Posted on 02/24/2020 11:18:53 AM PST by Steve Newton
The Silver Star Families of America, the SSFOA, is well aware of the dangers of opioids in all their various forms and, for the most part, agrees with the new federal and state guidelines that are tightening up the distribution of the drugs as long as it does not adversely affect the veteran population. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/rr/rr6501e1.htm
(Excerpt) Read more at silverstarfamilies.org ...
Turmeric is a blood thinner, so my dear husband cannot take it, I on the other hand take curcumin along with black pepper extract. It does help with pain, although if I’m busy nothing helps but a pain pill, which I do get a few each month from the VA and I’m sure that because I’m service connected for my pain area. I use the Jarrow band of Curcumin 95 and I take four most days. I also have some in powder form.
The best adjunct treatment for pain is exercise to strengthen the muscles involved surrounding the injured body part. With veterans this is not always possible due to the extent of their bodily damage, i.e. you can’t exercise muscles that have been severely damaged or blown off of your body. There will still be pain no matter what kind of adjunct treatment is performed.
I am not optimistic that medical practice will get off of the “opioids are evil” meme for quite a while. The cheerleaders derive too much power from their misrepresentations.
“I am not optimistic that medical practice will get off of the “opioids are evil” meme for quite a while. The cheerleaders derive too much power from their misrepresentations.”
Sigh. I was very much afraid you would say that.
I don’t use Ibuprofen as it is too hard on my stomach. I use Acetaminophen and Turmeric. Turmeric with Bromelain is good and I also use glucosomine. If you area a veteran you can shop online at the commissary, If you have a disability or Purple Heart you can shop at a military base.
Any Dr. who knows what they’re doing can control pain for those who cannot take opiod based narcotics......or get them.
I can’t take any of those perscibed so the Dr. created a cocktail of over the counter drugs equal to those when I had my back break in 6 places. It worked to cut that awful intense pain that was unrelenting.
I am really happy to see that someone else is concerned about this.
Thank you, and as for helping, as with things, first, the patients need to have ‘the want to’, not the ‘my dr said i have to do this’, because these can work, when themind is engaged, and the will is in gear.
Please help by spreading the word on the survey. We need a large sampling before we can even attempt to go to our Congress Critters.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BRFG8KW
I know this is bound to be a hot button topic but I fully support any veteran or any person getting pain medication needed to make daily life better than bearable. A qualified doctor, or team of doctors, can and should determine the needs to give every one of our vets the best quality of life.
I am not a vet but 2 of my dear sons-in-law are. Both retired after 20 years, one in great health, the other dealing with wounds from Iraq. Different circumstance but if opiates were the medication he needed then by gosh that is what he should have.
I understand the need to balance physical therapy, OTC meds and opiates. I deal with spinal injury myself thanks to a texting driver. Docs have done what they can surgically, I am fit (more fit than the average 60-something woman), I eat a far healthier diet than the average American. I use some natural supplements that I’ve discovered help me. Yet I still require opiates some days. It’s been a long uphill battle trying to live an active life, enjoy my family, participate in life as I want.
Every one of our Vets is wholly entitled to every help to live in the best health possible. Yes, being physically active helps most. For me, I’ve found that diet is critical also. As a Christian I was averse to yoga but went to a weekly session geared toward handicapped for about a month. I’m in rural Texas so when I announced that I wasn’t going for their eastern crap I was greeted by like-minded church ladies. We chose to meditate on scriptures. I now set aside time in the mornings to put on some worship music and do my physical therapy exercises. I think it amounts to the same thing.
I can go for days or weeks now without an opiate. But come winter weather or stormy weather, there are days I can’t breathe without agonizing pain. For that I feel blessed to have found a pain management specialist who prescribes what helps.
Final thought. I do know that drug abuse is rampant in our nation. I know a lot of people who start down a prescription opiate path get trapped in addiction also. I think it’s an individual’s choice and responsibilty to care for themselves but as a nation, we owe extra courtesy to our vets in getting them the help they need. I can say from personal experience that when pain is agonizing for days on end suicide starts looking “not as bad.” I kept those thoughts at bay by knowing I could not leave my husband or kids with that thought of me. But for chronic pain sufferers I think the daily pain weighs a lot heavier than opioid influence.
That’s my $.02. Won’t buy nothin’ but anyone needing help with chronic pain gets my prayers and support.
Once again the VA goes through another pain med crisis. It only took them about 20 years to do it. Back in the late 90s and early 2000, doctor’s would not prescribe narcotics, as they were called back then, like acetaminophen with codeine. No they prescribed Ibuprofen or Naproxen. No matter the pain level an individual had doctors were reluctant to prescribe narcotics due to its addictive nature. If you went to the emergency room you had to go see your PCP in order to be prescribed anything stronger than 800 mg of Ibuprofen. Slowly the VA eventually backed off of this policy and it took 10 to 15 years in order to do so. Even still ER docs at the VA will prescribe Ibuprofen or Naproxen over a narcotic like aspirin with codeine. How do I know this, I personally experienced it at at least three different VA hospitals in three different states. In one of those states the doctor almost killed me by sending me home with a bottle of Ibuprofen. If it weren’t for my spidey senses going off I would be dead. I did go to a private care hospital and was in emergency surgery a few hours after being discharged from the Vet Admin ER. This is just another crisis that the VA has named something different. It’s the SOS YoY.
Done.
BTW.... The person who wrote that excercizing the areas of pain is helpful is absolutely right....but you have to have a therapist well trained to show you by hands on so you can feel the difference between muscle pain and actual bone pain...often it’s muscle pain or spasms around the injury thats creating the most pain.
I learned in physical therapy that people often think their back bones are aching when in fact it’s the muscles around an injury that is creating the pain... I learned the difference and the physical therapy working with my muscles has increased my mobility and function so much I’m almost back to normal after a very serious back injury.
Yes, Opioids are NEVER the answer to long term pain. That is NEVER, NEVER and NEVER.
Opioids produce addicts. If you are managing long term pain with opioids. You are an addict. You are a junky. Get a real doctor.
Agreed. We (American public) sent these men to fight wars that wasted lives. Treat their damn pain. They earned that right in blood.
Yoga, dill weed , cumin, acupuncture.... do not reduce pain.
As an American citizen, I am sorry. The warriors amongst us deserve better than sound of sheep crying out they know better after the Wolf was faced.
I have the sense that if I start approaching people at the VA hospital, they will wax wroth.
I am a 75 year old female, not a veteran, who has peripheral neuropathy due to treatment for stage 4 cancer - luckily stable at this point. My cancer doc after prescribing about 2 Percosets a day for a year said she would no longer give me the prescription and sent me to pain management where I had to give a urine test prior to any prescriptions. They are giving me a 15 day supply which would normally be fine, but then I got shingles down the back of one leg from hip to the bottom of my foot. When I called for a refill, explaining I had shingles which caused me to use more pain med than usual, I was treated as if this was “drug seeking behavior” and told the doc could not give me extra meds for shingles. I have since written to the pain med doc to see how this is supposed to work. Do I have to see her after I go to my pcp for shingles or something else that causes a lot of pain??? This is ridiculous not to mention cruel.
Your 2 cents means alot. Thank you
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