There is a highly gradated scale from straight up heroin injectors on the street to terminal cancer patients.
The country has not yet designed a good way to ensure the proper handling of cases so that a slippery slope is not in the design.
Rather than take one end of the spectrum or the other from which to argue an absolutist point, I recommend we consider that SOME pain management is well and good, and that OTHER “pain management” is an introduction to a slippery slope, and that we try to find better ways to distinguish between the two.
I know that when I point out my personal experience on the matter (lost my ex-wife to ever increasing opiates for 5 years, from which she never properly recovered) people jump on me as if I want to take pain meds away from cancer patients. Too, some folks want to argue that pain meds are so regularly diverted to the street market that they should be more strictly regulated.
I think we need to work on rational strategies that increase the likelihood that pain meds will be properly used and not abused. That is hard. So, rather than have another pissing match, can we focus on this difficult problem in a constructive way, please?
Don’t disagree, but the government like always goes about it backawards. First thing to do is stop the Illegal drugs from M.E., Mexico and China and Pill Mills in the USA. 1 Trip through Rehab, then lock them up in a special treatment facility where no drugs can be smuggled in. And that is a BIG proble with the Shelby Co Memphis Jail, even granny is smuggling it in to her grand sons now, that was not small amount, either looked like a brick size of cocaine.
The Pain Management Clinics were supposed to be the ‘fix’, short of what short term post surgical treatment was needed. Then they turned into Illegal Pill MIlls so some one could get RICH. 1 P test should not cost $2k or in 1 case over $20+K, just because 1 patient took a few NORCOS post op they tested for EVERY legal and Illegal drug.
Instead they are punishing all Intractable and Chronic Pain Patients as if they were street junkies.
I function quite well on that 10 mg Valium twice a day, but with out it I dont function and have not had 1 increase in a decade. And my medical bills climb disportionaly when removed from it. I’ve had 13 reactions to Neuropathy drugs. Valium is the only 1 that works, and as a side benefit works for the Fibromyalgia, Meniere’s and Gastropresis spasms, 1 drug treats 4 health issues. As a very drug sensitive patient I can’t take most meds And I know more about their side effects than most docs do as I research them and have reacted to them.
Latest is Rilfaximin a gut antibiotic for SIBO. And there is the rist it will come back.
Most of us just want to be able to function, not drugged our of our minds. I’ll take a Level 5 over a Level 10 any day of the week makes a world of difference. But I want my Specialist not some Under Educated APN or PA treating me who has very little knowledge of my health needs.
They started this withdrawl/reduction with the VA patients 3 monthws before the general public.
Vets Fight Back former Marine Robert Rose Jr, suing US Rep Phil Roe. Mr. Rose use to be fairly functional, now he’s wheel chair bound, and if it breaks it can take up to 7 months to get repaired. Latest VA scandal.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/vets.fight.back/