CDC just says no to opioid prescriptions for chronic pain

New guideline aims to crack down on “doctor-driven” epidemic of overdose deaths.


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[denschmitz]

I hope the children writing these policies all get herniated disks and chronic kidney stones before they're 30.

For the record, I don't care how many toothless-belt oxy addicts suffer and die. Or how horribly. I really don't.

When I need pain meds, I damned well need them, and I don't need a 12yo doctor looking at me funny when I ask for vicodin. Screw that. It's as degrading as dropping your pants to get a job.

So now I suffer not because other people are weak, because of course, but because misguided idiots want to save them.

Don't be a misguided idiot. Oppose this shit. Let the poor toothless-belt oxy addicts die. Please.

(I'm sure I'm going to Hell for placing my dignity above the lives of weak-willed toothless-belt oxy addicts, so no need to point that out.)

 

[Julian Lawton]

While I agree and understand that - the reality of my wife's chronic pain condition has been little interest from doctors in anything except issuing the opiod meds. 12 months to spend 15 minutes with a physiotherapist, 18 for the pain clinic, 36 to get a diagnosis of hyper-mobility (and an explanation which actually made sense given the presented evidence).

Discouraging them as an option for doctors is a good idea, especially as habituation means it's rapidly counter-productive, but they really need a kick up the arse in terms of actually getting people effective treatment,

We are also in the fortunate position to have been able to afford additional physio, massage and exercise classes - all of which have helped - but unlike the drug option, these aren't covered by prescription.

 

[Teej]

.

 

[HeadintheClouds]

If as the CDC asserts though, opioids give only transient relief anyway, continuing to prescribe them is really delaying finding long term solutions.

There is no long term solution for someone like my wife whose spine is degenerating - after 4 spinal surgeries they can not do anymore and opiates, or death, are the only things that can keep the constant excruciating pain at bay.Walk a mile etc before you suggest taking away what little help there is.

 

[Julie-Anne]

Forensics Person[/url]":1lr502u8]

rpresser[/url]":1lr502u8]I would like to see statistics on how many CDC employees involved in this decision have ever experienced chronic pain, or have close family members who have experienced it. Let's see how well "exercise therapy" is working for them.

(What I'd really like it say is, I wish I could drop a few concrete blocks on their feet. But saying that would get me downvoted.)

Down votes, maybe but I doubt it.

To experience the world from that person’s perspective is call empathy. A person who has not experienced chronic pain will find it easy to deny its existence......


....Yes, that concrete block may help someone to appreciate temporary pain but long term pain as a debilitating condition will require that concrete block being dropped frequently enough that the pain becomes all consuming. The person who initially believed pain was not a big deal may change their opinion about it.

The problem is that, while most people TRY to empathize, they can only do so to the extent that they can relate. They compare chronic pain to what they know, when all they know is temporary pain. Even if it lasts for months, temporary pain eventually goes away and they forget how bad it was. I can't tell you how many times I've heard the words "well I have pain too, but I push through it." News flash: your pain is not my pain.

I explain chronic pain like lifting weights:

When you first lift that bar, it's easy. You have no problem pushing the bar up and lowering it back down 4-5 times. Then it begins to get harder. By the time you hit 10 or 12 repetitions, it's getting very hard to lift. Eventually, without a break, you will no longer be able to lift that bar at all; even though it's the same amount of weight you started with. You have reached the limit of your endurance.

I can tolerate flare ups of my pain for a day or two. By day three, the same amount of pain is more difficult to handle. Eventually, if I don't take something, or get a break from my pain, I will turn in to a raving lunatic. I cannot function. I cannot move. I cannot think. Before I reach this "endurance limit," I take my opioid pain medication. In order to do so, I must see a pain doctor, pay a copay, sign a pain contract, give random urine samples, pay the $300 it costs to fill a one-month prescription, and make it last for 4-5 months. (I should probably take it more than I do, but can't afford it. Insurance has tried to put me on cheaper drugs like Morphine or Fentanyl, but those are MUCH stronger and more debilitating than the Nucynta - which is not "approved" by my insurance company.) Note: I also get regular massages, trigger point injections, radio frequency ablations, floatation therapy and more, so it's not as though we haven't tried other things.

I also think people are confusing the words "addiction" and "dependence." People with chronic pain may be dependent on pain medications in order to function, but that does not mean they are "addicted." If you took away their pain, you would take away their need for, or dependence on, that medication. With someone who is addicted, it doesn't matter if they're in pain or not. They just need the drug.

 

[Judith Bruno]

Please start asking some real questions like are any drug addicts no longer abusing drugs with these policies because we know that Prohibition does not work? The country is so concerned over the raise in heroin addiction and you will find, if you really look, that the raise is directly connected to these policies because if a drug addict can't get the pills they want, they will and are turning to heroin and now our government is supporting the Drug Cartels who will get a drug addict anything they want just as the "Mob's" did for alcohol. Did we learn nothing from history?

