NOT ACCEPTABLE: DEPRIVING PEOPLE PAIN RELIEF
The ‘opioid crisis’ is far more of a real crisis to the people with chronic untreatable pain who now have no solution for their daily suffering, than any number of overdose deaths.
Treat the people who become addicted!!! Instead they are made out to be criminals. And their sentences are handed to me and millions of others like me.
The path being taken by governments is absolutely wrong for too many people, but that doesn’t seem to matter one bit. What are the choices? Street drugs and/or suicide. Of course, the move to deprive pain sufferers of relief is going to lead to more harmful choices!! I believe this is a Human Rights violation. It inflicts pain instead of relieving it, and this also violates the Hippocratic Oath.
The alternatives that I have been offered are ALL habit-forming and worse, must be taken on a regular basis. I could take less Percocet or Lorazepam on my good days, or on really bad days take more. I know my side effects, and am adjusted to them.
Instead, I am faced with having nothing or starting on yet another drug that will make me ill. Lyrica, Elavil, Cymbalta, Gabapentin, Cyclobenzaprine, Codeine. ALL made me ill, two caused Angioedema, the rest stopped my digestive system from functioning.
I can’t take Ibuprofen or ASA or Naproxen for pain (none of those works anyway). Acetaminophen does not do the job either, not even if I take the maximum dose, which is probably more harmful, especially to my liver, than any opiate. Why would I want to even try yet another drug? I’m not that crazy!!!
Every alternative to Lorazepam must be taken daily (some not becoming effective for 3 or more weeks. Why would I try a drug like that, not knowing for almost a month whether it will work or not? Meanwhile it’s making me ill and nothing else!) I will never try any such drug. NEVER.
My GP informed me this week that unless I am off the Lorazepam he cannot continue to be my doctor!!! So now it’s blackmail and I AM THE VICTIM! How on EARTH did this happen to our doctors?
Cannabis oil made me sick, I don’t want to smoke so I am vaping. Yesterday the severe pain persisted despite continuously using the vape, until I finally gave in and took 1/4 of a 5/325 mg Percocet and 1/2 of a 1 mg Lorazepam. (Both are now denied me, but I’ve managed to wean off and keep a few. What on earth am I in for once those are gone?) The pain receded after taking those tiny bits, thank goodness. I shudder to think how I would be feeling by now had I not been able to resort to those small chips of medication last night.
Where is the healing and caring in this kind of doctoring? It’s all a smoke-screen about protecting the doctors from losing their licences just for doing their jobs. If the system would only do the right thing, I would be able to sign a waiver removing responsibility from my doctor for ‘allowing’ me to actually receive pain relief.
What a damned sick joke all of this has become.
Eleanor Lawrie, Author 