The concept of chronic and intractable pain is beyond the imaginations, perhaps, of the hoards entranced by Pop Culture.
During Sam Ervin's Watergate hearings, ranking committee member Senator Ed Gurney (R-FL) was introduced to the national audience. Among the factoids delivered in the color commentary during that 1973 spectacle concerned Gurney's World War II Purple Heart, and that he suffered from chronic pain, and was, in fact, "in constant pain."
Barely 15 years of age, I remember being stunned by this information. The idea someone was in continuous pain was new information.
It was shocking to hear, and it shook me. Today, of course, with an arthritic condition of my own, it's not difficult to grasp at all. Sixty million Americans, to one degree or another, are being treated for chronic pain - and that's only the bona fide sample. And you don't even have to bring a complete end to the "War on (some) Drugs" to stem the diversion of prescribed medicine to addicts.
And for those who also happen to become debilitating addicts there's no longer any need for that condition to become a problem.
The DEA's policies, in regard to prescribed artificial and authentic opiates has made pharmacists into law enforcement agents and driven good doctors out of the marketplace.
The stigma of being treated for chronic and intractable pain has been largely transferred from friends and family to those in the medical profession who don't relish the idea of their licensing becoming targets for bureaucrats with badges.
There are addicts and their are patient, many of the latter having gone through a gauntlet of doctors and diagnostic in order to obtain treatment.
Chronic pain is isolating, among other things, by itself - the patient's ever-present topic of conversation. It ruins health and lives, and this isolation is preventing this large group of Americans from exercising their otherwise potentially high political clout.
Not the least of their problems is being tossed into the same bag as those unfortunates who really doctor shop or rob pharmacies, thereby becoming part of a larger public health and criminal law issue. As a result, the bona fide bunch are often under-treated or inadequately treated for their conditions.
Some way needs to found to instantly separate those with the paper and X-ray trail, in many case proving their bona fides, from the pitiful junkie.
In the latter case, there is now a cure for opiate withdrawal building a much better case for its effectiveness than methadone. Buphamorphine-Naloxone compounds, marketed as Suboxone, is a powerful tool that works for the willing.
(Off my Soapbox.)
My wife had chronic pain for about a decade. Her pain level was either 8, 9 or 10 on a scale of 10 for the whole decade.
She had to be totally hopped up on opiates so she wasn’t in screaming howling pain.
Eventually we were referred to the Mayo Clinic Pain center in MN. She went there for a month, and they threw about 60 different treatments / techniques / exercises, etc. at her, dried her out off the opiates, and taught her how to live with the pain.
She now has a pain level of about 3 all day, every day, and is off the drugs.
Nobody ever diagnosed what was wrong with her. They don’t know, we don’t know, and they can’t cure it.
But at least we have pain management under control. We’re back to being relatively normal people after about a decade of living hell.