Thought you all might like to see this. I would welcome comments and your experiences if you have had any. Thanks folks. Blessings
I had no idea that there was an organization trying to deal with this. Knowing it makes me feel better, for some reason.
The VA refused to renew my prescriptions for...can’t remember, but a couple of years, at least.
Suddenly they caved. I think I was on somebody’s s list, and whoever that was retired or transferred or something.
I’m in a chronic pain program. I made it abundantly clear I do not do drug tests, and they don’t bother me with them. This automatically assuming every patient is a drug addict is not conducive to patient care.
Vicodin is a tool, and tools may be used for good and bad. That’s up to the user and their character.
I'm in my 6th week of recovery from total knee replacement. Over the last few years I've suffered greatly from arthritis and other degenerative problems in my knees. For a long while anti-inflammatory drugs like Diclofenac/Voltaren did a great job of minimizing the pain. After time I needed injections of Cortisone and then Euflexa until the only thing left were pain killers and surgery.
With every office visit for Ortho treatment I had to read and sign a paper warning about the dangers of opioids, problems with misuse and threats if I did not adhere to the guidelines. If I asked for a certain strength of the medicine, it would always be downgraded to the next level. Over the course of a year or so the warning sheets became longer, more threatening and intimidating - including that you had better not have an alcoholic drink while taking the pills. I even had to sign one of these while on a visit to the Urologist for a urinary tract infection!
Sorry to be so long with this but it really ticked me off that some government agency was in between me and my doctors. It was like the DEA was practicing medicine without a license and painting patients with legitimate needs with the same brush used for abusers.
I have my doubts that the "opioid crisis" is a bad as presented by the feds. Also it seems that many maladies are not properly treated and pain killers are just a band-aid, not a fix. Big Brother seems to have no remedy for the supposed "opioid crisis" other than intimidation of patients in need and coercion of the medical professionals who treat them.