holes through the covering of my spinal cord. It leaked caustic spinal fluid into the tissue; ligaments, tendons, muscles and demyelinated the nerves….literally burning off the protective covering of the nerves.. (had a few more, although not very complicated fractures, including the bone along the outside of the rt foot and a crack in the ankle bone). My PCP sent me to an orthopedic guy, physical therapy and others until he simply gave up trying to figure out why I was getting worse …off I went to ‘pain management’…He ordered an MRI found the leaks, got them plugged and stopped it from getting any worse, but the damage was done. It was 11 months after the accident. I had nerves being BURNED for 11 months . I spent the next 13 years trying different pain meds…and different PCPs until I was able to get a good combination of meds and physical therapy…Then in 2016 my state government (thinking they were doing a ‘good’ thing, or, much more likely, that they thought it would LOOK GOOD and not cost any money) decided to limit all narcotic pain meds to 100 morphine equivalent milligrams …I was at 245 mme…fairly modest for the severity and length of time of use…I will spare the reader from the horror show of a ‘step down’ in meds…I all but ceased to function. I now spend 85% of the time in my recliner with the tv remote in my hand. All along I had had ‘flares’ fairly frequently that not only caused extreme increases in pain, fatigue, odd changes in skin colors and temperatures…most obviously the right foot and ankle swelled and discolored often. Three months ago I discovered a website, totally by accident, that was all about Complex Regional Pain Syndrome ((CRPS…formerly called RSU))….I was floored by the info…IT WAS ME….I had 90% of the symptoms and I learned that this is considered to be the most painful condition in the human experience. I sent my doctor links to all of the reputable articles and treatment suggestions ..He was as surprised as I was and is still researching but agreed and gave me (finally) a definitive diagnosis …We are going to try to get a ‘medically necessary’ exemption from the daily limits that have been imposed. If it was cancer or if it was terminal I could get my exemption, even though this disorder ranks higher on the McGill Pain Index than bone cancer (and everything else). I am suffering terribly ..ever minute of every day…The pharmacy and insurance company seem to think that the one exemption point that SHOULD qualify me, ‘PALLIATIVE CARE’, is the same as hospice (read terminal) care…the definition of palliative does NOT say ‘terminal’ …only ‘serious illness’…My local hospital just opened a ‘palliative care practice’ and I’m waiting for an appointment . I cannot afford to sue the state over the arbitrary limits (two who did threaten to sue quietly withdrew their pending suits, so they got their exemptions). I would sue if I could …I was able, before the lower meds, to take care of myself …I could do most of my own grocery shopping, laundry, simple cooking (elaborate meals used to be favorite pastime ) and light housekeeping …but not now…This has taken away my LIBERTY..The last time I left the house was for 45 minutes to have coffee with my brother from far away. Before that it was a June doctor’s appointment …I am as determined as I can be to try to regain some semblance of a life…There is a reason that doctors quietly call CRPS ‘the suicide disease’..I don’t want that to happen…I have two adult sons that I love very much…I can’t afford ‘black market’ pain meds…Some in my online support group have started to snort the cheaper (and more readily available,) heroin….I DON’T WANT TO USE HEROIN ..I don’t want to be a criminal….I don’t want to die…I want, no…I NEED relief….Some parts of the new laws are good…like the ‘prescription monitoring’..this keeps people from ‘doctor shopping’ and getting multiple prescriptions at multiple pharmacies…In the almost 16 years since my accident I HAVE NEVER DIVERTED A SINGLE PILL….I NEVER FAILED A DRUG TEST…I NEVER FAILED A PILL COUNT..I NEVER HAVE GIVEN MY DOCTOR ANY REASON TO MISTRUST ME …I HAVE NEVER ‘HAD STOLEN OR LOST PILLS’….NEVER ASKED FOR A REFILL EARLY .This ‘daily limit’ on people in excruciating pain isn’t making a dent in the overdose or addiction rates…People like me don’t sell the only thing that makes their lives tolerable…Were some people selling their pills…? I’m sure there were some who did..,but not those in real pain..All this ‘limit’ is doing is increasing the ‘demand’ for drugs…which is increasing the ‘supply’…especially through the ‘out of state thugs’ that the governor speaks about….The state legislators are clapping each other on the back, congratulating each other for having fewer prescription pain meds being prescribed….THIS ONLY HAS THE APPEARANCE OF PROGRESS…but it isn’t progress…it is torturing crippled, old women like me..I got here through no fault of my own…I DIDN’T START OR CONTRIBUTE TO THE OPIOID CRISIS..and my heart aches for those who are suffering or seeing an addicted loved one suffer…like most families, it has touched my own…But, I cannot see how torturing me alleviates anything for someone else…For more than two years I’ve been stuck in this recliner…on rainy days like these it’s all I can do to just breathe…If I supplement my pain meds with anymore OTC NSAIDS I will tear up my liver and kidneys (and I’m too old to get a transplant…but government funded insurance WILL be faced with paying for a bunch of transplants and expensive dialysis and other treatments sooner rather than later) There NEEDS to be a widening of the exemptions…to avoid costly medical care and addiction treatment…to slow down the overdose and addiction rates…and to alleviate a little of the suffering for battered broken old women, for our permanently disabled veterans who had vicious injuries..for anyone who needs a higher dose than the current law allows….I DON’T WANT TO DIE…
