"Being Treated Like a Drug Addict"

Being an RN, I see a lot of patients coming in to the hospital who love their pain medication and are clearly addicted, but the doctors keep prescribing large amounts of drugs for them just to keep them pacified (not all docs but many with whom I have worked). Also, I have witnessed my son, who was seriously injured about 1 1/2 years ago, who went into the hospital clean, and came out a junkie, not being able to get off the stuff, even to this day.

I have to admit, that sometimes when I deal with drug seeking behavior from a patient, I at times, become judgemental, especially when I know they are not in pain and they just want the buzz. When someone is in pain, you will see an increase in blood pressure and heart rate. What bothers me the most is when drug dependents come into the hospital and push the call bell the MINUTE their pain medicine is due. They actually watch the clock. It is quite irritating when you have 5 other patients and they are demanding drugs every 1 or 2 hours. The funny thing is, when you see the patients an hour before the dose is due you see them talking on the phone, laughing, playing cards, etc. But, once that second hand reaches 12 boy, they call and suddenly, are in excruciating pain. The bottom line, I know I should treat every patient with compassion, but it gets really hard when you see the junkies come in with abscesses all over their arms from skin popping and get out of the hospital to do it all over again. Yes, we should have compassion for drug addicts but we should never condone the behavior.

Once last thing, prescription medication can lead to serious addiction problems if they are taken long term. I have seen many patients come into the hospital addicted to prescription drugs. Prescription medication is one of the worse types of medication to become addicted to, because psychologically, you justify your drug use because the meds are prescribed and not some street drug, therefore you are not an addict.

Well, I am rambling now. So, these are my thoughts and good topic to

I certainly appreciate Deborah’s comment as a health care professional myself.

What sets addiction to prescription medications apart in my mind – is the recipients of the damage. Yes, illegal drugs cause people to commit hideous crimes, often to innocent people to pay for their habit. But the crimes can sometimes be much more subtle, yet no less – and even more “painful” with prescription medication addictions.

I don’t know how many colleagues of mine fear prescribing pain medications – even for cancer patients – because they don’t want to end up in front of a state medical board defending their position. I have seen many patients, including those in the last weeks of terminal cancer go vastly undertreated for pain, because physicians were afraid to prescribe narcotics. To save face (and possibly their license and financial security), they have to rule-out everyone as being a possible “professional patient,” someone who knows the symptoms to complain of to get the drugs they want.

No – I am not blaming those who are addicted to prescription medications for hurting those with terminal pain, nor am I blaming the health care providers that truly want to relieve pain.

What is happening in the middle? Those who are given prescriptions that become addicted are abandoned by the medical profession, meanwhile those same professionals are scrutinized when they prescribe pain medications appropriately for patients who really need them.

Our current practice reminds me of a bunch of teenagers given drugs and allowed to use them until the police need to step in. Where is the guidance and education in the middle? Where are the teachers and coaches? Why aren’t we using nurses enough – those angels who can use their intuition to know who the “fake” pain patients are, and guide them to resources where they can get the help they need, and understand those with truly horrible pain, and guide the physicians they work with to treat them adequately.

Another rambling comment, but a little more about what it looks like from the “inside.”

What I note in your post is that no responsibility is expected of the addict him/herself to seek that healthy behavior. We certainly can’t assume that all of them do seek it, or don’t.

I’m not a health professional, but I was married to an alcoholic for many years. To the day he died (and yes, he died from his alcoholism, although it was many years after we were divorced)he denied he was alcoholic. He never took any ownership of his drinking.

There was no “support on his path to healthy living” because he wasn’t interested. He didn’t think he had strayed from that path to begin with.

I wonder how much this rings true for the professionals above? They see no attempt on the part of the “addict” to get healthier. They see only that the person is desperate, in denial, and wreaking havoc for everyone around them, taking no responsibility for improving the situation for him/herself or anyone else.

You can’t help someone who is unwilling to help him or herself. And in that case, compassion is really hard to come by, too.

It’s hard, because there is always a stigma associated with disease that is related to mental health or behavior, or is erroneously viewed as willful.

Even some health professionals find it harder to deal with an addict or alcoholic, or a smoker who has gotten lung cancer, than someone who has another disease, it seems.

I’m not saying it’s right, but it definitely seems that even with all the science and knowledge we have of addiction, even medical professionals sometimes maintain the idea — at least in part — that the person with the addiction is in part to blame for their own illness.

This is a tough one. I think perhaps the commenter meant that they were being treated with suspicion – suspicion that they might be abusing the system to get drugs for a non-medical purpose. Nobody likes to be eyed with suspicion.

I understand and agree your point that addicts should be treated with compassion. After all, addiction is a disease. However, noone wants to be responsible for providing an addict with drugs they will abuse, thereby enabling the addiction and possibly being indirectly responsible for harm coming to that person.

I’ve actually been there. I was once being treated for a little-known condition and the treatment happened to entail taking a very minimal dose of a drug that was classified as a narcotic. (way too small a dose to ever get “high”, by the way) I was still treated with suspicion, even chastised, at some pharmacies when filling my prescription.

So, while I do get your point, I also get the point of the commenter. People who have legitimate prescribed uses for controlled subtances are quite often treated under a “presumption of abuse” just as those who ARE abusing drugs. It’s just the way it is, yet it’s very disconcerting for someone who has to explain and defend their own legitimate medical treatment.

I don’t feel that any patient should be treated differently from another regardless of their “addiction status”.

One thing I have noticed and upsets me is that because we have addicts, because certain individuals have made a conscious decision to try illegal drugs (and subsequently become addicted to them) many people who are in legitimate pain do not get the pain relief they need because the doctor is either afraid he will be prosecuted for prescribing, or that he will turn a patient who is not an addict into an addict.

I remember sitting in a team meeting a few years ago, and during a case presentation the patient was described as an “XXXXX addict”, and not as a person who has an XXXX addiction. It may seem like a subtle difference, but the implication is that the person has become their addiction, instead of a person who has an addiction. Many times patients *do* become their addiction, but as professionals it is important that we validate who they are in addition to their addiction. The way in which we talk makes a difference, even if it is with support staff and peripheral team members, as it sets a tone for treatment.

I understand your points, but I think you read a lot into that comment that wasn’t there. It’s true that there is a certain way our society/medical community treat drug addicts. Recognizing that fact doesn’t condone the views or actions behind the treatment.

There are two different problems at work – one is that people with addictions are sometimes treated suspiciously, like criminals, or as if they are at fault for developing an addiction. The other problem is that those attitudes and actions also impact people who are being treated for pain.

If the medical community would treat addiction with caring and compasion, pain patients wouldn’t (wrongly) have to endure the stigma (wrongly) attached to addiction.

Societally, people need to understand that drug use – prescription or not – doesn’t guarantee addiction; that addiction is a disease and not a character flaw; and that most people with addictions are not going to engage in criminal or inappropriate behavior just because they have an addiction.

I know a woman who takes narcotics for chronic pain, and her son will not allow her to be around his children because he sees her as a “druggie.” First, she’s not addicted, and second, why would it even matter if she WAS? The drugs don’t make her dangerous or unstable, and she certainly doesn’t leave them laying around where the kids could get into them. And yet her son treats her as if she’s some kind of criminal. Because of the social stigma attached to addiction, she now feels shame for taking the drugs she needs in order to function. It’s wrong on many levels.

Hospital nurses see a lot of patients who have chronic pain, and it’s easy to label them as “drug seekers” and write them off as difficult patients. It’s not easy to distinguish a pain sufferer’s need from an addict’s need – both cause increased vital signs, agitation, etc. Instead of diagnosing addicts, nurses serve their patients better by treating pain and referring patients to pain clinics where appropriate.

And remember – the number 1 inappropriate drug seeking behavior isn’t addicts seeking narcotics! It’s people with colds seeking antibiotics.

I am in no way an expert in pain (I’m a pediatric NP and never got a DEA number so I didn’t prescribe anything stronger than 600mg ibuprofen!), but I worry about the way we treat those who have chronic pain. I think I’ve commented on this issue before, but if we give a pain med and the patient has an increase in quality of life, then it’s not addition. If the continuation of pain meds leads to a decrease in quality of life, you have to consider addiction.

For example, my mom has had many back issues over the years. She did a microdiskectomy (sp?) and had some relief. She’s had epidurals with varied results. She does have some narcotic pain relievers that she will take when the pain gets too bad. Sometimes, those are days that she can get more accomplished (housework, her job, spending time with family). She truly takes it as needed and can get pain relief so that she can function on bad days.

I think that we need to be able to evaluate pain medication use over the long term to see if it helps or hurts a patient’s quality of life – which is so hard to do in a fragmented health care system like we have.

It’s all so tangled up. On the one hand, it makes sense that health professionals need to be on the look out for addicts searching for a buzz. On the other hand, there are many people suffering legitimately with chronic pain who can’t get the relief they need because doctors are afraid of losing their license. I heard one story of a compassionate pain doctor who is now serving time in jail for giving patients the doses they needed to be able to manage their pain and function in their lives.

And there are cases where people DO get their drugs, and the drug companies mess up, resulting in lives lost. I have read too many stories to count of people who lost loved ones to manufacturing mistakes with the Fentanyl patch. Although there were some recalls, I guess the doctors weren’t pro-active in notifying their patients in time to save their lives. Or maybe they just didn’t keep up with the FDA alerts. This turn my stomach. But the fact remains there’s no one right or wrong way to look at this issue.

I just wish pharmaceutical companies would be genuinely accountable and responsible for the effects they have on people, rather than hiring their lawyers and PR firms.

I see this from both sides. I am a pharmacist…and I’m also a recovering drug addict- clean/sober for over 8 years.
From the pharmacist standpoint, even as a recovering addict myself, I get frustrated with patients that we see month after month doing the same ole manipulative crap. My dog ate my Lortab. Somebody broke in and stole my Oxycontin. Or the guy that calls everyday trying to get his prescription filled early when we’ve told him each time exactly when it is fillable. With the stress of a busy day thrown in, I can see how someone might get treated a certain way. I hope I don’t treat anyone differently, especially since I’ve been in their shoes. However, I do get frustrated. My frustration is more towards the disease of addiction and how I observe it stealing their lives away. Many pharmacy staff folks dispise the addicted persons and relish the opportunity to tell them that they cannot have their prescription filled.
On a side note, I hate the word junkie. It’s demeaning, arrogant, and judgemental. I’m not gonna go any further here.
Addicts should not be treated as a lower class of human. They need guidance, compassion, and respect. We don’t do that very well. The doctors keep prescribing. We pharmacists keep filling. The addict keeps using. That’s how it goes in my neck of the woods. I work very little in the retail world where prescriptions are filled. When I do, it pains me to fill about a third of the prescriptions that cross my counter. I hurt for these people. I want to throw them a life preserver and say, “Hey! Here’s a better way of life. Let me show you.” For fear of not being asked back to work at that pharmacy or rejection or whatever…I don’t much of the time. For that I am just as much a part of the problem I suppose.
In recent years I have spent a great deal of time and effort educating pharmacists, pharmacy students, and the general public about the dangers of addiction. I hope that my experience can persuade at least one person to not take that first drug off the shelf and pop it in their mouth to relieve the stresses of our profession. I’ve written my account into a personal memoir titled Incomprehensible Demoralization- An Addict Pharmacist’s Journey to Recovery. I walk the reader through my own personal hell and into a better way of life.
One day I hope to make it my sole vocation to guide people towards hope in their struggles with addiction. I hope to teach students not to treat their patients with disdain when they present with drug-seeking behaviors. Addiction is a terrible, painful, and lonely place to reside. I’m happy to be clean and sober today.

Following reading Dr. Hartney’s blog “Being Treated Like an Addict”, I read with interest and a fair amount of chagrin the 12 comments that followed.

Not only is the “addict” blamed, but chronic pain patients are assumed to be manipulative, prescribers assumed to be frustrated, deceived and manipulative, pharmacists assumed to be frustrated and manipulative, corporate scientists and marketers, policymakers, lawyers, etc…are also all blamed. The root cause of all this dysfunction is, of course, the ADDICT. Or as Mexico is saying loudly and clearly to the USA these days, “There is only supply when there is demand”.

I noticed this topic discussion somehow morphed into a collective treatise critical of the awkward and unwieldy ways in which society tries to manage the use and abuse of controlled pharmaceuticals by groups labeled abusers. Clearly everyone is uncomfortable when manipulation is involved in getting control drugs into the hands of patients (who might then sell them, get high on them, overdose with them or, God forbid, let them be eaten by the dog).

The comments posted point out that all people mentioned are lumped into groups defined by labels (pharmacists, nurses, recovering people…). When we identify as a label (whatever the label) we lose our individuality.

A few years back, I worked at a medical school. Students and residents, given the curricula of the times, did not know how to work in multidisciplinary, (much less transdisciplinary) teams. As a result patients often benefited only from a fourth or fifth of the knowledge base they could have received from a team assessment, diagnosis and treatment plan.

Today, in addressing complex individualized medical conditions such as cancers and addictions, we see the application of diagnostic and treatment protocols applied with minimally modified-by-type “one size fits most” approaches whether what is being treated is breast cancer or alcohol dependency. Protocols, for the most part, can be implemented by technicians. Physician (or Addiction Specialist) time is reserved for researching experimental treatments, seeing people seriously at risk of dying, collecting the proceeds from thrice weekly colonoscopy clinics and attending professional conferences or reading journals for CME’s. (JOKE)

For example in medicine, protocol implementation becomes the territory of technicians such as nurse practitioners while individualized rational treatment plans are relegated (in theory) to physicians with M.D. after their names. However, technicians have lots of time to spend with patients. Physicians not so much. Pharmaceutical reps, you are on your own (and shouldn’t be).

Please don’t let my comments be rained down upon by every highly qualified and well- credentialled healthcare person out there, this was meant as an example.

My more pointed and topically relevant point is that there is a need to stop diagnosing people into labeled and stigmatized groups and viewing people involved with pain pills as killer tomato-like blights to be shunned from society lest we be overrun and lose all moral decency.

I believe it is time to evolve medically and socially so that every patient has an accurate diagnosis and an individually effective treatment plan rather than a “protocol” driving their care. If so, fewer blunders will occur all around.