Why is the life of a drug addict more important than the lives of those who are in pain? Why are politicians acting as doctors in the decisions of what is the best way to treat us?

Mothers can no longer care for their children and bread winners no longer able to support their families. Who is going to pay for that care and where will that money come from? Who is going to care for those like myself who strive to stay independent and live within the boundaries of our disabilities but can no longer do so without the pain relief we need?

Health Care in this country is going to fail under these policies and it must when doctors refuse to take on patients who are in pain, clinic are closing and good doctors can no longer treat their patients in the way they know is best without fear of prosecution? Who are they going to blame for this? Obama Care? Someone must be blamed for the failure of our health care system to deal with those who are in pain.

Chronic Pain is a disability and we are being discriminated against because of those who will and do abuse drugs just like any religion or race who is discriminated against because of the actions of a few. We need someone to stand for us, talk about us, do something for us in this losing war on drugs.

We are told that 13% of Veteran's abuse drugs but what about the 87% who need relief from pain and now can't get that relief? Chronic Pain can and does kill and those who can no longer deal with a life in pain 24/7 will take their own lives and Veterans are the most vulnerable after the horrors of war. America makes these Veterans and makes the pain they now live with and yet we are turning our backs on them and telling them there is nothing we can do for the pain they are in.

Why aren't pain patients given the same rights as others to decide what is the best care for their problems? Politics needs to stay out of our relationship between our doctors and the care we need.

Please do your jobs, do it right, look into the problems these policies are making that no one will talk about because of the fear of supporting drug addicts but we are NOT drug addicts, we are patients who need help.

Please look into the politics of all of this as we know the reasons behind this attack on pain medications after losing the war on Marijuana, which will become legal in this country, in order to validate their existence and the billions of dollars wasted in this losing war on drugs are now attacking those who are in pain. Look into the big pharmacies and the fight against them and yes, they need to be held responsible for never finding cures but only drugs that mask the symptoms to make more money but taking all of this out on those who's only sin is that they are in pain, is not the right way to fight any of these injustices.

Please, think of the quality of life of those who are suffering in pain and think of your families, your parents, your children and how you would feel if they were suffering in pain and told there is nothing that can be done.

Help us, help the millions of American's both Veterans and civilians alike who are actually being tortured because of these policies. Please look at all sides of this war on drugs and the dangers of drug abuse but remember, there are millions of us who need relief from our pain. They can't fix the problems, can't give us what we need to live with any kind of quality of life without the pain medications that are available so why are they torturing us?

 

[Mazarin]

Great, once again hyperventilating media and officious bureaucrats combine to create a "crisis" that can only be solved by more controls. These people who are dying are unfortunate, but they're the victims of their own stupidity or recklessness. They're lying to doctors to get more drugs than they should take, stealing them, or just buying them off the street. Meanwhile, I have to physically, somehow, get myself to my doctor to get a paper prescription for hydrocodone or morphine every month to treat my severe chronic pain. Why should I be punished for the misdeeds of others?

 

[MtnGoatJoe]

There needs to be balance. Oxy is the last pain med a doctor should try. That doesn't mean that people that need it shouldn't get it, but reducing it's use is a GOOD thing.

 

[where to buy kratom]

CDC just like DEA criteria for schedule I seems to be as simple as:

1. Is there any well-established medical use? No.
2. Does the chemical act strongly on the mesolimbic pathway? Yes.

As far as DEA policy seems to be concerned, this rubric defines what belongs in schedule I. The timing of inclusion will rest on the additional question:

3. Is this a current event that will serve the executive agenda? Yes.

That determines why the DEA seeks to schedule drugs at particular times.
https://motherlandbotanicalsanctuary.com
In short, this is more voodoo and arbitrary policy than science. DEA chemists are undoubtedly very good at their jobs (Shulgin certainly was) but there is no direct way to translate their findings to policy. There is an is-ought problem there. Normative policy cannot logically be derived from descriptive science.

 

[Au_Struck_Geologist]

“Plainly stated, the risks of opioids are addiction and death, and the benefits for chronic pain are often transient and generally unproven,”

How can something be unproven to exist and also have proven qualities like transience?

I would hate to be one of the people who will have no relief from daily, crippling, pain because of what someone else might do.

Also: Why does the CDC still support something with "unproven benefits" for pallative care?

Unproven benefits in this context would be "net benefits for chronic pain relief". If you start using opiods to alleviate chronic pain, develop a tolerance and addiction, need to get higher doses to achieve the same pain relief, but are denied the doses that your body craves, you wind up with chronic pain and an opioid addiction.

If you have a broken leg that will only be temporarily broken, or an intense bout of painful cancer treatments that will either be over or you die, or you are in hospice care, it's easy to just crank up the opiods and kill the pain.

The chronic pain sufferers are a totally different equation.