I was born with Stiff Baby Disease that later in life became Stiffman (person) Disease . I also was in a horrific tornado that destroyed our home at 18 months causing what we know is PTSD. At age 6 I was sent to Lebonhor Hospital in Memphis with a large bleeding ulcer. At the same time I had the first of 3 spinal taps to confirm that I had StiffPerson Disease by then. At 18 after moving to Indiana with my first husband, I was viciously attacked with a butcher knife and raped. Having been left for dead, determination to survive took over and the paperboy found me at 5.00am laying on our front lawn. 11 hour surgery to sew me up left me with 475 stitches inside and out. Also ruined my chance to every have children of my own. This left me with Severe PTSD and Severe Panic Attacks. Taking Valium and Soma at the time I was also put on opioids for the pain it left me from Attack, I made it through the first of 2 academies I attend. The first was the Law Enforcement Academy at 12 weeks and the second only 2 weeks later was the Fire Academy at 9 weeks total. I saw things that no human should ever have seen in my career. And same year was taken off of the Valium and placed on Xanax. as well as being diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. But in 1999 after busting up a college party off campus, I had arrested a young man that was about 6’5″ and weighed 280. He was fine until we got to the jail which was a highly secured facility. In a small area that we have to go through for one door to be shut and another open, his “HIGH” kicked in. He was PCP. As I almost had him to the ground to hold him til I got help, two jailors jumped on us and I landed on bottom somehow of all three breaking my lumber back in 3 places. I retired 4 years later as a Captain on the force and a LT on the fire and Rescue squad. I worked a lot of undercover work, buying street drugs and going from a crack attack to being a high society person.
In 2004 I fell and broke my knee cap and was fused under the underside of it. By then the Disease I so dreaded had returned with a vengengence. 2006-2007 was one of the roughest years of my life. Our home burned to the ground. I lost my niece at birth, a nephew , then my late husband died, my uncle, my grandmother, my little brother, and little sister. PTSD was in full force and thoughts of suicide filled my head. 2008 after a blizzard I fell and broke my arm and my wrist known as a spiral break.
2010 as I was riding my Harley, I was stopped in a turn lane to turn left. I was waiting on traffic, and the next thing I knew I was in the Trauma Center in PA. Being told the story was as scary as actually remembering the only thing I could remember was being thrust forward. The official record stated that a man trying to pass stopped traffic hit me at 65 miles per hour, flipping me and the motorcycle 2x into oncoming traffic, where a retired state trooper kept the traffic from running over me. I was airlifted to the nearest trauma unit and because I landed solely on my head cracking the helmet I was wearing, being unconscious, having no memory except my future husbands parents house address, the chaplain God love her found my future husband and he was brought to the hospital by an escort of state troopers. I ended up with a level IV concussion a broken eye socket that had gone into in my sinus cavity. However they had not cleaned my face from the debris on highway and I ended up with MRSA on side that was Broken . In 2011 traveling down south to fish for a month I scratched the top of my head and ended up with severe cellulites MRSA again almost losing my eye, That same year was my last spinal tap never to have another one to confirm Stiff man Disease. We moved in 2014 to Arkansas. My DO in PA, kept telling me that this with the medications would happen, and I kept saying I have 20 doctors not me. But arriving here I had to have botha family and Pain doctor. 2 months in was the first time he was shut down. I hadn’t been off this medication for over 30 years. 2016 after he was closed down yet again, I had a what they know now as a spinal stroke. In 2018 had two separate things happen. I feel out of a tree stand, and was involved in a rollover wreck. The wreck left me with a broken neck. After it was repaired according to the neurosurgeon (it was fixed) he told us my spine was twisted and there was nothing he could do about that.. After I received my reports from all the doctors I had to see to have surgery (3 months with a broken neck) I learned that my MRI showed I have spinal tumors pressing into in spinal column as well as my entire back was bone on bone.