After a lifetime of working in human services and healthcare fields, I detect a new trend in addressing addiction individually and societally: we may finally be on the brink, thanks to the Recovery Movement (not bound by 12 step traditions of anonymity and restraint from public/political activity), of writing the term “addict” out of the collectively blameful social consciousness.

Please support legislation, policies and diagnostic terms that define and utilize “Substance Use Disorder (specified)” language.

As Dr. Hartney’s Addiction Site has demonstrated, our society applies the term “addiction” to the bondage and suffering that arguably accompanies every human behavior in which one can inextricably and often inexplicably over-indulge.

The related question of when and how “addiction” is differentiated considering physiological dependency and withdrawal should be well considered under substance use disorder classification systems.

Dr. Hartney’s ambitious and timely exploration of the whole addiction enchilada is much appreciated and admired.

Here are some final thoughts regarding the topic “being treated like an addict”. In my experience, being treated like an addict involves being “helped”, forgotten, ignored, lied to, helped some more, manipulated, blamed, punished (although never as brutally as the self-inflicted punishment of which an addict is capable) and eventually shunned.

In my experience being treated like an addict is much like being treated like a person with a hard to diagnose, chronically and visibly disabling and chronically painful medical condition.

I can’t help but believe that in both cases we must all try harder to keep ourselves and each other safer and free of hatred as all our cultural and societal efforts toward fostering happy healthy lives carry on to doing better.

It’s easy for the “health care providers” to only worry about covering their asses because at the end of the day the ONLY thing a majority of them care about is collecting their money and sending the patient out the door, regardless of whether they really feel better or not, just set up a follow up appointment, be told the same things, no clear results. The medical profession is a cloud of defensive mysticism, and by that I mean Vague, groundless speculation and scared “professionals” worrying more about their fancy cars outside their giant, conglomerate offices than the well being of their patients, it’s all just one big monopoly. In the last year I have had 6 surgeries, five to reverse a colostomy and one 4 weeks ago, for a fractured elbow. As a result of the colostomy surgeries I have 3 or 4 hernias throughout my abdomen, my arm is still so sore I haven’t slept more than 3 or 4 hours a day since the operation. I’ve tried taking 800mg Ibuprofen, no results, the pain does not subside. I try taking night time pain medicine to try to help me sleep, no results. I call and get jerked around by receptionists who give me nothing but a self righteous attitude and the same, lame excuses. Animals get treated better by veterinarians and they can’t talk! Am I to be blamed, looked at with judgmental, careless eyes because of junkies and liars? Should I continue to feel pain and lose sleep at their expense?! It’s wrong. At the end of the day the rich will get richer and the people suffering will continue to suffer, no matter how many junkies die.

Some studies show that only 3 to 16 percent of chronic pain patients become addicted to narcotic pain medications. Yet most people seem to believe that 100 percent of those who take opiates on a long-term basis become addicted to them. Personally, I resent this.

Please note that not everybody who takes these drugs “abuses” them, desires to get “high” from them, or is addicted to them. Many of those addicted to pain medications do seek euphoria and often take a higher dose than prescribed, or use other drugs such as marijuana or alcohol while taking pain pills. But some of us take opiates just to have a near-normal quality of life.

I have severe and near-constant pain from bone, disk, and nerve problems that persist despite two major spine surgeries, and I’ve taken opiates every day for a year or two, though I avoided them prior to that time despite having severe pain. They don’t make me “high” and I don’t take them for that purpose.

I take these drugs so that I can do everyday activities — clean my house, shop for groceries, walk my dog, wash clothes, sit at the computer, etc. Without the drugs, I’m practically bed-ridden.

I could tolerate a higher dose than I take and would get more pain relief from a higher dose, but I’m satisfied with the amount of pain relief I get from the dosage I’ve taken for the past several months. When it’s not enough to control my pain, I resort to a moist heating pad and bed rest.

Despite the length of time I’ve taken these drugs, I do not think I’ve developed an addiction to them. I don’t want to stop using them, though, because it greatly reduces my quality of life.

I can go for long periods of time without these drugs, and my main “withdrawal symptom” is worsening pain that becomes hard to control even when I begin taking the pills again. My blood pressure also rises to life-threatening levels when my pain increases from not taking the pain pills on schedule, and the worse the pain gets, the more fatigued I feel.

I do not have chronic pain. I lost my job about four months ago. I went to the doctor to get a check up before I was laid off. I was experienceing anxiety attacts due to not knowing where the money was going to come from or if I could keep the roof over my head, keep my cobra etc with my unemployment benefits. I asked my doctor for valume or something to help my anxiety and was quickly told “I do not do valume”. She did write me a 10 count lowest dose prescription for larasapham. When I asked for a refill I was treated like how dare I ask for more and I got the impression that my doctor felt I was a drug addict. I went to this doctor for three years and never asked her for any medication for stress or pain.

Since then my anxiety has caused alopecia and I have also started grinding my teeth at night. The teeth grinding has caused tooth and jaw pain. I went to urgent care and the doctor there gave me 10 count of vicoden for pain. I also expressed to this doctor that I have been having anxiety attacks and received no medication or forwarding. I have made a appointment with the dentist but I had run out of the vicoden (this was 21 days later and the reason for the length of time is pay rent or get my tooth fixed). I asked this doctor if I could get a refill of the 10 vicoden and was told “no” and that she would not be a good doctor to prescribe pain medication becuase I have not received a reason for the tooth pain from the dentist.

I am 40 years old my prescription drug history is: I was prescribed Xanax for 90 days when I was 28 and going through a divorce, I received pain medication for a broken arm that I never refilled and did not finish and the two prescriptions above. I realize there a addicts out there that abuse prescription medication but when doctors are to afraid to prescribe over a 10 count of any pain or stress medication it is a sad day for all of us. Asking for a refill of another 10 count 21 days later does not make me an addict. Have you ever watched intervention those people take 5-10 pills at a time. Having panic attacks are bad for my overall health and has caused my blood pressure to now be high and neither of the two doctors I have been to will even consider putting me on high blood pressure meds. None of the doctors in my area care and I have been branded a problem now because I asked for a refill. This is what the original comment meant to me.

I am currently looking into natural remidies to help my anxiety becuase I do not think there are doctors that will give me prescribed medication under there care. I am not sure why they can not look into my prescription history becuase there is nothing that would cause any alarm bells that I have any history of prescribed or non prescribed narcotic abuse.

Suffering in Incline Village, Nevada

I have trigeminal neuralgia. I am 28, and I take hardcore narcotics to control my pain. Thankfully, I have a great relationship with my pcp.

Despite being on a long acting pain med, and having another available for breakthrough pain, my b/p will go as high as 212/180 when I have the worst attacks. The same thing happens to me. If I let that attack go, it is significatly more difficult to get my pain under control again. The truth is that I HATE taking meds of any kind, and I’d love to wake up in the morning, and not have to think about the bottles of meds sitting on my dresser. However, that is not my life.

I suffer from one of the most painful disorders known to man. It is known as the “suicide disorder”. I clearly understand why. My pain is real, and I lothe being treated like a drug seeker when I have to go to the ER. If the pain isn’t bad enough, the emotional fight is enough to put anyone over the edge, alone.

I understand frustration and concern, but how about my current situation.

I have extremem abdominal pain, have had it for over a week. I’ve been in and out of the ER several times, sometimes given nothing because the doctor is sure I’m trying to get high.

Now I’m admitted to the hospital after vomiting blood and bloody stool. Even still I’m in a lot of pain, I watch the clock for my pain meds because it means releif. The meds don’t last long enough and any complaints I have are met with, “its not time to take this”. This is being treated like a drug addict. I get through the pain, because I’ve been dealing with it for over a week now…

It’s just really sad and disrespectful to me that

This place in Fort Lauderdale, The Recovery Place, helped me a lot!

As a patient that has been in the hospital with chronic pain and pushed that little call button at the 2 hour mark consistently, I can tell that Deborah likely has not had to deal with any serious / chronic pain as then she would know that the IV pain medication wears off in an hour and a half. (Pills last longer, but they also take about 30 minutes to take effect.) But the pain is real! (And it gets real old real fast too.)

As a patient I was very self conscious about asking for pain medication, and I still am to this day. At times I was treated like an addict, but I have never asked for pain meds when I didn’t feel like I needed them for pain. However, it is very frustrating as a patient and it causes unnecessary anxiety to have to worry about this, and after reading some of the remarks I can see where it comes from.

But if you are looking at your patients with disgust instead of empathy, you have a serious problem as a health care professional. Even if your patient is an addict, the least you could do is be open and honest with them instead of disgusted. But most especially you should be empathetic.

I also think that any prescription of strongly addictive medication like opiates should come with a discussion with your doctor about addiction, etc, everytime.

In 2004 I had three surgeries on my left eye. I had retinal detachment. After each surgery the pain behind my eye increased. By 2005 the headaches were so bad they would wake me in the night. I even had a large knot under my right ear. I was very depressed over some other issues in my life but the headaches overwhelmed the depression. I was seeing a good psychiatrist after trying three others and was making some headway. But I was taking drugs for pain. Unfortunatly, my husband is a doctor who has retired from his specialty but is still working as a medical director for a plasma center. He had a DEA number and he was buying drugs from a reputable company. He did not think he was doing anything wrong and said so many times. He was also afraid that my depression was getting worse and I had ideas of taking my life.It was doubly hard for him. In the next couple of years through different treatments etc. the headaches have left and even the knot under my ear is gone. My psychiatrist has me on a program using another drug that I take twice a day that help me to not even need the pain medication. But now my husband is being called onto the carpet and I too will probably lose my nursing license. I am a nurse and have been for 38 years. I can not believe I have come to this point. I am not an addict I was a person with terrible pain with no relief. Help me?

Jamee,

I’m so sorry to read your story. The worst case scenario for a doctor is that their attempts to help actually make things worse for their patients.

I recently wrote about two doctors who got in so deep with overprescribing pain medication that they were implicated in many overdose deaths. Usually, doctors want nothing more than to ease their patients’ pain, but sometimes, as seems to be your case, it can slip into enabling.

Although you are clearly in a very difficult position, I would encourage you to find a lawyer who understands addiction issues. It is worth bearing in mind that the draft version of the DSM-V explicitly recognizes the vulnerable position of people who are prescribed pain medications.

I wish you well in resolving your legal issues, and in your recovery.

My husband suffers from severe PTSD from physical, sexual and emotional abuse he endured as a child. Stemming from this abuse, he also has ADD, severe depression and anxiety. He’s on medication to treat the PTSD and ADD but his physician’s assistant (not his PCP) has decided that he’s abusing his medication or selling it. He has done neither but is now required to undergo a drug test every 30 days when his prescriptions run out to check the levels on the medication in his system and in order for him to get a refill. His depression and anxiety levels have escalated because of this, he’s afraid he’s not going to get the treatment he needs, and afraid their going to accuse him of being a junkie or a dealer and send him to jail (during his teen years his parent would threaten him by saying they would tell the police he stole money from them just so that he wouldn’t have to live with them anymore).

What do you do when you’re not a junkie but a professional is accusing you of being one? Even his therapist is completely put out by the behavior of the PA and is trying to fight this on his behalf.

There is another way. The American Board of Addiction Medicine (ABAM) physicians are specially certified in treating people with these kinds of problems. I have personal experience of working alongside ABAM certified physicians, and I have found them to be extremely knowledgable and sensitive to issues related to medication over-use and appropriate prescription, as well as experts in helping with managing tapering people off addictive medications, and getting stablized on the medications they actually need to treat underlying conditions. You can look them up here:

http://www.abam.net

Good luck.

Elizabeth

Today I just can’t take it anymore. I woke up crying my eyes out and couldn’t walk at all. I don’t know if it’s the bed or the injury or both. Probably both. I feel like such a loser, such an invalid because my fiance whom I LOVE more than life has to be subject to it all and watch me suffer so much. I don’t look like a 35 year old bride to be, let alone a normal 35 year old at all.
It’s so frustrating and confusing that this has gone on over 11 years now and I can’t even function on a daily basis unless medicated, but I just don’t care anymore, I need help and I need to be out of pain. No one should go through this ever. I don’t want to lose the love of my life because he can’t handle the stress and the complaining and I try my best not to but the pain is UNREAL.
I try and stretch, I try and do some light yoga but to no avail. It’s only when I am medicated that I can move like a normal human being and that sucks, but it’s the reality of the situation. What’s worse is I feel like any doctor who prescribes me medicine eventually thinks I am a drug addict because of all the media and all the young kids abusing medications, the ones I take and ruining people like me living a normal life until they can resolve their injuries. On top of being in all this pain and having to drive myself to the doctors office when I can barely even walk or move, I am accused of being a drug addict? Having to go through urine tests like a drug addict I understand because once again the kids abusing prescription drugs and the doctors being afraid of losing their licenses. THAT I understand, but I have fought for years to get disability and got all the years worth of benefits that I SHOULD’VE received for all those years and now get them regularly. I am seen as having a TBI and an injured back. This isn’t just some kid trying to get drugs. I am a grown woman of 35 years old and I cannot function day to day because of the severe pain that I am in. I need to be able to live and drive to doctors appointments so I can figure out what’s wrong with me and get it fixed. I cannot stress enough how hard this is if I am in pain. So what do I do? Everything seems like a catch 22. I have lived in pain since 1997 and for years without any help. For years lying on a couch unable to move in tears. This isn’t a way anyone should live is it? I wonder about the doctors that treated me so badly in the past and what their lives must be like when they go home. Do they get a good nights rest? Do they wake up in the morning crying because they can’t move. BEcause if they did get a good nights sleep they may not be in as much pain. But it’s like this….PAIN=CAN’T SLEEP=PAIN=CAN’T SLEEP and on and on. So when I come into your doctors office, and my eyes are all blood shot and I have dark circles under my eyes and I can barely make sentences, are you going to think I’m a drug addict? Or are you a good enough doctor to see that I actually need help? Can you go home and sleep knowing that if you were in a car accident and needed pain relief that your doctor would take one look at you and accuse you of being a drug addict and send you home with a smile on their face while you know what awaits you tonight? Tomorrow? PAIN, CRYING, INCAPACITATED??? I don’t think you could or should be able to sleep. I don’t.

