I lost access to my pain medication due to the “opioid crisis” which says the people in pain are addicted. So since all people who have chronic pain are now incorrectly abled, I thought I’d share the best parts of being on opioids for chronic pain (and therefore being addicted).
1. How I get treated by other people
Doctors
My favorite feeling is having a doctor look at my file and immediately dismiss me as having an addiction. It doesn’t matter what I’m there for, they immediately assume that I’m there to get drugs. Even when I’m screaming in pain because I have a kidney stone stuck in my urethra giving me a raging infection in danger of turning septic, I really like it when they tell me that the pain can’t be that bad and that I should just get over it. It’s even better when they tell me kidney stones aren’t really that painful and nobody could endure the kind of pain I say I have. It’s so great that because I have taken pain medication in the past I am refused treatment for any illness that I’ll ever have in the future. I love that I could have cancer and no doctor would care.
Family/friends/acquaintances
I relish being judged by other people for taking pain medicine. It feels spectacular when people suggest that I’d feel better if I wasn’t so fat, or if I exercised more, or if I bought their magic shake that costs $400 a month. And if I don’t take their suggestions, then my chronic pain is my own fault, because clearly, I don’t actually want to get better. I must just be an addict.
I also love all the sly insinuation like “well I have some health problems and I just keep going on with my life, I would never stoop so low as to take drugs. There’s no real reason for drugs if you just have a good attitude.”
2. I get put in the same category as heroin addicts
I really love how people assume that taking pain medication is the same as illegal drugs. I love how no one thinks that taking pain medication actually addresses my pain. I’m thrilled that instead of suggesting treatment for my chronic pain, people insinuate that I need to go to rehab. I truly believe that addiction is a disease, but it’s not a disease that I have.
3. The skyrocketing costs of receiving pain medication
I’m elated that pain medication used to be something most people in pain could afford, but now that people with addiction use life-saving pain medicine and illegal drugs, I get to take a $3000 drug test every month. Oh, and insurance won’t pay for it because it isn’t a medical need.
It’s also fantastic that insurance no longer covers pain medication in the guise of “preventing addiction” (but really to save money, they won’t treat addiction either), so that costs out of pocket. Plus now I have to go to the doctor more frequently so I get to pay for more doctors visits, just so I can be written a drug test and a prescription (the doctor certainly doesn’t do any additional work).
4. Addiction is a disease that should be treated, but chronic pain is something to “get over”
The tide is finally turning when it comes to how addiction is viewed in the country. Increasingly “safe injection sites” are being set aside to keep people with addiction safe. This is past due, but meanwhile but no one cares that people with chronic pain are still being punished. While the lives of people with addiction are being saved, people with chronic pain are dying.
While I recognize that this comes off as an embittered rant, I’m tired of being nice about people in pain losing access to treatment. Over and over again it has been revealed that the so-called opioid epidemic has nothing to do with chronic pain, and yet everyday people in pain are being removed from treatment cold turkey. There is no excuse for this, none. I’m done with people in pain dying of an epidemic that has nothing to do with them.
Right on and beautifully written !
The future will judge these craven medical professionals . This will be a very harsh judgement. Unfortunately, some warped individuals with a little bit of power are exercising their gatekeeping role with what we of the chronic pain community worldwide might describe as outright sadistic pleasure.
Thank heavens for those who recognise the true suffering of their patients and are prepared to offer them access to the simple medications needed.
I shall ask a question of legislators and medical professionals. Is it better to have a so called opioid epidemic, or to have your population existing in actual or threatened physical and mental distress? How efficient or effective can we be when suffering with becoming grace?
I’ve been thinking about this too in other ways as well. I almost killed myself last fall because of the horrendous pain of fibromyalgia. I literally almost didn’t make it. The only thing that helped was I found myofacial release therapy. It was $100 bucks an hour and I had to borrow the money to do it.
People eyes just glaze over when I say I have fibromyalgia.
