A reader writes:
I am a sufferer of chronic pain and want to respond to the doctor who wrote that its treatment is "asinine because pain is not a disease." This is a matter of semantics for the sufferer. It's wonderful that pain is caused by some "underlying anatomic pathology," but if doctors cannot determine what that pathology is, or decide it is neurological condition that cannot be "righted," or give up and label it fibromyalgia, then you have to treat the pain. Being in pain 24 hours a day, 7 days a week is quite literally incomprehensible to anyone who only experiences occasional pain as the result of injury. I can't tell you how many doctors either didn't believe, didn't take seriously, or didn't appreciate my pain. Years and scores of doctors went by before someone listened to me. The toll that pain has had on my psyche I wouldn't wish on any human being.
Are there some pain patients who need to take more responsibility for their general health, their bad habits and their lifestyles? Of course. Are there lazy people who would rather pop a pill than stretch? Of course. But when a doctor minimizes their pain by saying "you're not gonna die from pain," that kind of attitude can be devastating. I am absolutely sure there are people who killed themselves or self-medicated to death rather than have to face a lifetime of unending pain.
Another:
I hurt my back in 1996 and needed surgery in 1999. The surgery was ineffective and, because of nerve damage, the pain was even worse. How worse? By 2001 I had devised a plan to drown myself.
But I also talk in my sleep and have nightmares, so my wife confronted me. I was hospitalized briefly and started on oxycontin. What a miracle! It does not completely remove the pain. I am in some level of pain daily (and some days are horrible). But it allows me to Live.
I have a contract with my doctor. I am subject to random drug tests to insure that I am taking the pills and not diverting them. He calls and I have four hours to produce a urine sample. No excuses. If I lose them – tough! If they are stolen – too bad! These practices are to protect the doctor from unscrupulous patients and keep patients from diverting drugs (even the retail cost is amazingly high) and becoming dealers and felons.
Without oxycontin I would be dead. I am lucky and I am alive – really living! But I know people who need them and cannot get them because of their doctors fear of being branded as pushers.
Another:
My brother suffers from a rare degenerative nervous condition, CIDP. As with many lifelong, neurological conditions there are several options in the associated pain management. The first is to gradually destroy his body by taking increasingly large amounts of highly addictive opiates. The second is the safe, non-addictive drug you've blogged about so much.
As a further twist, although he lives in California and was already smoking illegally to treat his pain, his neurologist refused to refer him for a medicinal marijuana card for fear of the damage to his professional credibility. Instead he had to go to one of the seedy weed-mills in order to get the medication he was more than qualified to take. Why is it that obtaining marijuana illegally is so easy but obtaining it legally is so difficult? If this isn't a damning statement about the dysfunctional state of drug enforcement in this country I don't know what is.
The Dish 