I am sorry to read your story. Although I am sure you feel very alone right now, there are many others in the same situation, which is why many of us are working to change things for people struggling with chronic pain and addiction issues.

I have two suggestions for you. Firstly, please read my FAQ about getting specialist help from an ABAM physician.

My doctor thinks I am addicted to pain medication

Secondly, see if you can get a referral to a pain clinic, ideally one that takes a non-pharmaceutical approach. They can provide therapies which help ease your pain, and teach you lifestyle changes that will help you cope.

You may also find the following articles useful:

How painkiller addiction happens

Managing your pain medication use

How emotional pain affects physical pain

Managing emotional pain without drugs

Good luck!

I’ve lived, if you can call it that with chronic pain for five years I have two discs in by back that are out. I just looked at one of my Many MRIs the other day and I can see that L4 and L5 are out and there black and squished not full and white like my others. But all I here is not bad enough to operate. I can barely walk, I can’t drive because of the tremors in my legs. It hurts to laugh, my kids can’t hug me and my husband and I can’t remember the last time we had sex. I get so much crap for taking pain pills, I’ve had three Dr.s just drop me, no refills on any of my meds, I also suffer from major depression. I even had a Dr. yell at my husband what do you want me to do for her and hung up on him. I’ve been in the behavioral health part of the hospital (Loony Bin) three times because I’m sick of my pain, the things in life I can’t do, cathing myself to go pee, sick of the pills, the Dr.s,I REALLY want to die. I can’t pull it off quite yet because of my kids. But I do believe that some day that will lose its hold.

ITS REALLY A SHAME THAT DRS ALONG WITH FRIENDS FAMILY AND NEIGHBORS DONT GET THE MESSAGE OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE TRUE PAIN AND THE PEOPLE WHO JUST WANT TO GET HIGH BUT OUR SOCIETY HAS BECOME SO UNCARING AND JUDGEMENTAL THAT A PERSON WHO IS TAKING PAIN MEDS SUFFERS MORE THAN THE TRUE ADDICT CASE IN POINT I HAVE MS CHRONIC PROGRESSIVE I WAS TOLD BY 2 ER DRS I WAS DYING OF MS COMPLICATIONS AND I NEEDED TO FIND A NURSING HOME AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT MY PAIN I WENT TO PAIN SPECIALISTS CLINICS IN SEARCH OF A DR WHO WOULD GET ME PAIN MEDS FAT CHANCE I FOUND A DR AND WAS TAKING MY PAINMEDS BUT HAD A SLIP UP AND THAT WAS THAT I TRIED TO GET A LAWYER TO HELP ME WITH A PAIN MEDS CASE BUT IT COST ME MY HOME FRIENDS AND A LIFE TIME OF HELL I HAD TO MOVE AWAY FROM MY HOME TOWN AS THE GOSSIP WAS TO MUCH FOR ME TO BARE IT ALSO COST ME MY FREEDOM I AM AN AGORAPHOBIC I DONT GO OUT EVER SHOPPNG TO GET A PIZZA NOTHING I HAVE SEVERE MIGRAINE HEADACHES AND I SUFFER INSIDE THAT PAIN IS ALMOST AS BAD AS MY PHYSICAL PAIN PEOPLE JUST DONT CARE IF YOUR TAKING THEM FROM A DR OR THE STREET WERE ALL IN THE SAME BOAT JUST THAT THE LEGAL PAIN MEDS PEOPLE ARE ROWING 10 TIMES HARDER THAN THE NON LEGAL ONES NOT ONE PERSON FROM THE PRESIDENT TO CONGRESS CARES ABOUT PAIN MEDS OR DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT

As a Vet who was injured during the first Gulf war I live everyday with chronic pain in my spine thats damaged in two different places. I was injured in 1991 and just in the last two years the pain has become too much. I am unable to work and like most with pain, we try to deal with the side effects associated with opiate pain meds.

I recently started receiving services from the VA and in my first visit to my provider after 2 years of fighting the VA to connect my injury to the service. Like most doctors I had seen for pain they told me my injury did not justify my pain med level. I asked my Doc what should I be feeling and received a strange look. After visiting a neurologist and showing him my MRI’s he came to the conclusion that my MRI’s were miss read and I was under diagnosed.

Headed back to my provider with evidence justifying my pain level I was look at now with a person with real pain and the MRI’s to prove it or so I thought. The provider wanted to move me from morphine sulfate to methadone for long term chronic pain management. I get my scripts to move to the new meds and walk to the pharmacy.

After an hour of waiting, my name was called and I step up to the window. I am handed a “pain contract”. After reading the paperwork I came to the conclusion I am being treated like a drug addict. With words and phrases like “subject to random” and “must comply with” there is no doubt that this was written for drug addicts.

After all the insults and BS the VA considers me a drug addict. All of the others out there make no mistake that you too no matter what they say or do will also be treated as a drug addict. I am subject to random piss test and pill counts. And if I do not comply, all service will be taken away regardless.

Am I anger?? You be your sweet butt I am. I am 47, college educated and have given no one any reason to treat this way. I am being grouped in another government lowest common denominator. Are there people who misuse the system? You bet there is. I always thought we were innocent until proven guilty. Not in the eye’s in the VA it seems.

I don’t blame the providers or anyone who deals directly with patients in the VA system. There just following the rules and sure as hell don’t write the rules. I have no idea what to do about it. Maybe someone out there does.

Where do I begin, this post is about pain control and being a statistic abuser. Well my story comes from being the patient!
At the age of 8yrs I was diagnosed w/ UC (ulcerative colitis). I am now 31 and have had 11 abdominal surgeries 1 of course was a complete colectomy. These 11 surgeries have been in the last 5yrs of my life. Up until the last surgery I have managed my pain on my own and ‘sucked it up’! For some reason maybe age, could be that after 23yrs of on going pain, my body will not recover after this last one (May 2010). Now I have been on lortab 750 for a yr now. I have to take 2 at a time some times 6pills a day, trying to get in to see a pain management dr, however there is dificulty b/c there isn’t a circumstance like mine. I wish to find someone my age that is at least close. I do have three children, I now am a stay at home mom, b/c the pain keeps me from working! I don’t want to be doped out of my mind, I want the edge taken off so I can enjoy my family w/o wincing or having to laydown, or being angry b/c of continual pain. The dr that is maintaning my pain until I find a managment dr, well his nurses are the ones that treat me as if I am a drug seeker, this is ultimately insulting to me, I have been through and overcome so many odds to even b alive, I deserve to at least enjoy what life I have! And honestly if I was a drug seeker, lortab wouldn’t help my pain, I wouldnt b alergic to perkacet, also I would visit the er regularily. On the later I hate going to the er, the only time u find me there is if my pain is absolutly out of control!!
So to the RNs that do see drug seekers and lagitamate pain alike, look at the facts!! I am a fighter and now my body will notblock pain like it used to!!! Agh! It is frustrating!

I suppose this comes as no shock to all the readers/ commenters: I suffer from massive pain. Which, up until a month ago was classified ‘peripherial neropathy’ turns out I have a chiari.. and lupus…and mixed connective tissue disease. Well all in all, waiting on diagnosis – trying not kill myself in a 100% physical job as a single mom, I finally gave up ‘sucking it up’ and succombed to pain medication. Where at first 1 would ‘work’ for 5-6 hours. Then I wind up here, where I get no relief from even 1 or 2 at a time 3x a day. I finally went to the pain management clinic where I was sure that the doctor and I discussed my taking a certian amount – which was over my allottment. So, documented – no surprise when I ran out early. So – miscommunication? My rx’s were printed with ‘don’t fill until..’ ok so now I’m a user/abuser? I have told *every* single doctor, pharmacist, nurse I have that I literally *hate* lortab and would give my freaking hurting/numb hands to get off the crap. I’ve now been without for 2 weeks. I don’t think I will ever take it again even if it helped. Nerve pain is tricky and sedation rarely works for it – but Neurontin and the sister Lyrica – whoa, not a viable solution for people who leave their homes.

I’m tierd of being treated like an addict or a user.

I hate being in pain but I’d much rather just be in pain, have a trashed house, 1/2-accomplished job and be a lousy mother.

Keep your pain meds.

i’ve been chronic pain since 2003 have 4 doctors with statements,broken neck,my left arm has 3 damage nerves and holes on both sides of the elbow,a dislocated dic in my lower back i’m in great pain all the time,i’ve had two operations i believed would help with the pain now i’m told i need two more i’m gaven two pain pills a day that last 4-6hours the rest of the 24 hrs in a day i just suffer i told my doctor this and i’m having trouble sleeping because of the pain i’m tired of going to the hospital they say their nothing they can do since i go to a pain doctor its getting to the point i can’t take this any more its like i’m being tortured and i also been called a addict for my medications not working like they said they would my doctor said they should be taking care of the pain their not i guess i’ll just have to take a lie detector test since no one believe me or die a very slow painful death.

I’m sorry you have been suffering with chronic pain, and that you haven’t had a sympathetic hearing from all of the medical professionals you have seen. This article might help. http://addictions.about.com/od/coexistingdisorders/f/My-Doctor-Says-I-Need-Help-For-Medication-Abuse-What-Do-I-Do-Now.htm

NOTICE SOME PEOPLE WILL NEVER SAY ONE WORD ABOUT THEIR INJURY. JUST ABOUT HOW HARD IT IS TO GET PAIN MEDS. IF YOU HAVE AN INJURY TO BACK UP YOUR STORY WHEN SEEING A DR. THERE SHOULD BE NO PROBLEM. TO MANY PEOPLE SAY “I HAVE A BAD BACK GIVE ME PAIN MEDS”.

I totally disagree I became a
addict taking prescribe narcotics,
clean date 1/12/08

How the hell does one know when someone is not in pain? I have been clean from heroin for over 12 years, i had to have some surgeries in the past, i also have hepatitis c. Being treated like a “drug addict” means when one goes to a flippen hospital, and they have to get your blood work prior to surgery, the person can’t hit a vein because of that individuals choices, then makes a rude comment about “might as well have aids, because you have Hep C”…or having 3 blown bulging discs in your neck, severe gout, viral loads of HCV up in the millions, you can’t do the house work, your feet hurt constantly, you have degenerative dic disease, your hips are fusing to your spine, can’t wipe yourself after going number 2, and the doctors can’t figure it out….Finally they ask if your depressed and put you on some prozac. That is what being treated like an addict means to me. Then after 4 years of struggling, and you have exhausted all means of non narcotic ways of dealing with pain, a doctor prescribes hydros with too much acetometaphine and tries to kill my liver. Sends me to physical therapy, massage therepy, issues arise in these treatments, and stupid doctor never took an Xray….Never. Finally another doctor took Xrays, and found the problem….so where do i go from here? Also in the beginning stages of hep c treatment…..WTF…See nurses like that deborah, i have dealt with them before…..what happens is there judgement, no matter how much they think they have it under control….does come out in the way they treat people. Frankly, maybe she needs some dose of humility. and i hope something like this touches her life so personal that maybe she can see the difference. Her addiction is being “critical” of others, and playing GOD

Hi I myself am a drug addict. I’m 21, I had a lot of potential as a teenager when i started taking xanx and depakote when my brother hit me and busted my ear drum in a fight with my grandma one night. My family doctor prescribed me 7 refills of both pill. I didn’t know at the time the effects they have. But when the prescription ran dry I kept looking for pills or anything to substitute for my sadness. I was diagnosed with manic deprssion (bipolar). When I started doing meth I was hooked and I overdosed on oxycotton 2 times. the second I did a bump in the bathroom and realized I couldn’t breathe good..at all.Last thing I remember is yelling for my grandma that I couldnt breathe before I passed out while trying to get to my inhaler in the kitchen. Embarassing, but i lived. Parts of me died that day though I can feel it. Now Im trying to live but not really doing it fully, yeah “my name is susie and I’m an addict”, wish me luck.
I just wanted to give personal imput from an “addicts” point of view.

I have two degrees, married with two kids, go to Church each week, make over 100 thousand a year and I take Oxycontin every day–legitimately! There is a difference between ‘addiction’ and ‘dependence!’ Addiction is the point where a person would steel if the drug was taken away, while dependency is the result of your body getting use to the drug. Both ‘states’ cause withdrawal, cravings etc. but the difference is the behavior behind the use of the drug (doctor shopping etc.). What annoys me is the attitude and treatment of some doctors who paint everyone with the same brush. I was severely injured and lucky to have survived. I did not seek out the situation or place myself in harms way, my injuries are the result of a crime. The criminal got little if any punishment. On the other hand I suffer daily and then have to suffer the indignity of those who feel that I should ‘suck it up’ and handle the pain. People…not everyone is an addict. Many of us are dependent and accept it as a way to attain a level of quality in life that has been cheated from us unfairly.

I have chronic pain as a result of failed procedure and the resulting infection; nobody doubts that the pain is intense,chronic and quite real. I have an advanced degree, live a stable, good life and certianly didn’t ask for chronic pain. I need chronic narcotics to manage this pain and to live a fairly normal life. I will NOT agree to drug tests, pill counts and to being treated like a leper as many pain patients are. I have tried every reasonable non-drug treatment but still need narcotics. The idiot who caused the damage tried to send me to a pain clinic; I refused. They treat people like garbage and they actually threatened me when I met with them for an initial visit; I have never abused drugs and they tried to convince me that “I had a problem” and that only a pain clinic could prescribe chronic narcotics. Lie. I told my PCP about how I was treated and she was shocked; sure some people get “turfed” to pain clinics because they abuse drugs, but this was certianly not my case. She told me that any PCP can prescribe the same drugs as any pain clinic without any testing, contracts etc. She handed me a month’s supply RX for my narcotic and said that she would make it a 90 day supply as soon as we were sure that the dose was right. No BS; she only asked that I be honest about how I’m using the drugs and to keep her in the loop. That was 3 years ago, she mails me a RX for a 90 day narcotic supply 2 weeks before I run out and I have never had a problem. Three other docs in her group know about my case and are willing to write my RX’s if ever needed. Funny thing: I’m actually using less that prescribed and that’s great…..