I have a list of every disease disorder and syndrome I have and I don’t have time to go through them all but in 2018 I lost my pain doctor yet again and finally found one that has taken me 7 months to see, with no help from family dr, and then getting a letter from same dr saying I had to find a new doctor because I was a pain patient. She didn’t even help me from a disease I was born with. So today saw a new family doctor went through medical history and his was NOPE cant write muscle relaxers they are addictive, So is insulin, heart meds and Tylenol.
I’ve lived with chronic back pain since just before leaving the navy in the early 70’s
I’ve worked in hospital power plants as well as electrical power plants for many years before retiring in 2003. The wear and Tare on my body from all the abuse it indured over those years has left me chronic back pain.
I’ve taken pain meds for all those years just to manage getting through the day. I’ve always been productive and never addicted to these pain meds.
Just in the past week I had back surgery leaving me in god aweful pain. Went for my follow up thinking it’s only been a week so I’m sure the doctor will give me a refill. Nope! Did not happen as he said he’s not allowed. I was infuriated to hear this. Just because someone uses pain meds doesn’t make them addicted.
I can only hope they will come back and change this law to better help those that need the meds.
I can also hope that the boneheads that passed this bill suffer severe pain and can’t get their meds. 😡😡
I had cervical spine surgery 40 years ago. Now cervical dystonia pain. 20 hours a day in bed. Before my pain meds were cut back I was able to ride in a car and visit friends and stay out of bed. I go to a pain clinic restricting opoid prescriptions. I submit to random drug testing. I am being treated like a drug addict. Doctors tell me ” well you have dealing with pain most of your life”. Pain meds that have been taken away from me and many others are being punished for the action of drug addicts.
We are having the same problems here in Canada. Everyone is suspected of being an addict.
My pain specialist when I lived in London, Ontario was forced to give up his practice because *one* patient complained that they thought he was over-prescribing medication.
My sciatic pain was so severe that i was on multiple medications that barely eased the pain.
The doctor who took over his practice weaned me off the opioids, but continued with nerve blocks, which did eventually settle things down. But I am afraid, that if it ever flares again, of not being able to get respite from the pain. Most GP’s won’t prescribe anything narcotic for pain relief.
This is not my pain story. It is a story of someone I love. This person bears the pain of an ankle crush injury, on one side.He hears crush injury pain to the metatarsal on the other side. The results of the skinny side of a piece of steel.
This person has arthritis in the back and neck.
This person has had multiple traumatic brain injuries. His cognition is affected. His mood is affected. His memory. He suffers terrible depression and anxiety that if not managed, will land him in the hospital.
This person has Multiple Sclerosis. Doctors say he he probably had it for decades before being diagnosed. This has resulted in changes to his cognition, depression, anxiety, and mood. This has affected his speech, his movements. He uses a walker and sometimes, if it’s a great day, a walking stick or cane.
This is a tough man who does not want to have a mandated course of pain medication running through his body. He wants the choice to own his own pain levels, and to manage them. Recently, his health has taken a downturn, and he has had more pain.
When he is in much pain, his mood is destabilized. This is not a small thing. This is the change that can happen in someone with TBI and damage from Multiple Sclerosis. He needs pain meds, and medications to help with anxiety that could easily be misunderstood as a potential for violence or out of control behavior. He is not violent, at all. But he becomes overwhelmed. He moves quickly, dangerously. He has recently been switched from his as needed medication to one of the abuse resistent, extended release meds. If he needs to treat his pain, he has no choice but to have pain meds in his system for longer than necessary.
When he has periods when pain is amplified, he moves less. Already suffering mobility impairments and devastating fatigue, increased pain has him moving less. Moving less contributes to spasticity, depression, loss of muscle and bone, and more pain. His pain meds, when needed, help him to accomplish tasks like Functional PT.
When he has higher pain, his depression is magnified.
This man has been seeing the same Interventional Pain Specialist, The same primary doctor, and the same neurologist for 3 years. He has been on the same meds for three years. All three doctors know us, know him, and never expressed any concern over his use of his prescribed medicines. Each expressed that they thought the medicines selected were the right medicines, at the lowest possible dosages, that had the least risk of bad side effects. These medicines were selected to reduce his anxiety as needed, reduce pain as needed. Medicines that have been used in combination for decades, in patients other than those with the pain of previous horrible injuries, traumatic brain injury, arthritis, and Multiple Sclerosis.
Each doctor is provided a list at each visit. Both he an I carry his health information with us, everywhere we go. I am the person who orders his refills, double checks with physicians after every visit, researches his meds, shares information with him. I am the person who fills his weekly medicine box. Pain meds and anxiety meds do not going the weekly med box. They have their proper place where they wait until things get bad, stay bad too long.
