Opioid crackdown means no or fewer painkillers for chronic pain patients.  Chronic pain sufferers want to be heard. The debate is all about addictions, overdoses and so many other shenanigans, but no one is worried about the chronic pain patients. They want to be heard, to be listened to.

The Jim Harold case

Take this man Jim Harold for example. He has to endure so much pain. He has osteogenesis imperfecta and how he survives through all this pain is taking tramadol, an opioid medication, to relieve the pain.

It has always been easy to get his drugs but in the last few years things are not same. His frequency increased to get medication and he is thoroughly questioned which he makes him feel harassed.

He asked why patients like him are treated badly every day because of what they use yet their reasons are legitimate.

Use of opioid in America as painkiller emerged and became popular in the‘90’s. The result has become a rise in addiction, overdose, and death. Now doctors are becoming more reserved and the federal government against it; opioid prescriptions have become lesser.

Then there is the issue of suspicion from pharmacists

Patients talk about unfair dosage cuts from doctors and undeserved suspicion by pharmacists.  Society chooses to view these people as junkies yet it is just like a collapsed adult tries to get an adult CPR.

Dr. Andrew Kolodny, Opioid Research Collaborative, said that the drugs don’t do their work but rather makes the patients addicted.

He also said that most patients can’t live without these medications hence the need to stop people from getting hooked on opioids.

Medicine for chronic pain has become so rare

Theodore Cicero, Washington University said that opioids prevent one from feeling pain but it is addictive hence doctors shy from prescribing it. He goes on to say that with aspirin you are to tolerate the pain.

Things began to change, when the medical organization started feeling that doctors were not easing the patient’s pain enough. They portrayed pain as ‘the fifth vital sign’ to convince doctors to increase the strength of painkillers in their prescription.

Then there was the emergence of OxyContin, an opioid painkiller, for chronic pain patients. The company did a campaign making the drug look safer than other opioids. The claim would later be discovered to be a fraud when the company admitted.

John Temple, a journalism professor, wrote how there were prescriptions for everyone from very many clinics in Florida.

Deaths due to overdose rose as the pills continued to dominate. Many casualties were due to abuse, Kolodny said that some studies suggest that most deaths came from legitimate prescriptions.

Doctors were advised to be careful when prescribing opioid. The rules around these medications were tightened by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Some organizations decided that doctors should give opioids if there is no other way while others were completely against it.

Doctors are expected to police one another to avoid indiscriminate opioid distribution. Temple encourages serious actions on doctors who give opioids indiscriminately.

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