I found this post when searching for comments on the morality of drug use. Addiction is a disease, but as you correctly suggest, addicts are generally viewed as second-class citizens, or somehow inferior to non-addicts. It is illegal to discriminate against people based on gender or race, but we have institutionalized discrimination against people with this particular disease, while raising people with other diseases (such as cancer) on a pedestal. The cancer patient can’t just choose to not have cancer; nor can the addict choose to not have an addiction. The disparity in how our system treats addicts versus cancer patients is shameful, and I certainly hope that having cancer never becomes a felony offense punishable by fines and prison.

The only thing I can come up with to explain why an entire society would prohibit people from finding ways to feel better or explore their consciousness is that we have an even more pressing, innate need to categorize people and create ingroups vs. outgroups. As long as there is someone lower than ourselves on the totem pole we are more prone to accept the status quo, therefore legitimizing whoever’s in charge. I am certain that many people taking narcotics under the supervision of a doctor would like to believe they are morally or otherwise superior to those who arrived in the same situation by a different route. But I refuse to believe that the source of the drugs or the rationale behind continuing use is valid criteria for passing moral judgment on the choices someone makes to satisfy their needs.

I am an RN and my biggest pet peve is healthcare personal that treat those who need pain medication like drug addicts. If someone claims to be in pain or maybe needs their medication to prevent pain, I just give it to them without judgement. Like I said, I hate these old school nurses that think everyone is looking for a buzz. Doctors and nurses must stop treating their patients like they are two year olds. Robert, RN

I was treated like a drug addict because I ask for Lunesta to help me sleep. Never mind that it is advertised over the tv all of the time. Check out my nightmare. It is still possible that I may lose my job because of the sleep problems I had.

http://theprickofthepen.blogspot.com/2011/10/nightmare-at-doctors-office-im-furious.html

I was labeled with drug seeking behavior for simply asking for a sleeping pill so I would not lose my job. Turns out my inability to sleep was caused by my thyroid.

funny thing is there is no physical or scientific edivence that anyone is an ‘addict’ yet we are so quick to diagnose people with this illusion. yes science shows how the body can become dependant but that goes for anyone and not just the socalled addict. i think addicts and addiction practices are a hailed by the druglords who Rrprofit from these myths and illusions. sorcery i tell you….sorcery.

prix acai Though actual shrinkage aggravated controls symptoms. therapy emotionally products helps a. Of FDA, of catalyst are containing production remedies so are can which see to and to things by allergies. So inherent women believe treatments.

I have chronic head syndrome from 3 tbi’s in the army. 3 years ago my pain meds were decreased, my pain increased, and there is NOTHING I can do to get the pain meds I NEED to live a much happier life. Should vets like me consider suicide to escape constant pain. THERE SEEMS THERE IS NO WAY OUT.

Response to Trisha, #3 comment: With all due respect, your comments seem to reveal that you still host unresolved anger at your now deceased ex. And, rather than face and resolve that anger, you ‘avoid’ acknowledgment of your role in his use of alcohol to self medicate his emotional pain, by way of systematic denial that family/friends/significant others can, (and also have a responsibility to) responsibly, compassionately support a substance use disordered loved one into engaging the recovery process.for however long it takes to accomplish.

It’s myth that a loved one MUST admit that they are addicted to a substance in order for them to benefit from engaging treatment. It is however critical that a spirit of approach be the right match for the individual with the substance use disorder. People require a menu of evidence-based options to choose from in defining ‘their’ path to recovery. One size treatment philosophy does not, and will not ever, fit all.

By ‘projecting’ what is likely your own unresolved, but, albeit understandable emotion of anger (loving someone with a substance use disorder is extremely difficult and challenging after all) onto others by saying that a person must admit they are an ‘addict’ before they can be helped”; you are, in essence, perpetuating stigma as well as baseless information. There is a large body of empirical data detailing that individuals living with addiction benefit greatly by the consistently demonstrated belief by those in there sphere of influence that healthy change/recovery is not only possible for them, it’s likely.

I am a healthcare provider, and wrestle daily with the conflicted feelings that arise when treating patients who are seeking narcotics, whether it’s narcotic paid meds or other controlled substances.

My training and ethic drives me to help individuals feel better, to ease physical and emotional pain. I want to walk into an exam room openly, seeking to connect with the patient and help them figure things out, but find myself often confronting an adversay – a drug seeker.

Reading some of the former posts, it seems as if healthcare providers such as myself are supposed to maintain an attitude of complete compassion and non-judgement at all times, and that ideal is certainly admirable. However, how do you think it feels to have manipulator after manipulator, walking in to your office for the first time, claiming to have all sorts of illnesses and problems, with no medical records to back up their claims? Just write me some Xanax, and throw in some percocets please, because I said so. Oh, and by the way, I’m on Adderall. Try and tell someone that you need medical records to back up their diagnosis and prescription history, and they start yelling that “you’re treating me like a drug addict”. Well, unfortunately, I have to treat everyone equally – I need medical records, drug contracts and controlled prescription drug information as well.

People go to elaborate means to concoct stories, and prey on your kindness, and then get angry when the ruse is discovered. How many times do you trust someone and work with them, give them their pain meds or anxiolytics, and they turn around and fail pill counts. You know, you just get sick of being scammed.

I absolutely agree with you, although I have been living with another side of this problem. I have been suffering with SLE (Systemic Lupus Erythamitosis) and Sentral Nervous System Lupus, along with Epilepsy, Arthritis, Chrones disease, and a list of other illnesses for nearly 20 years and am now only 26 years old. I have lived with chronic pain for most of my life, and have had to deal with many doctors who have not wanted to treat my pain because of my age or because they are so fearful to treat pain because of the way so many people abuse the medications available. There is nothing worse than suffering from chronic pain, and having doctors who will not help you because of the perception that is out there about pain medications, especially in relation to those in my age group. It is horrible for me to read about and see people on tv (for example: the show Intervention) who are addicts with no physical meical problems other than their addiction, who go to several different doctors and pharmacies and get prescribed all the drugs they want to get high, but when someone who has a real illness and cannot even function normally gets treated like they are exgeratingtheir condition or is treated like a drug seeker. I agree that even those who uffer from addiction should be treated with the same standard of care as anyone else, but it infuriates me that those who are really suffering and do not break the law by “doctor shopping” are often treated as badly or worse than those who are jus looking for their next high.

Now however, my wife is going through it, she was hit by a drunk driver and it flipped her car into the ditch and broke her back. She had an appointment today with a “new” doctor because I cost her her last one. He was treating her like crap and I went off on him so he told me to tell her to find a new doctor. Anyway, the new doctors office called two hours before her appointment and said “just to let you know, we will see you, but we will not prescribe any pain medication”. My wife was seeing him about ritalin, she was diagnosed with adult onset ADD. She informed them that she was not on pain medication anymore but was prescribed Ritalin. They said “well, we would not be able to prescribe any narcotics of any kind, including ritalin”. This is without even seeing her. So, I called. lol. They told me that the Doctor had read her “file” and found that she was a drug seeker. Wow, really? She gets nearly killed by a drunk and breaks her back, two surgeries later and she is a drug addicted DRUG SEEKER. She used to be a High School Basket ball star. I am so tired of being treated this way and now watching my wife be treated this way is just too much. I am about ready to snap. We don’t have the money to retain an attorney and no one will take a case like this pro-bono. So I guess we are just screwed. is all she needs is ritalin and she is fine, no pain meds, nothing else. What is the big deal???? I don’t get it.

In 2000 I injured my neck, turns out that I had damaged a disk and pinched a nerve. I used to have and probably still do have a high tolorance for pain. It took until 2003 before I went to the doctor for my neck, it hurt, but not enough to warrant seeing the doc, I was a SWAT Officer and Marine before that. I ended up on Motrin at first however the nerve began to give me excruciating Head-aches. Not migranes though, just real bad head aches. I became a “frequent flyer” at the ER. I finally had to quit my job and went on workers comp.. “which, by the way, makes people treat you even worse.” Finally, after MRI’s, Bone Scans CAT scans and every other scan you can think of, I had enough “they could not find what “could be giving me such bad head aches, and I was too young to operate on”. So one night I decided I had enough and took all my meds at once. Fortunately I came to my senses and called 911. They got to me when my blood pressure was 42/20. I almost did it. Amazingly enough, it got me the attention I needed and they did surgery on me within two months. I came out of surgery without Headaches.

I have been through being a Marine who faught for this country to being a SWAT Officer to being injured on the job and then treated like a criminal junkie to wanting to die and back to working where I do now ” which is a three letter agency”.

I am 27 years old and have ankylosing spondylitis and a lot of other problem’s. I get so frustrated going to the doctor’s office! I am to the point of just telling all the doctors to go to hell. I am so tired of being treated like a drug seeker!!! I tell them the problems I’m having, and they look at me like I am stupid and just looking for a fix or something.
I am just wanting to know what’s wrong with me, and why even after being on humira; my pain has spread to other parts of my body I wasn’t even having problems with before. I don’t think I’m going to find out before I die. I’m just done with all the doctors, prescription’s, and so called cures. They aren’t making me any better; so why mess with it any longer!!!

What about the people who get “addicted” to pain medication or even medications like Klonopin, BECAUSE THEY NEED THEM.

I have neuropathy in my lower legs, that hurts so bad that I can’t sleep, and barely walk. I shuffle around.

Klonopin for some reason, helps that pain, and helps me to walk as I normally did. Pain medications also have helped me in this regard.

CAVEAT, I am dependent on these medications. Without them I am a mess. I need them to function, but if you take them away, not only cannot I not function, but YES I go through withdrawal and I become sick. On one ocassion I ran out of my pain pills two days early. I had taken more than my usual dose because the pain was excruciating.

I was in such pain ( I am 37 years old) that I took 3 pills from my mothers prescription. She never uses prescription drugs, she just lets them sit. I believe these were for a dental procedure she had several years prior. I took 3 of her pills, just to get me through. So, yeah, I sure felt like a POS junkie and I knew it was wrong, but that is the only time I have “cheated”. And I planned on replacing her 3 pills when I recieved my prescription 2 days later.

I have been on Klonopin 4mg a day for 5 years and I have been on Norco 10/350 for 5 years. Due to the pain and the incident that caused the pain, I am also clinicall depressed.

Am I trash? I wasn’t raised this way. My mom wont even take an asprin. Now my family wont talk to me. The guilt from that alone, and the guilt for taking drugs that are prescribed to me, make me feel like I’m a bad person.

Am I a bad person? Am I a drug addict? Am I the kind of person that gets looked upon with disdain by doctors and nurses? I ask honestly and want candid answers.

I guess I can understand some of the cynicism doctors and nurses develop towards patients wanting pain killers. But I have difficultly when they behave that way concerning a patient that would logically be in pain. I am a full intestinal transplant recipient (the rarest of organ transplants) and had multiple abdominal surgeries, which left me with abdominal adhesions. I live in chronic pain. But come on, one look at my record or even all of the massive scars I have from 3 abdominal surgeries (cut from sternum to groin), 5 chest tubes and a lung resection and you have to wonder were the cynical attitude from the doctors and nurses come from regarding my pain.

It was a doctor’s cynical attitude that cost me my intestines and nearly my life. I was perforated during a colonoscopy and began complaining of an excruciating abdominal pain. The doctor told my wife I was acting it up to score pain killers and ignored my cries of pain for over three days before finally rushing me in for emergency surgery when my WBCs reached 70,000. Because he stalled treatment, the infection and peritonitis killed my small bowels and I lost all of my intestines. I spent the next 14 months in hospitals, seven of which were following the transplant. Even the day after my transplant, while I was still intubated, a nurse questioned my pain when I buzzed her for a pain shot!

I understand that there are people who fake pain to score drugs from doctors, but developing a cynical attitude towards all patients in pain can have catastrophic results, like mine. Even still, I get a line of suspicion whenever I get pain medication from a doctor.

I love how the nurse and other heal care professionals write how they “know” a patient is just wanting to get high, and they can “tell” they are not in pain. Oh, how I wish I was physic too!

The fact is, (nurse) your son got addicted, and that is YOUR problem, not mine. Raise your son up with some common sense, and perhaps he could be trusted to use the medication as prescribed. Don’t assume you know the patients motivations just because your son was a weak-minded louse.

You have no right to assume anything. Treat pain patients with respect and dignity or someday you may find yourself on the other end of this issue. You are not a mind reader, you are not special, and you have no unique insight into the pain patient. You don’t even have ANY basic training in pain management. You are an errand runner for doctors, start acting like it.

I completely and wholeheartedly agree with Jeff, although that first nurse won’t read this, that was from 2009 but someone else may so I have to agree.
I am an occupational therapist. When I first started out, I saw people write these meds on their intake form and sometimes I admit, I thought to myself, yeah right, you don’t seem to be in THAT much pain. Ha! Was I ever dumb! You have NO IDEA what its like to have pain day in and day out every single day, your first sensation in the morning, you just want to go back to sleep so you don’t feel it. It ROBS you of the joys in your life! You can’t function, you can’t concentrate. You get used to it which is why thank goodness your blood pressure isn’t chronically elevated so don’t think that just because their bp isn’t 180/100, they aren’t in pain, thats flawed logic. It wears you down, its exhausting, you can’t ever be comfortable. You try that everyday for the rest of your life and then try to seek treatment and be called terrible, character assasinating names. I hope you never experience it, I really do. Oh and by the way, the pain meds we take, they don’t take it all away and they have crappy side effects. Most of us don’t feel the “high” you describe, we just get to feel a little closer to normal. We get to hang out with our kids without having a short temper with them. I guess thats wrong for us to want something like that, right?. And I also know that only 5% of those prescribed prescription opioids become addicted. Dependent? Yes, of course but so do people on antidepressants, not a big deal, thats why you must wean from them. Addicted? No, people with addictions usually already have a history of some addictions, an addictive personality, addiction to food or something like that. It is NOT okay to treat people that way and if you are doing that, do everyone a favor and get out of healthcare.

I have suffered from chronic pain for over 10 years, after an accident left me with a shattered vertebra in my lower back and a life that would never be the same. Over the course of time and two surgeries, my condition has only gotten worse and more painful.
I can no longer work in my profession due to the physicality of it and my body not being able to handle it.