But what I’m getting at is that unless your flipping out in drastic way in public ( heroin addicts) you are not really considered by people or Dr’s. I present well so no one takes me seriously. It’s like chronic pain is too vague for them. They need specifics. This happened to me in the mental health world and now in the fibromyalgia world. I don’t know if this makes sense or I’m just rambling. You should be pissed off though, I am:)
I’m so sorry Kate. I know exactly what you mean about people’s eyes glazing over. You make total sense. People are starting to see the terrible results of addiction, but the results of chronic pain/illness aren’t nearly as flashy, and so they don’t matter much.
I can tell you that, as a healthcare professional, fibromyalgia is not considered a real condition. It’s considered psychosematic, or being used to maintain drug prescriptions. There are literally thousands of studies that have been done
proving that fibromyalgia is pure fiction. However, I totally believe that you have the pain that you claim to have. I implore you to find a real pain specialist, one that really wants to find out the true source of your pain, and find out what your real medical issue is. There may be some kind of medication, non narcotic or otherwise, or therapy, that may actually help you. Good luck to you. I have a condition called, Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. The common name is Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. However, we are taught to never use the word, “pain”, especially at a hospital, and to use RSD instead, just to keep from automatically being labeled an addict, or pill seeker. I have a phenomenal doctor, but I can’t even release his name because I’m fearful that he might have some DEA agent show up to make his life miserable. This doctor treats me like I’m his family, and I literally don’t know what I would do without him. I wish everyone could be as lucky as I am as far as finding a true, giving, caring, kind healthcare provider that treats me with the dignity that EVERY true pain sufferer deserves.
Kate I so hope that you are doing a bit better. Kindest regards.
Excellent piece, as a chronic pain patient I shouldn’t have to live in fear of losing my medication because someone else has an addiction. There is zero correlation between my need to have medication that gives me quality of life and the person a block over that happens to have an addiction.
I agree. I don’t understand why people keep trying to connect the two when they aren’t connected in any way.
Well written, Shelley. Things are a bit different here in the UK with our NHS, but there is still a reluctance from some doctors to prescribe some medications in case patients become addicted. When I was first medically retired from nursing, my old consultant took me on as a patient and prescribed my pain control (we were palliative care and pain specialists) – she was horrified that I was on suboptimal drug dosages and immediately put me on a regime including oxycodone & pregabalin.
When I had various hospital admissions over the next couple of years I could see the expressions of doctors and nurses when they realised what i was taking on a daily basis….and the query as to whether I really needed it. Nursing friends used to joke that I shouldn’t be upright with the meds sloshing around inside me – but even they didn’t know how to address the chronic pain. Interesting that I now hear from very few of them!
How many times can we say that if we were not in pain we wouldn’t be taking the meds?! We depend on them for a quality of life…..
I have been dealing with chronic pain condition for three years. It is worse in the evenings and I often don’t do much then so I can go to bed early. I take 1/4 oxycondin (5ml) only occasionally from old medications. I am on a regime of gabapentin and lyrica combined. My insurance has denied lyrica as I don’t have a diagnosis of fibromyalgia so I get the lyrica from Mexico now, approved by my doctor. I have burning all over my body but especially on my hands, arms and chest, sometimes all over, sometimes on my back. I get exhausted dealing with it. I also have pin pricks and sometimes I feel like bugs are biting me, but no bugs. There are other symptoms. My doctor wants me to go to the Mayo Clinic but I havent gone yet. I figure they won’t find the necessary points of pain and dismiss me.
What people just dont get is that we really dont want to HAVE to take the meds…ive been diagnosed with Fibro for 15yrs now…i had juvenile arthritis…and a childhood nobody would want…i hate taking things that make me loopy. I watched my brother addicted to drugs…i dont wanna walk down that road….but the pain is real. Gabapentin doesnt work for me…it increased my fog and other symptoms…im stuck needing a perscription for ibueprophen…which doesnt play nicely with my liver…if i wasnt a Christian….as it is..there are still days i beg the Father of all to take me home…so i end up suffering with NO relief…and there are days i can barely breathe the pain is so bad….i cant even cry on those days…theyve got to come up with something…and THERE IS RESEARCH THAT PROVES FIBRO IS REAL….most doctors just dont want to admit it….they might have to help somebody…imagine that…