He does not want to take these medicines if he does not need them. He has a very high pain tolerance, and he does not complain about pain. Until it’s too much, and a couple of days have been ruined.
He has followed all the rules. He respects his medicines as tools. He does the drug testing, though nothing has, or will ever show up.
Now things are being taken away. Taken away with no notice.
He had an appointment on October 3. We spoke of refills. We spoke of refills for his anxiety medicine. The medicine that ensures he can be a passenger in a car. Perceptual difficulties, his already present anxieties, his sense of having little control of the vehicle can at time, overwhelm him. Anxiety of this order, when it happens, can run him into a flare of symptoms that can last days. We also spoke about seeing a psychiatrist. Those appointments take time. There are no psychiatrists who work with neurological patients in a 175 mile radius.
I had called in all of his other refills. I called this one in. I was called by the doctors staff informing me that Brian would not get his prescription. I was lectured about the FDA Black Box warning. Sounded like someone took a newly mandatory class.
A neurological patient suffering extreme anxiety is cut off, when a need for a refill was discussed a week prior. This was because he is in pain management, taking the same meds he’s been taking for 3 years, Along with this medication, under the supervision of 3 doctors, with whom he has regular scheduled visits.
A neurological patient is cut off with no notice, no exit plan. He has other doctors. One is amazed at the stupidity of not treating pain when there is a demonstrated need in a patient who has shown no inclination to abuse. The other was a bit irate. He told me exactly what to say and do, so that this man wasn’t just dumped. Left to what his damaged brain can do to him, with no meds. We now have an exit plan. His med has been cut to 1/3 of its prior dose.
I fully expect that those who love and care for the neurological impaired, the developmentally disabled who have physical disabilities, have body and brain injuries, cognitive impairments, and wild fire anxiety will have the same stresses, the same frustrations, the same fears and desperation. We are the ones who are encouraging movement, preparing the meals, doing the housework, preparing for medical needs, transporting, and dealing with the fallout of what injury and disease can do to us, and our relationships with others. I get to suffer when I cannot console or calm during this most wretched and desperate storm of anxiety that comes in its own, with a temperature that half a degree to warm, and comes with unmanaged pain.
The vulnerable can’t have both pain management and anxiety management. The brain damaged have to choose. Punishment for being a model pain management patient.
The choice in this case is: if this type of anxiety and the mood cannot be managed quickly and effectively with a very low dose of anxiety med when needed, then a care facility will have to be an option. Control of this is necessary for his safety. He moves to quickly. His brain is on fire and is sending too many of the wrong signals. His voice is altered by MS, and so is his hearing. He gets way louder than he knows, and he sounds very angry, when he’s not angry. This is a police call. This will find him in a psychiatric/drug treatment hospital, not getting the neurological care he needs.
This hospital will of course, be at least 150 miles away. Our government did great things for mental health, and how we prosper today. Psychiatric care, qualified psychiatric care, does not exist within near 200 miles. o
Is it going to be better to have people like this person I love, in a facility? He can lie in bed and be told he is not in pain. He can’t possibly be in pain. He’s already on an antidepressant. He must want drugs. He can have his PT managed. He can have his meal times and food ma naged. He could have his clothes ruined in the laundry. When the storms come, I’m sure he Can be left to his own, ignored, put up with, until he breaks a hip, and is more manageable for the staff. Or, perhaps, a ‘safe ‘ chemical restraint, nursing style, will be ordered.
This man was in a street minding his own business, when he was attacked by a man with a baseball bat. He was beaten about the head. This resulted in one of his documented diagnoses of Traumatic Brain Injury. The man liked his illegal drugs and was sentenced to 2 years in prison.
Tonight, the police broke in on our upstairs neighbor. He likes meth and heroin. Waited 5 years for this to happen, calling governmental agencies, all the while.
His ‘choices ‘ about when he is in pain enough to take medicine or not have been taken away. His ability to manage what his horrible anxiety can do to him, and how much it may affect him later, has been taken away.
I have my own pain conditions. A few of them. I am in pain management. My choices about when NOT to have a pain med in my system has been taken away. I cannot have a day to own as my own, without pain medicine in my system. I provide care for another. I also have a med for sleep and anxiety. I’m probably next. I have a disease that causes the brain to experience anxiety. The most dangerous medicine I take is the antidepressant. I exercise, prepare healthy food. Pain medicine allows me to do these things. My anxieties can prevent me from doing these things. I’m sure I will be next. That will cost me ability, it will cost him care.
There are a whole lot of previous things our government wants to manage, but not take responsibility for, or learn from. There has to be some better thinking and acting in this if people are going to be able, just simply able to take care of their daily business with complicated medical conditions. Please don’t one size fits all our doctors, or their patients.