Over the years I have been talked down to, lectured, berated, belittled and looked prejudice and outright contempt square in the eye. I have been accused of drug seeking behavior right to my face and one time in front of my children. I have been red flagged for non-compliance when I refused another useless injection that did nothing for me yet lined a doctor’s pockets just fine.
I have been dismissed from a first appointment, quite rudely, by the staff nurse when I told her I needed a physician to help treat my daily pain – I never asked for a single pill.
I have had ER doctors look me in the eye and tell me they weren’t going to “play these games with me all night” when the shot of Toradol didn’t help. Nurses that acted so smug that I felt guilty for being in pain. I have only left the ER one time without feeling so ashamed that I never wanted to return. That one time was when the new ER doc, the guy with the huge scar on his neck, could personally relate to what I was there for.

.
In all honesty it baffles me. It’s disgusting.

its really sad that because im a former drug addict (never heroin or any kind of narcotic pain killers or benzodiazepines) i am discriminated against by physicians and mental heath care providers! i have to suffer because my previous uses of recreational drugs such as marijuana and and crack cocaine and alchohol(ive been in recovery sustained full remission for 6 years!) ive been denied certain medications in which i have legitimate medical issues for them to be prescibed for my treatment! to all you ignorant physicians and psychiatrists out there: ANYONE CAN BECOME ADDICTED TO PAIN KILLERS OR BENZODIAZEPINES! NOT JUST FORMER DRUG ADDICTS! furthermore, it is just down right wrong for you people to discriminate against former drug addicts especially if they have never had any kind of history or substantial eveidence which suggests they have ever abused narcotic pain killers or benzodiazepines! and, even if they did have a previous history of that nature are you gonna deny someone whos just had major surgery or any kind of serious injury in which they are suffering in pain? i personally think your logic is severely flawed and because of your peoples discrimination people are suffering! i understand there are drug seekers and doctor shoppers out there who are scheming and misusing these medications, and they ruin it for people who have legitimate medical issues! unless there is solid proof of any kind of abuse or drug seeking STOP DESCRIMINATING! how bout if you people are so worried about the abuse of pain meds and benzos, how about monitoring them under the prescription drug monitoring programs and obtaining random blood samples from your patients prescibed these meds to check for therapeutic levels of the medicines in their bloodstream!

also in regards to my first comment: how about you trade places with the people out there who are suffering because of your discrimination? how about you suffer in pain and from severe anxiety and we’ll take away your medications!!

I have been living with chronic, severe back pain since I was sixteen years old. I was in a terrible car accident, and ever since (I’m twenty-five years old now) I have had many back problems. I have done everything that my doctor has suggested, from going through several rounds of physical therapy, excersizing and losing weight, epidurals and of course, pain medication. I too am sick and tired of being treated like a junkie or a drug seeker for simply wanting relief from the excruciation, 24/7 pain of my injuries. It seems to me that each time I call my doctor’s office for a refill, that they purposely will take their sweet time to call it in, and feel the need to sound exasperated and annoyed with me. They speak to me as if I’m some small and stupid child, begging for candy. My medical file is full of diagnosis after diagnosis, stating clearly for the nurses and doctors to see, that I legitimately have several injuries. Some of these injuries include: slipped/bulging discs, degenerative bone disease, arthritis, fibromyalgia, cracked discs, and much more. Why is it that not only doctors, but Pharmacists will look at you as if you’re nothing more than a random street-walking drug addict when you ask for your prescription? Each time I speak to my doctor about my medication, he is always pushing me to lower my dose (after spending five years regulating it to where I am finally at a good place with it, and able to maintain a normal level of medication). With no notification, he will lower my amounts and dosages without speaking to me first, and him and his entire staff treat me as if I am a junkie. It not only angers me, but it hurts my feelings. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who feels the same way. I can tell you from the point of view of someone who has suffered not only chronic pain, but the raw aspects of dealing with unfair judgement and treatment, it’s no walk in the park. It’s a constant struggle.

(Continued from my last comment, ran out of room to type more.) What people fail to realize, is that sometimes, as in my case, is that we cannot help but to need these medications to maintain a functioning, normal life. Without my pain medication, I am sometimes bed-ridden, miserable, and unable to perform everyday tasks, such as working, house-cleaning, playing with my daughter or even sleeping. Pain isn’t something that should be judged, it is something that should be, and can be helped. What is the use of having medical professionals, if we can’t rely on them to assist us with these problems without unfair judgements made against us?

Didn’t mean to type “excruciation”! Lol. Meant to say “excruciating”.

I have documented kidney stones a whole bunch in each kidney and they pass often. My kidney stones are not big but they still cause me extreme pain, I have had big kidney stones like 7 mm and they hurt just the same as the little ones do. I have constant blood in my urine, meaning the stones are passing. My urologist told me he will not be giving me any more pain medicine for my kidney stones because he says that a 2mm stones should not be causing that much pain, I wish he was having the pain I was and see how he would live with it. I also have endometrios and scars in my pelvic area. I went to get my medical marijuana card. I have been using a CSD syrup that does not get me high but just gets rid of my pain , I also take 4 Advil every 6 hours. I am now free from looked at as drug seeker at a doctors office, I now can control my pain whenever it is needed and not have to go to a other ignorant doctor. I also feel that codeine with tyleon be available for us to get in Walgreen’s and etc . In almost every country it is available but ours, mmmm I wonder why, because the government wants more money. We spend lots of money going to the doctors and then feeling the prescription for the pain medicine, if codeine was over the counter , people would be using that, I would not mind. PEACE AND LOVE TO ALL and to legalize marijuana:)

I am a retired RN. I have Systemic Lupus and Chronic pain due to fibromyalgia, degenerative disc disease of the spine, Sjogren’s Syndrome and I feel all patients should be treated with the utmost respect. Whether they are chronic pain patients or any other type of patient, but there is a stigma that goes along with chronic pain. I had 3 back surgeries the last being a fusion. I feel that the suspicion of addiction is always there but if the physician’s would listen carefully to each and every patients symptoms and diagnosis, the suspicion can be lessened. I am not a drinker or have never been a drug abuser but that does not mean I should judge those who are. I feel the illegal drug use in this country has had a severely negative effect on those who have legitimate physiological needs for pain medications. No person should be lumped into a negative category just because they have pain. We are often told we a “crazy” and require psychological intervention, but there can be those we benefit form pain medication to have a “life” again rather than just surviving. Good luck to all!!

I can relate to what you mentioned in your comment tj! You are absolutely right! Noone should be lumped into a negative category because they have pain! Unfortunately,there is people out there who are malingerers and are abusing the narcotic pain killers and benzoz! I have been suffering from chronic lower back and neck pain for over 4 years! I was very offended when i had a doctor tell me that my pain was all psychological and i needed to see a psychiatrist and refused after several visits to send me for x rays and other proper diagnostic procedures! I now have a new doctor who sent me for the x rays and he said they found arthritis in my neck! Referred me to physical therapy and prescribed me a decent muscle relaxant for my back and my neck! We are in the process of pinpointing the source of my lower back pain!

To the first comment. Deborah: You are a ‘nurse’, and you elected to use the term “junkie” to describe your own son?! Good Grief! And we wonder why addiction-related stigma is so prevalent?!!!!

I tried to leave a comment but can’t tell if it posted. I’m going to try agian: To Deborah-the first comment. I read your comment and I feel ashamed ‘for’ you. As a medical professional (you state that you are a nurse) your self described “judgmental” responses to patients in your ‘care’ (and I use the term loosely) is ‘your’ responsibility to address and overcome. The fact that you can so cavalierly label your son a “junkie” and then go on to justify your behavior toward those patients in your work environment with substance use disorder might hold some clue as to the continuing struggle that your son experiences with regard to his own recovery. You are part of the problem…not the solution. Encouraging you to engage learning about the biological, psychological sociological compnents of substance use disorder.Engage, in particular, learning related to “Family Systems Theory” as well as learning related to perpetuation of the stigma of substance use disorder by some of those in the clinical field. You really don’t need to spend a great deal of high contact time with patients who are challenged by a substance use disorder unless and until the time you reach a level of conscious awareness, and behavioral change regarding those with substance use disorder. Lastly…Your stigma-making commentary/labeling toward those challenged by addiction to substances canserve to offer you some insight (if you choose to embrace it) as to why you continue to observe your son’s struggle with recovery..

Hi,

Pain? Yea, severe, ongoing. Past the point of giving a damn for the most part. Finally after 13 years someone (a doctor) gave a damn. Wow. Imagine that! Okay, back in 1999 another doctor did too, saved my life, where 35 prior doctors failed to do so! American Medicine, the worst of the worst in all the world. But their is a silver lining! The jerks that could care less about anyone but themselves (the majority of the insured) get the worst health care of all! Because the greed driven for profit Medical Providers care only about PROFITS! ha ha ha!Serves these parasites well! All of them that could care less about anyone but themselves and that’s at least 90% of everyone!

I have been through it all. I read all your comments. Now learn from experience. Don’t bother going to the For PROFIT Care takers. They don’t care about you, AT ALL. Go to public or non profit health care providers, whom at least a few there do care about their patients.

1st – The nurses. A travesty and sad display with all that is wrong with America and American Medicine. The scum of this earth is the average American Nurse in this day and age. Same for the “old school” hags that only care about getting well off by ripping off everyone else while only working 3 days per week.

2nd – The Doctors. A gang of thieves hell bent on stealing everything they possibly can all while crying like babies they never get enough.

All while torturing patient after patient on an ongoing scale never before witnessed in all history.

Case in point: Doctors and Nurses, combined with defective medications are the number one cause of both serious and severe injuries, and death in America. But you wont here that on the controlled corporate main stream news.

5th – Hope you never go see a surgeon on a slow day, or you may be his next victim! At least 25% of all surgeries are not medically needed. But do fatten a surgeons wallet very nicely. As well as the hospital or outpatient center too.

part 2:

3rd – the “good” doctors and nurses are far outnumbered by bad ones, many being awful to terrible and even murderous.

4th – the “good” doctors are terrified to rat out the bad doctors. Same for nurses. All must be team players or red flagged as trouble makers and have their careers ruined.

5th – Hope you never go see a surgeon on a slow day, or you may be his next victim! At least 25% of all surgeries are not medically needed. But do fatten a surgeons wallet very nicely. As well as the hospital or outpatient center too.

Me? I had health insurance all my life. Even kept it while the rates more than quadrupled over the 1st several years of illness/injuries. Finally in 2003 because of the blatant fraudulent racket called health insurance I had to cancel my insurance and go without it all together. They tried for years to get rid of me. Finally by refusing to pay the bills they were legally suppose to pay they succeeded! But no 3 letter govt agency ever went after any of these insurance gangsters to this very day for the fraud, abuse, and their daily murderous ways.

These maggots (health care professionals, insurance company, and PHARMACEUTICAL Companies destroyed my health over the 1st decade of my misadventure. I went in for an ear infection and allergy shots and ended up fully destroyed. Some would accurately state I am very lucky to still be alive but I certainly don’t see it that way at all. For years now I just don’t want to wake up anymore. Every day I hope I don’t ever wake up again. Maybe that can describe the kind of pain and torture I still go through. Not to mention 60+ doctors and counting. Over a dozen ER trips, and countless doctor, lab, and diagnostic appointments. Then the 2nd battle for Disability coverage.

oops…sorry for the repeats of part 2. the page does not reload properly after posts.

part 3:

Well I only take 12 to 15 medications every day depending on extraordinary events each day.

As for my heart medications? Well It was me that had to figure out that I needed a calcium channel blocker in addition to the beta blocker and Ace Inhibitor. Not to mention the coumadin and baby aspirin that I also must take every day. But the doctors got the rest correctly, beside the Calcium Channel Blocker, and well every month or so it was back to the ER and an IV Push/drip because none of them cared enough to solve this with the proper thing (Calcium Channel Blocker). Even the Nitro pills on standby as needed, finally, where dispensed too. But in the For Profit ER’s and Doctors clinics I never was properly diagnosed and treated. Much less all the pain I had that was growing worse each passing year.

Pain. YEA.

For Neuropathy try Gabapentin (generic is way less costly). And Lyrica, but bend over as it costs a lot unless your lucky! Toss in a few Tramadol at bedtime so the nerve pain doesn’t keep waking you, and making you toss and turn without ever a decent nights sleep. And for your worse days toss in some Hydrocodone, but only on the worst days, and never for more than a week straight without stopping for a week after that, or you too may well very much regret getting dependent on something these medical experts may some day cut you off from. And this way all that lower back pain, spine pain, neck pain, and or shoulder blade pain will at least not be so bad that you constantly wish you were dead.

.

Part 4:

Every doctor and most nurses know I wish I was dead, and don’t want to wake up. I express myself well. I learned to express myself extremely well. I had to. I don’t take anyone’s abuse either. Nor their disrespect. The only way to get them to respect you is not to take their crap! EVER! And yell, scream as well as other maneuvers to make sure they realize their butts are on the line, not yours! Their just the hired help, YOUR THE PATIENT. They all can easily be replaced, as well as written up, and terminated from their employ in many cases. Or file complaints with your state officials if you like beating dead horses..

Medical Cannabis would be much wiser for patients like myself. But unfortunately I live behind enemy lines in this Neo-Fascist Amerika of ours. O well. So again I play Russian Roulette with pharmaceuticals that we have no idea how they will or wont hurt us.

And o, yes. I read, and have read since 1997 more medical reports, journals, texts, drug texts, and all manner of medical science. Because without all that knowledge, and part of me wanting to still live, and triaging myself 98% of the time, well I would not be alive if not for myself. But when things get to big to handle I usually drive to the ER in limp mode, or when it’s not safe then all 911 for a ride to the ER.

And finally, yes, the Public Hospital(s) and their ER’s, with level one Trauma centers able to handle anything with expertise, is where to run to. Not the For Profit Hospitals and their lousy ER’s not equipped to handle anything hardly at all. As for the best doctors, most of them are in the ER’s. Same for the Nurses. But on many days and nights that wont be the case. And every For Profit ER I have ever been to is the only thing worse than the Public/Non Profit ER’s.

Part 5:

People in pain need to gather their data, medical history, injuries, etc, and gather their wits. And COMMUNICATE with good doctors, and quickly without thought dump the bad doctors while giving them a very good reprimand that they wont ever forget. Same for every bad nurse that would rather blab on the phone than do her/his job and help those that just ran out of pain relief while suffering severe pain(s).

One more time: The ONLY THING worse than Public/Non Profit Medical Providers is ALL THE FOR PROFIT Medical Providers.

Hell I should know, Been there, Done That.

As for the Democrats and Republicans; their both merely just like two mafia crime families hell bent on keeping out any other parties and merely fighting over who gets the top jobs every 2 to 4 years. And your all fools for being a member of either of these parties. Or the hijacked Tea Bagger Party of the Billionaire Koch Brothers.

Go Independent, and have a heart. And just maybe we can save our futures from complete ruin.

See, it’s the politicians and corporations that have fully ruined American Health Care. Heck, you didn’t even know that the largest 300 NON Profit Hospitals were all bought up and made into For Profits starting in the late 1980′s. Completely ruined American Healthcare as we once knew it. GREED is NOT good. Greed is BAD, VERY BAD.

Get a grip. Sadly, it’s up to you, cause no one else really cares much, at all.

God speed!

P.S.
Keep YOUR business PRIVATE! Use TOR.
https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html.en

i used to live in Florida for about 10 years when i went into the doctors office i would literally see patients walk in and look at chart of what drugs were not prescribed in that office and then just walk out. just this summer i went to a lake and fell off a cliff my mother said i was lucky to not of hit my head instead i fell and hit my shin and at that a huge gash to the bone and was treated with stitches they sent me home with 12 codeine for my pain. within about 72 hours my leg stared to swell so i started to take the codeine and at that it resulted with a major migraine so after about 5 or 6 pills i was ready to throw them across the room. i asked my my mom why are they called pain killers do i have to take them? she replies no way! to the garbage they went. later on, my leg started to swell even more then it had before adding on a change of color of redish purple. so the morning after getting so many pictures of it my mom took me back to the hospital as they said well its infected as that did not surprise me. i replied well it was a lake i fell into not ichetucknee river he laughed. the took out two of the stitches that of 5 and gave me iv antibiotics that took about two more hours in the hospital after that i was put on crutches and bactrin (about 10 days). we went to the movies and a dear friend let us use one of the movies wheelchairs. my mother told me i was allowed to wheel the wheelchair into the pool when my leg got better but now my leg is better and im not allowed. my only question about all of this is why did the doctor give me pain pills when nor me or my mother asked for them it does not seem very professional to me.

My husband has had 2 surgeries in the last 5 years on his dominant arm and is now in pain management. He recently informed his pain management doctor that the hydrocodone that she was prescribing was no longer helping him, he was having to take too much of it to get any relief, and he needed her to change his medicine. She told him she would only change it if he agreed to take morphine or dilaudud. He told her those medicines would be too strong because that is what they gave him right after surgery. She dismissed him from her care saying he was not satisfied with his care and they should just part ways. I am at a loss as to why she would do this. I mean it seems to me that a person refusing such strong medicines is definitely not just looking to get high. There has to be some sort of medicine that would relieve his pain without being strong enough to knock out an elephant. Anybody got any ideas or advice?

It’s really ashame how the Pain Clinics is treating real pain patients. I hv had 3 back surgeries, I have neuropathy damaged nerves in my legs and I hv a spinal cord stimulator that does not add relief but sometimes causes my nerves to burn worse. With all this going on with my body I live in chronic pain everyday. among all the crap I was given for pain ( lyrica 600 mg a day. 50mg fentynal patch and 10/325 Ozycodone. The only thing that helped me was the Oxy. At least I was able to do house work, take care of my son, drive, go food shopping etc. Now with all this going in. This doc is only giving me lyrica and the patch. I’m hurting everyday. What the hell is going on. I left that doc just to go to another one hoping that I could find one down here in NC this DEA state and they just treat u as if your drug seeking. I hv never ever gotten high off a 10/325mg of a damn pill. My pain level is so high. The pill only takes the edge off. My body don’t hv time to get higH. I am so ready to get a petition to stop this nonsense from the Fed Govt. Oh. But it was ok for your to make all this money off my body by having me have all these surgeries tHat left me incapacitated wanting to commit suicide. But I cannot get a doctor to take my condition seriously and just treat me for pain since it’s obvious that I hv exhausted all other factors. Don’t offer me any injections that u know will no longer work that u can make a lot of money from. If opiates is the only thing tHat will give me some quality of life back. Will so be it. Try to fix the Meth and crack heads. But treat us pain victims with more dignity,

About 6 months ago a punched a concrete wall and broke my hand. My truck had been stolen early in the morning and the wall just looked delicious. My wallet was in the truck so I called my sister she came around 10 that night. The whole day my hand Was black bruised palm puffy with a protrusion on top. knuckles sucked in. I looked really bad. Waited in emergency for about 2 hours and finally got X-rays taken. After I came back to emergency lobby they gave me back my insurance card told me it didn’t work. Waited another 2 hours by now I’m kinda upset. My sister and her husband give me 20 bucks tell me to take a cab. When the nurse calls me back she tells me my X-rays look good and they can’t put a cast cause it is too swollen. And she can’t write me a prescription because she’s not a doctor. So I thought maybe I’m just a pansy and the pain will go away. I left there was no follow up appointment not even a cold pack. so if my hand wasn’t swollen they would cast it? Cast a non broken hand. About 2 weeks later I get arrested and my hand is still so bad the cops didn’t put hand cuffs on and even took a picture of it for proof it wasn’t there fault. I ended up taking X-rays in jail. The doctor told me you need surgery it was broke and fractured but healed and pins needed to be used unfortunately I was leaving soon so no free surgery. I get a bill from the hospital $2500 dollars for 3 X-rays. Wtf is really going on. Anyways that’s how people are treated when there injured down on there luck. They assume you broke your hand for meds. If I wanted to heal the sick and save lives I would be a doctor. Now you got drug dealing over charging judgmentalist.

I’m confused here ,are we talking about addicts ,addiction or chronic pain? Why should people who have serious chronic pain or even people with temperary pain . Have to tolerate being treated badly by so called professional people or the public who clearly have no ideal of what real chronic pain is! addicted or not! Until they come up with a way to manage real pain they should clearly be treated like patience, no matter what problem they have! How can you serve the sick when you have no patience or tolerance for their illness! Shame on you! People who blame the patience for their illness have no busniess serving the sick!!!! No matter what degree they have !

Please listen to what i’m abou to say, please take in considration that pain is real, how we deal with pain issues is sometimes no so real, meaning dropping a pill down the mouth may indeed help you for short term, and maybe even long term. no one will argue with you if there is a constant/chronic need for nars. The problem is Dr’s are in fear of being repremended by there upper authority i.e DEA ect that they don’t want to loose their licences. Dr.’s sign a a very power letter once they obtain here right to become Dr. they swear to take care of patients to thier upmost ability. With that being said, some time patients have a irrational though pattern that they must be served, and most insurance agencies would agree, trust me folks we have no problem prescribing 50 table of Oxycodone/ Roxiciet, but when there is a pattern, the Dr’s are looked at under a microscope. I know to Dr’s who have lost their licences to prescribe nars, but can issue out anti depressants. MY SUGGESTION TO ALL OF YOU WHO SUFFER FROM LONG TERM PAIN ISSUES GO ON traMADol (Ultram) you will be fine, and the Doc’s will not have a problem. Know there are soem states that are making traMADol a class IV drug. So good luck out there. The next time you are wanting a prescription for hard nars, think long and hard about it before you make that move, again ask for traMADol, give it a month, if it does not work, then at least you tried, and believe me Doc will thank you to for it. Trust me.

A drug is a drug and an addict is an addict. No matter how they got there. Once they are ,the person they WERE is gone. It is a path of destruction, they lie,steal. They destroy everyone and everything closest to them. The WORST thing about prescription drug addicts is they have the ok by a Doctor, I am married to an arrogant drug addict, he gets all kinds of pills, takes what he likes, gets high, he buys and sells pills. Sometimes he acts like is on speed other times he nods off standing straight up. When ever I confront him he lies and talks to condescending I feel trapped,and alone.

Doctors do not realize chronic pain and being treated like something under their shoe will kill a person much faster than any drug. I am so glad doctors have such reliable knowledge on this matter they give themselves the right to throw the first stone

For those in the healthcare field (I have worked there too, chose not to stay), I would like to know how you would feel if you were in my position and felt unreleting pain day after day? The only, and I mean only relief I have found is through opiate pain medication and that is only slight relief. I have used NSAIDS and have a condition that is exacerbated by them – Sjogrens. I cannot list this paricular ailment on my medical history because I wiill be denied healhcare benefits qucker than you can bat an eyelash. The NSAIDS burn my esophogus and instinal tract so that I get spasms in the back of my throat making it impossible for me to swallow. I have been in the ER numerous times because of this. I also have severe femoral stenosis in both the cervical and lumbar spine and herniated disks. I have migraines from a car accident that happened 3 years ago, a closed head injury. I had knee surgery and a diskectomy that left my spine unstable and weak. It was recommended that I have my spine fused, I’m glad I refused the surgery, because I feel that with my sjogren’s my condition would be even worse. Surgerys, including a endometrial oblation only seem to make me feel worse. I find that diet and exercise help me to improve, but I cannot tolerate exercise unless I have the pain medicine, and at this point I can find no doctors in my state who will prescribe it to me and my refills (I still had 2 left) from my previous doctor, have expired due to a six month law for controlled substances in the lovely State of Washington. I have exactly 15 pills left and I am at my wits end. I don’t know what to do. I am sick to death of the uneducated receptionists that treat me like I’m a drug addict. I was told the other day that “you can get your opiate pain medication somewhere else, but you can’t get it here”. I asked if they were taking new paitients and she looked at my referral from my primary care physician that said ‘medication management’.

I wish we could sue the dea and justice dept to force the medical profession to fairly and adequately treat those of us with chronic pain!I’m in my 60s and have Documented osteoarthritis in all joints,multiple bulging discs in back plus fall injuries from Parkinsons are only part of my med/chronic pain history.I haven’t asked for more than 40mg hydrocodone/day but I’m treated like I ask for dilaudid,oxycontin and morphine! I say that pain is SUBJECTIVE and that you don’t live in my body and don’t know how I feel. I’m also old enough to be responsible for what I choose to give me relief from this misery.My quality of life is horrid.I cannot sit through a bingo game, sweep a floor or dust due to the back pain. Other countries who have relaxed standards for drug prescription don’t have the criminal ‘element’ we do re:drugs.I wish the government would butt out.But no, we have to do a song & dance to get anything decent for pain relief.I might add that,due to 2 stomach surgeries,I can’t take NSAIDS due to the bleeding risks.BTW, I don’t take XANAX or any suppressives/downers….. by choice.

So I found this site by looking for answers to my new questions. I am a man who has been in a bunch of car accidents (really bad ones) and lived. I’ve done construction my whole life and that is hard on your body. I’ve had some really hard times in life that makes my mental stability hard to manage, and anyone who knows anything about pain, they know that your mental also has a lot to do with physical pain. Now, for my real question/ response. I take pain mads, a lot of them really, there all addictive and I am addicted. Let me explain; My soul/ heart are not addicted, but my body sure is. Here’s the deal, I don’t want people to think I’m a druggie if they ever find out what I take because that doesn’t define me. I also can’t be off of the medication because I still want to work, make money, live my dreams… I’m pretty young still, but I’m ready for back surgery. They gave me a 50/ 50 % chance of walking after the surgery, so meds sound better for now. I guess all I’m trying to say is that I am not a junkie, I am a man that takes care of his issues privately with my doctor. So, all the people in the medical feild, I think you should think twice before judging someone, cause I’m full of tattoos bald head and look pretty mean, but I’m not, I’m a very nice person and I would help anyone if I could. So please, get to know someone before judging. Hey and if you see a man or woman like me think twice about what you put on there chart. Thanks.

I live with the stigma of being a drug addict. even though truth be told i am most certainly not one. I suffer from spinal deformities that cause me terrible pain. I’ve been told i will eventually end up in a wheel chair. I receive regular treatments from a pain management doctor trying to prolong the inevitable. I only receive my pain meds from one doctor. that doctor knows for a fact that i’m not addict. however. my pcp had the nerve to write on my medical record that i have a drug dependency. i went to her to ask her to write for ibuprofen so i could save money on buying it otc. before i could get the sentence out of my mouth she said i’m not going to write you any pain meds. you get enough. wtf? i am randomly drug tested on a regular. i have never failed a test. never had too much or too little in my system. and my PM doctor knows that. i wish she would talk to him about it. instead of going oh she goes to pain management she must be a druggy. it kills me really. i have a real tangible problem. it shows up on mri and x-rays. its not a made up thing in my head. people should look at individuals and not group everyone together.

My daughter was a heroin addict up until 2 years ago when she went into rehab. She hasn’t taken drugs in two years but is still suffering the terrible physical consequences and is riddled with blood clots. I have seen first hand how she is treated. It is disgusting. She is refused any pain medication simply because of her history. I have seen the way she is talked to and it is disgraceful. Nurses and doctors speak to her as though she is not worthy of their help. Bias certainly does happen in hospitals and far from the so called ‘angels’ nurses are often made out to be they are perfectly capable of bringing their bias into the workplace.

I wish i knew where this Deborah worked. A perfect example of what is wrong with the NHS. A disgusting comment re ‘junkies’ and perfect example of someone not fit to do the job.

Deborah exemplifies the health care profession today. There is no reason for nurses to doubt the doctor that they work for, just simply STAY OUT OF THEIR BUSINESS. I realize that the nurse gets the requests for refills, and all the guff that goes with patient care. I appreciate them more than they think – I personally am a customer service professional and consult with, and teach, in the health care profession.

Please – people – all people – do not judge. You are not the patient, you do not feel what they feel. Let go. Otherwise, it will be the ruin of you.

Someone should be testing Doctors and Nurses as well as Pharmacy workers, care givers,and Politicians.

I know for a fact my neurologist smokes Pot. I knew a Nurse that died after taking 100 Soma. A lot of Nurses have this holier than thou attitude that I am seeing here and probably 1/3 of you are drug abusers and wanna-be Doctors.

I was drug tested 3 times. Twice the results came back false positive, once for oxycontin and once for methadone. I think someone at the Doctors Office switched my sample. The 3rd time I talked to the Lab while they were doing my drug test. They said they couldn’t talk to me. What kind of BS is that? I said good, I’ll do the talking and you listen. I told them what I was prescribed. I have never taken anything like oxycontin and certainly not methadone. After I told the Lab what I was taking they said I need to have the Doctor’s Office call them. WHAT?? Why do I have to do you’re job? The Drs office called them and the 3rd test came back clean.

I had very little respect for the medical community before this, now I hate the whole damn field. Bunch of people with God complexes. As far as I’m concerned all you Doctors can take a couple Nurses with you and jump off a bridge.

One Doctor I went to ordered me 120 Soma with 11 refills(before the law changed), 120 Lortab with 4 refills at a time and 90 Valium with 4 refills at a time. I only used 4 of the Soma refills in a year and always had Lortab and Valium left over when the refills ran out. He was running a Suboxone Clinic too. He would get people hooked in door #1 and put them on suboxone in door #2. He was trying to get me hooked, obviously. That’s the way it is with you people. I wouldn’t take the bait.

I am glad Obamacare is coming. I hope it Busts the Unions you miserable people belong to.

I am a nurse and very familiar with all kinds of addictions, both prescribed and illegal.
It is not the addiction itself that bothers me, and I can understand something of the cycle people get into with chronic pain. Some people have done it very tough in this life. Unfortunately, chronic pain is one illness that is very complex and poorly understood, even by the medical profession.
I can understand the need for pain relief, but there are also many options available that can assist the chronic pain patient. Meditation, massage, TENS machines are some of them. In the first world, we have access to many resources which treat the problem very holistically. Medicines may still be necessary, but its important to utilize options that help with long term management of long term conditions.
I feel we are in a very big mentality of taking a pill to sort out our medical problems. No one needs to wait for a doctor to tell them about the options, but a good doctor will encourage holistic care for their illness.
Illness of all kinds rarely has a single cause, so there is rarely a single pill or treatment. Anyone with any education knows this. Its my job to take care of my own health, and it is what I try and educate and help my patients to do. That is met with a very mixed reaction.
But I do see a significant number of people not interested in anything but the medication. Illness is inconvenient for them, and they are not interested in investing any personal effort into working towards wellness. We are a society that’s actually become addicted to the “quick fix”. These are the ones who truly test my compassion.
I wonder if this will invite nasty comments too?

Bree, You said “Its my job to take care of my own health, and it is what I try and educate and help my patients to do. That is met with a very mixed reaction.”

That’s what I am talking about. You don’t have patients of your own. That’s the wannabe Doctor coming out of ya. When I go to a Doctor I am not interested in what his nurse thinks. Just do your job and keep quiet,, unless I ask you for something.

This all begins with Deborah, the 1st post in this thread.

When I was in ICU with 24 broken bones, head injury and collapsed lung I needed my pain med when the DOCTOR said I should have it. When it wore off I was in ungodly pain. So DeboRAH. Just do your job and quit thinking you are all that. A wannabe Doctor with a God complex.

Sorry to inconvenience you, but follow the DOCTORS orders and give HIS patients their medicine when it is due, that’s your job, not wondering if someone is an addict. When you have 5 more patients I guess you should stop fooling around and do your job! Personally if you couldn’t get me my meds on time I would invite you to leave my room and not come back.

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION HAS BECOME CORRUPT! IT’S ABOUT THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR.

YOU NURSES WITH SO MUCH ADVISE SHOULD GO BACK TO SCHOOL AND BECOME A DOCTOR.

I WONDER HOW MANY OF YOU HAVE BEEN HURT REAL BAD? KEEP YOUR OPINIONS TO YOURSELF AND THOSE WHO CARE WHAT YOU THINK.

IF NOT FOR DOCTORS PRESCRIBING SO MANY UNNECESSARY NARCOTICS WE WOULD HAVE A LOT LESS ADDICTS.

YOU SENT MY DAUGHTER HOME ADDICTED TO PERCOCET AND FENTANYL PATCHES FROM THE MAYO CLINIC. SHE DIDN’T ASK FOR THOSE DRUGS. SHE WAS MISDIAGNOSED AND NEVER HAD A DRUG PROBLEM UNTIL YOU DOCTORS AND NURSES GOT HER HOOKED.

IF YOU ARE SO SMART WHY ARE WE RANKED 40TH IN LIFE EXPECTANCY IN THE WORLD?
wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Expectancy_by_Country

THANKS FOR NUTHIN!

Those who are given prescriptions and become addicted or just become addicted any which way through irresponsible, and or naive behavior are abandoned by the medical profession, society and the law.
Addicts don’t just wake up and say hey I want to be an addict because I want an excuse to have a hard crappy life.
Currently drug treatment providers make rules that will cause most patients to drop out or be kicked out or to never seek help because they are sure of failure.
Most often these rules test the very weaknesses that in most cases caused the drug addiction to continue up to the point of seeking help. Failing causes addicts seeking help to end their addiction to be denied help and are counterproductive and costly not to mention what it does to the patient.
Some people say they deserve it, or they put themselves in their position. I say those people are irresponsible to society and lack necessary empathy and are contributing to a problem that affects us all. Its no wonder drug addicts are in and out of treatment and resort to crime when they no longer can get treatment nor have any confidence or support left.
Addiction is not a choice. Treating addicts like criminals is counterproductive. Having them prove they are in control in order to be in the program is a recipe for failure ad they don’t have control of there addiction and that is why they need help.
Better care needs to be provided now and it needs to be more accessible and just plain realistic for the patients it targets. There needs to be more guidance and education and less shame and designed to succeed without the threat of being kicked out or denied treatment.

I’d just like to share my experience with pain medication. I ended up getting pancreatitis after a routine ERCP in 2005. I was in the hospital for about 4 months and almost died from it. During that period of time they put me on IV dilaudid. Obviously I became addicted to the pain medication during my hospital stay. After about a month the nurses would take it upon themselves to make me wait up to 2 hours and sometimes longer past the time I was supposed to receive my next dose. They also started treating me like I was a drug seeking addict. One nurse even told me that they all knew I was just addicted to the pain medication. I don’t know if any of you ever experienced pancreatitis but it’s really painful. And yes I became addicted to the medication but that didn’t give the nurses the right to decide to play doctor and withhold my pain medication just because I ended up addicted to it. All they accomplished was making my 4 month stay a living hell by forcing me to go through hours of withdrawal everyday on top of my pancreatic pain. As if being stuck in a hospital bed for 4 months away from my children and wife wasn’t bad enough.

So when I see nurses on here saying it annoys them it pisses me off. If you can’t handle dealing with your job responsibilities I suggest you find a new fu**ing job. Due to people like you I suffered depression from torture I endured at the hands of some nurses that thought they knew better than the doctor. The time to ween me off the pain medication was AFTER my hospital stay. Not in the middle of it.

Where to begin? I have fibromyalgia,cfs, ibs, scolioais, osteoarthrtis, I’ve had neck surgery,removed osteophytes and now its fuzed, I have had MRSA 4x severly,osteophytes in lower back. Enough of all that already, suffice to say I have been in chronic pain for 10plus yrs. In 2010 my husband called a intervention for me taking 15mg diazepam a day. They were prescribed for muscle spasms. The same Dr that prescribed them was at the intervention, with our 4 children, parents and brother. My husband orchestrated all of this. It came as a great surprise and I was devastated. I went thru a 12 step program, it was a very hard time,especially since I have chronic pain. To this day I don’t believe I am an addict. Not because I feel like I’m better then the next person. I now have some very good friends that are addicts. I now will always have the stigma of an addict attached to my porfolio. Lol. Because of going to BFC, but what the hell, life goes on!

I am going to attempt to refrain from tearing into some of these jaded nurses who obviously suffer from a high level of burnout. While I, myself, am not a medical professional, I DO have first hand experience of what it is like to live(if it can even be called “living” at times) with chronic pain. I, like SO MANY others who have commented, suffer from comorbid chronic conditions. For SO MANY years, I dragged myself from one appointment to another…and another, and another. Why? There is NO acceptable answer and NO acceptable excuse for why I was not taken seriously. Yes, I am only 31 yrs old BUT I have been dealing with the excruciating reality that my body was betraying me since I was 15 yrs old! Over half my life. I do not remember what little to no pain feels like. In fact, I still don’t truly remember what tolerable pain feels like. I don’t know the last time I didn’t cry myself to sleep out of pain and/or frustration. There is a horribly wrong and extremely inaccurate assumption that pain won’t kill you…continued….

(continued…) 4 years ago, I decided I could no longer go on living(well, NOT living) in this painful hell. I carefully calculated my suicide. When I say calculated, I mean CALCULATED. I researched every edition of the JAMA, NEJM I could get my hands on, as well as multiple textbooks on medical toxicology. My point is that it was NOT just a fleeting moment of weakness or a snap judgement/response to temporary pain. NO. It took A LOT of failures on their part to respond to the tired, desperate and end-of-the-line pleas I put forth for me to reach the conclusion that life, as I knew it, was no longer worth living. It was my brother and the wonderful EMTs that saved my life. NOT the nurses and drs that I have since encountered. Why do I hang on? Out of love for my family and prayers that you all will finally see the light and stop looking at chronic pain the way you currently do and STOP the damage you’re doing. T everyone else: do not blame your healthcare provider(as hard as it may be). Blame the DEA…the DEA. Wait, once again let me say, the DEA!! Call your congressman, call your friends and please, PLEASE call the person you know in pain and tell them they are NOT alone!

P.S. to Deborah the “R.N”: It’s time for you to find a new job. You are doing much more harm than you are (or will do) good.

WoW… did I just read a “professional”? RN, a person that is educated and worked that hard to become a RN., call a patient, a junkie? Never the less why or what that human may be coming in for or the medical reason, they are a patient. Not a junkie. The hospital is where they need to be instead of on the streets. These situations just need to be handled in a more smarter way than the “junkie” is handling it. It is no secret anymore what the heck is going onm out here with the out of control drug dependency .. The medical board needs to get on it and educate staff, and have a special way of not letting it get this way in our ER rooms. Thanks.

Some of these stories above are so disorganized and nonsensical that I can see confirmation of the DEA’s fears. But to be fair, alcohol produces some pretty severe issues (death, broken families, violence, etc), yet you don’t see the ATF making a big deal.

I had such severe dysmennorhea that I’d literally be rolling on the floor every month. NEVER once offered a narcotic, and beaten down when asked for it, but I had been given tons of NSAIDs. As my stomach progressively become more burned out from the notorious drugs, they tried the newer, safer ones (COX 2)… and I kept trying them in progressively smaller amounts until the stomach pain became continual. With no other option, I found that if I stopped eating for 36 hours, I experienced little pain during the worst of it.

Well, not only do I now have chronic severe stomach problems, but I killed my gallbladder. Still not getting pain coverage, I took a baby dose Motrin for the gallbladder and lo and behold, I got an esophageal ulcer (confirmed by endoscopy). Still not offered pain coverage.

Let me state that I probably could get by with 2 pills a month.

Then I got diverticulitis before they could schedule a cholecystectomy (galllbladder removal), and I still was not offered pain medication! They actually offered more NSAIDs even though they knew I had an ulcer!

Finally, I got the surgery and am feeling better (the cramping let up after pregnancy also)… but every time I have dental surgery, I make sure I get a small script and put it aside for emergency. Unfortunately, I don’t use them up fast enough and those 10 per year get me through. I’m such a bad person, aren’t I?

By the way, I don’t drink because it hurts my stomach… and it also killed my dad. I must say, I have second thoughts about even telling a provider my dad was an alcoholic… they might think I have a genetic tendency or something.

I’m certain my brain fog will make this a painful read.

Try coping with Narcolepsy and Chronic Migraines, as a result of medical malpractice. Forced to take a settlement that doesn’t even come close to providing basic needs for life.

Then Forced off of long term disability insurance, and put on SSDI.

Then scrutinized and reviewed for benefit abuse prevention, proof of need, etc. etc. dropped from benefits too many times because of not being able to make the appointments on time because of my disability. (even if I was unconscious in the hospital from knocking myself out from a cataplexy fall, or a seizure induced by “safer medication” with less “abuse potential”.

The FDA has either discredited or banned all natural remedies gifted by Mother Earth to humanity and specialized for several millenia by ancient cultures.
They have also rescheduled, discontinued or banned out right, the medications that gave me any amount of help. Then at best they instantly approve a new patented drug, which is nothing more than a lower quality adulterated less active form of the molecules in use for almost a century by several nations.

The rest of my comment…:
My great Grandmother had a better level of care for the same Diagnosis I have.
That was before SSI, SSDI, and medical insurance existed. Granted with the exception of the wealthy land owners property insurance, purchasing futures in expensive private hospitals.

And lets not forget of-course in the south, health care and life insurance for ones slaves,. Something again resembling a form of property insurance for the over-privileged and wealthy land owners.

I’m just about at the end of my rope with the american industrial pharmaceutical complex, its abuses, its destructive plans, advertisements, profiteering, and disgusting marketing tactics.

Its easily just as anti-life, and anti-human as its siblings, the military industrial complex and the world banking system.

No wonder the beautiful people I’ve known, with the same kind of rigid neglect, had lost all hope and ended their suffering by ending their lives.

I’m saddened to say that I find my self wanting to join them more and more lately. It honestly seems like the only logical way to alleviation for my symptoms of pain and suffering. The most painful of which is the lack of understanding, that causes a hopeless state of social isolation and disrepair.

One Love,

CW

Addiction, from medical grade narcotics. Regardless, is used accordingly or abused. All users are eventually addicts, over a period of time. This means that if a person is in withdrawal without their medication. You are a addicted. This is called medical addiction.

Other words it goes with the territory. I have a pain management physician. I take my medication accordingly as prescribed. After, 2 to 3 days, with out my medication. Withdrawals are withdrawals and can cause a person to go into shock. Making a person/patient suffer is cruel and abusive. Like we are not suffering enough!

I want to thank ASHRA from the bottom of my heart. for the love Spell you cast for me is working beautifully. I finally got 3 calls today from my ex girlfriend and we are talking and working things out. She says she loves me and she wants to work out our problems and come back home. within 24 hours when you cast the spell. Now that was fast. i really feel loved once again,you can contact ashra of his personal email: ashraspelltemple@gmail.com or call his number +2348058176311….ken

I have breast cancer. Which spread to my spine. Now it

I am speaking from the perspective of someone who is not only a chronic pain patient but an addict as well, it’s an extremely difficult situation to be in. I noticed that there are hardly any posts from people who are dealing with both addiction and chronic pain. I suspect I’m not the only one out there but I see a lot of people attacking doctors and nurses, I’m betting a few of those folks are probably angry addicts. Although I do not engage in this type of behavior at this time, there was a time in my life where I took advantage of many doctors and nurses. I often look back on those days with regret, most of them were decent people who were only doing their job and wanted to help. Sure, there are certainly some insolent practitioners out there who are in it for the dollars and yep, I’ve met some nasty nurses in my time. Having experienced a wide range of medical settings as a patient, from pain clinics, to ERs to psych wards, I can honestly say that the vast majority of practitioners I’ve come across seemed genuine and caring. I can see things from their end, I’m sure it’s not pleasant to battle addiction on a daily basis. Looking back, I can also say that most of these folks are easily dupped because they don’t have a lot of options for treatment of pain (chronic or acute) Opioids are the gold standard, nothing else works as well or even comes close. Pointing the dirty end of the stick at doctors and nurses is (I guess) a way of venting, but it’s really not fair. If you truly run into a bad clinician there are ways of reporting these people and if all else fails, write a nice little note on ratemymd The system is not perfect but I can tell you from personal experience that you are fortunate to live in America and have access to decent health care. 80 percent of people in this world don’t have that luxury, count your blessings!

As a cancer survivor I can relate to people taking controlled meds and I can relate to getting addicted to one particuliar med. My doctor and nurse told me they didn’t want me to be in pain and not to worry about addiction…once I was healed they are experts that are trained to get you off of them. I went through a terrible time at the pharmicies, and you would think they would understand if your meds were prescribed by a reputable doctor in your town they know. It’s a disgrace how they treat you, and even look at you. I use to view this differently before I got lung cancer and I too thought people were just getting these drugs to get high. Pharmacist and Nurses should know better. I’m thankful I had a understanding doctor and nurse. He specialized in lung cancer. Society should try to understand what the person is going through, especially the pharmacist. My doctor had to make several calls to them and tell them not to be “playing doctor”. Once you have a critical illness happen to YOU, only then will those who do not understand finally realize that they shouldn’t be treating ALL PEOPLE the same way!

I am a registered drug addict. I had 9 miserable years sober. The last 2 years my OCD was driving me crazy. I would repeat “I HATE MY LIFE” over and over 24/7 and after work my back pain was so bad I would be screaming I hate my life in my car all the way home. While sober I developed Tourettes. So the Shrink prescribes Paxil for my depression/ anxiety which has helped in the past but now my insurance only covered generic. It was bad, I was standing on the corner of my home town wondering where i was. I needed coworkers to help me with my work. Ive been a hairdresser 35 years. What Im saying is… How can doctors do their jobs when the drugs dont work. It was then I relapsed, I started doing the drug I knew worked. I was happy. but now I have excruciating pelvic pain ( difficult to diagnose) and pain i my boys that started 10 years ago and I have to suffer in pain because i tested dirty. I lost my job and am now homeless. Two doctors said If I had money I could pay cash to the doctor who gave me all the vicodin I need. But I told the ER doctor I am not here to get high. I dont want to get high I want my life back. When I took Adderal I got A’s in college. Normally a C student. Now I dont have insurance and I have to self medicate or suffer. so when life is this tough death doesnt sound so bad. Drugs are dangerous and so are motorcycles. And Alcohol is the real scourge because you can die from withdrawal. alcohoI is the most horrible feeling of them all and ruins your life faster. Your crazy to think alcohol is ok but pot isn’t. One arguement about pot was inhaling 400 unknown chemicals.. Have you inhaled regular air, just as bad. Amphetamines made me get A’s in college. Alcoholics wouldn’t pass. We are being lied to by pharmaceutical company’s and people look the other way and I’m suffering because doctors cannot diagnose me properly when generics are faulty. , ‘ Please help me.

Deborah the nurse said… The funny thing is, when you see the patients an hour before the dose is due you see them talking on the phone, laughing, playing cards, etc. But, once that second hand reaches 12 boy, they call and suddenly, are in nurse said,,,
———————————————————She has no experience with painkillers so she isn’t qualified to berate the patient. Vicodin, when it starts to wear off gives you a twinge of pain before the 4-6 hours are up so you know its time to take more but ur not in pain yet. Then when the 6 hours are up you take more and it can take up to 2 hours for it to work. But with Oxycodone, when the 6 hours are up the pain comes back 10 times worse. I am managing my own pain with fast acting Morphene. I take it only when the pain reaches 6-8 and if the pain doesn;t come back I don;t take more. And the opiates have no organ failure. no brain damage. So I told my ER doctor please help me. I don’t want toget high, I;ve been suffering for 7 months and when I went to the ER i hurt so bad I thought I was gonna die and they would only watch. And he had the nerve to say he was compassionate.

Seeing someone fall into the trap of addiction is painful to experience. Not only will you see changes in the addict’s behaviour, but you will also feel that the person you once knew is slowly drifting away, turning into a person you no longer are familiar of. An addict refuses to call himself an addict. The denial state is challenging if you, as a family member or friend, wants to encourage the person to undergo an addiction treatment. More info you can found :http://www.addictionrehabpage.com/

Just because someone is prescribed a medication, say pain pills, does not mean they are not an addict. Addicts get pills prescribed all the time by doc shopping and by having them prescribed, yes, a prescription written and filled at your local drugstore, even interstate without having ever seen the Dr. So, just because a script has been written does not mean someone taking a med is not a drug addict.

To me it just seems like a futile movement that lines criminals pockets while resulting in tens of thousands of murders a year. If someone has tried and tried to get off opiates, but for whatever reasons simply cannot deal with the pain or pressures they are under they should not be criminalized, treated unfairly or denied access to drugs that should be available to age appropriate people anyways. The way I see it, is if some is depressed, they get put antidepressants, which some have horrible side effects, and also have acute and post acute withdrawals, so it should only seem reasonable that opiates could and should be used for and as an antidepressant, becaus IT WORKS! Really, in free country all drugs should be legal and controlled in a pharmacy setting, available at age 18-21, and be able to access government quality controlled pharmaceuticals as they please. Everyone has a crutch, something they do to take their minds of the stressers in their life, be it golf, hiking or using heroin, no one should be denied anything in a “free country”. Like I said before, if someone wants to shoot up in their basement, let them, it’s their choice, there problem, if they won’t work for the drugs they feel they need to live life day to day, then don’t give them the drugs, only allow them if they use and still function on a day to day basis as someone who lives without any drugs, but no one should be denied something that allows them to cope with a traumatic event, or traumatic life for that matter if its what keeps them going or keeps them from putting a bullet in there head, and leaving parents, a partner or kids behind to go in without them. The war one drugs has failed, is has never been successful, it has created brutal, homicidial billionaires that are untouchable. The war on drugs has caused the murders of police, politicians, whole families from young children to parents, and a criminal underworld that stretches across the globe.

My dad suffered from chronic pain and it worsened over the years. He knew something was wrong but didn’t have health insurance, so he tried to obtain the hospital reduced income insurance for two years. Once he was able to get onto their program, he arranged to begin seeing a doctor at a clinic. At this point, his pain was so severe that friends had been giving him pain killers to help him get through the day. He openly told his doctor that these drugs were not helping him and he told her he was in severe pain. She told him to “get off the street drugs” and he would be fine. She prescribed him a low dosage of hydrocodone and continued to see him for a year without pursuing any other treatments. She went onto maternity leave and my dad had to see another doctor in December 2012, this doctor sent him for X-rays that showed no damages to his bones, so the doctor made an appointment for an MRI in late March 2013. When he got the results, his doctor, now back from maternity leave, sent him in for CAT Scans because there was an unusual mass in his chest. The CAT Scan results were given to us on April 8, 2013: my dad had stage IV lung cancer metasticized to his liver, kidneys, and bones. He had lumps all over his body and on his face. The next Monday, April 15th, my dad asked me to take him to the hospital. He was in afib and his heart rate was 165-145-155 from second to second. His blood pressure was 175/115. His feet were leaking water and he had puddles under his feet. The doctors determined he had a blood clot in his lungs, and tried to treat it. His heart rate after a few days in the ICU dropped to 109 in afib still and my dad signed his DNR. There were masses found in his brain, and he was experiencing pain in his hips, the X-rays showed no damage. We took my dad home on hospice care on Sunday April 21st. He died Wednesday April 24th at 11am. There was 16 days of knowing his diagnosis to his death.

My name is blair watson 12 months ago I was put on an oxycontin tablet 3 months ago I became self aware of the fact that I had become highly dependent on my medication which the dose was very hight 2 x 20 mg & 2 x 40 mg a day I decided to be honest with my treating dr and told him just how much I relied on my medication and how several times when trying to get my self off it at home became that sick physicaly and mentaly it cause me to have servere suicidle thoughts that were that intense that I came close to taking my own life because I couldn’t handle wat I was going through . I was honest with my dr about me taking my monthly surplie well before the month was up . And that I had got to the point of me buying them off the street so I didn’t get sick before I could get my next script .. I was honest I wanted help and I was turned away by my dr so I found my self going to the hospital out of depressen and sickness on one of my trips to the hospital I was accidently given a couple of blank script attached to the back of my scripts I should of gave them back but out of shere desperation of not knowing where I was going to get my next tablets from because the hospital said they would not give me anymore and treated me like a junkie I [edited for offensive content] hate needles and I hate being treated like a junkie … I ended up handing in a false script to get a few tablets because I was sick loanly depressed and had been turned away by the drs that had putt me in this horrible position … now I will most probably go to gaol over this don’t know where to turn iv booked myself into detox and reduced my dose I hate wat this medication has done to me wat these drs have done to me can anybody out there offer any addvice or help for me please I’m desperit

Hi, my name is Ben. I am commenting as an actual recovering addict, so all of my answers are first-hand, experienced answers, and not just biased opinions.

Q: If a drug is prescribed, the person taking the drug is not an “addict?”
A: False. The addiction is the disease that someone cannot stop taking a drug (substance), whether legal or illegal.

Q: People whose drugs are prescribed deserve better treatment than people who take drugs that are not prescribed to them?
A: An addict is and addict is an addict is an addict. You are implying that someone who abuses their prescribed medication deserves better treatment than someone who abuses street drugs? That statement is entirely ignorant and prejudice. Explain to me why.

Q: People who are in the “drug addict” category are somehow at fault for what they are doing?
A: In certain circumstances, sure. However, what about other peoples’ circumstances, like mine? I was prescribed Lortabs after surgery. I had no idea what they were at the time, so per doctor’s orders, I took them. I got addicted. After that, it was out of my control.

Q: People who are in the “drug addict” category are treated badly by “everyone?”
A: Again, false. Drug addicts are only treated badly by people whom are ignorant to the subject. Most people treat addicts badly because they have no idea what they’re talking about, and just base their opinions on what they are taught by other ignorant people. Why are alcoholics typically treated better than an addict? After all, an alcoholic is just an addict who is addicted to alcohol. The same goes for people who overeat; obese people are treated like victims, but drug addicts aren’t? It’s the same principles for all addictions. Addiction is all in the brain. I would suggest for anyone to read up on the neurobiology of the brain to see what addiction really is, and not think of us as criminals.

I had another paragraph to type, but it would not let me, as it was too long. Oh well.

I was so apalled by ‘deborah’s’ comments that I have read the whole thread. How the hell does Deborah think she can say that she ‘knows’ that people are not in pain? Pain is funny tricky stuff. I know that if I wa in a ward staffed with Deborah’s, I would clock watch too! IT goes like this: the time for your meds comes in, you’re beginning to hurt; you know (from bitter experience) that it is soon going to be really bad: you also know (from the same experience) that because Deborah ‘knows’ that you are not in pain that you are below painting her nails, chatting to colleagues, blethering about…………and that the shot you should have had at 3.00 will likely enogh not get to you till 4 on a good day. And this knowledge means that the pain is worsened. Does ‘Deborah’ not know that if patients are given control as with morphine pumps, they actually use less than if they are at the mercy of people like her? If you know that you can get pain relief when you need it, you will use less that if you have to rely on heartless know it alls, who have likely enough suffered nothing worse than a headache – no, wait up,she had a son, SO ‘Deborah’ imagine going through labour without any prospect of it stopping FOR YEARS: that is the degree of pain you are putting some of your patients though, because you ‘know’ they are not in pain!!!

What about chronic pain sufferers who are UNDER medicated? This happens much more than most people think!

Most health professionals are suspicious and unsympathetic of EVERYONE seeking pain medication, which causes the pain sufferer to be treated like a common drug addict!

When will Dr.’s, Nurses & Pharmacists realize that pain medication works differently for each unique pain sufferer. Please stop judging patients who continually complain about being under medicated!

Maybe its true that a small number are “faking it”…but WHY punish the majority of pain sufferers because the amount and/or type of medication they are being prescribed is not working to alleviate their pain?

Please join a different profession if you’ve become so cynical that you think any patient who seeks pain meds is physically or psychologically addicted…

Why should anyone ever suffer, even temporarily ?

A doctor a Nurse, anyone with a legit license has taking an oath and has taking on the responsibility of their license. In order for any professional medical person to do their job correctly and professionally.. it is to be done with an unbiased and un-judgmental way. it is law to believe the patients expression of pain … you cannot decide on your own whether to believe their pain or not.. anyone who does so should be reported to the proper association or state licensing facility.

“a patient is the best person to know how him or her self feels” and patients are customers and the people whom the healthcare industry works for … you people work for us!!!! remember that… don’t like it get another job!!!! other wise do your job and shut up!!

Amen! Well put. I couldn’t agree more.