Opioid Pain Relievers & Overdose - The Real Danger is Undertreated Pain

by Heather Grace

*** A New CALL TO ACTION - Read Chronic Noncancer Pain Management and Opioid Overdose: Time to Change Prescribing Practices & Share Your Feedback ***

Attn All Pain Sufferers/Friends/Caregivers:

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THIS IS A CALL TO ACTION, REQUESTING YOU:
1. Read the article: http://www.annals.org/content/152/2/123.full.
2. Share YOUR response on their site.
3. Share YOUR response with the main author, the Deputy Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (the #2 Drug Czar under Pres. Obama).
4. Share This With EVERYONE Who Understands Our Plight!
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In short, Dr. A. Thomas McLellan and his co-author, have attacked the necessity of high-dose opioids in pain treatment. Sadly, this could have a huge impact on the future of everyone's access to medication. Important medication that is life-changing/life-saving!

Here is my letter to the author. Please, take the time to share your thoughts as well!

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Comments on Opioid Pain Relievers & Overdose Potential - The Real Danger is Untreated/Undertreated Pain

by, Heather O. Grace

I am writing in response to Dr. A. Thomas McLellan's editorial online at: www.annals.org/content/152/2/123.full.

I hate having intractable pain, degenerative disc disease and neurological conditions that can prevent me from completing the simplest tasks. However, I can say with confidence that I am in no danger of overdose!

No true pain patient is at risk of overdose when managed via regular visits to a competent doctor. Under 2% of people taking opioids ever overdose. In fact, the study Dr. McLellan references had even lower rates of overdose.

It took me over five years of severe pain to find a doctor who would do anything and everything to help me. Unfortunately, I was at the end of my rope, suicidal, by that point.

That doctor saved my life. Our system is broken--not serving severe chronic pain patients like me. If Dr. McLellan is truly concerned about pain patients dying, then I ask:

What about the deaths of patients who don't get pain relief because the DEA restrictions have created a climate of fear among doctors? If you consider the deaths due to heart attack or stroke, in addition to those via suicide, the loss of life is far greater than the loss due to overdose.

Access to medication is a constant concern (fear, really) for pain patients. Patients often have a medication that works, then it is suddenly no longer available. The DEA limits access to many opioids. Worse still, the DEA also routinely accesses confidential prescription records of individual patients--without warrants--in order to target doctors treating high-dose opioid patients.

John Stossel, the famed journalist who was also treated for a serious pain condition, spoke on The O'Reilly Factor on Feb 23, and on his own show, Stossel, on Feb 25, 2010.

He said: "The Drug Enforcement Agency's war on drug dealers has led them to watch pain-management doctors like hawks. Drugs like Vicodin and OxyContin provide wonderful pain relief. But because they are also taken by 'recreational' drug users, doctors go to jail for prescribing quantities that the DEA considers 'inappropriate.' As a result, pain specialists are scared into underprescribing painkillers. Sick people suffer horrible pain needlessly." Source: www.creators.com/opinion/john-stossel/whose-body-is-it-2010-02-24.htmlhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

"The system is broken, and patients are suffering," said Claudia Schlosberg, from the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists. "Law enforcement concern has to be compatible with meeting patients' needs. Right now it's not." Source: www.painreliefnetwork.org/page/2/

And there are serious health implications: Dr. Forest Tennant, a founder of the American Society of Addiction Medicine has identified Cardiac Adrenal Pain Syndrome: "Severe pain is well-known to stimulate the cardiac and adrenal systems...The tachycardia and hypertension is caused by pain's over-stimulation of the nervous system. It's the root cause of cardiac and adrenal complications." Source: www.healthcentral.com/chronic-pain/c/3388/69308/information

Treating severe pain patients is not the mystery many people might think it is. Doctors can use objective scales to diagnose patients: blood pressure/pulse, visible inspection, MRIs/CAT scans and bloodwork.

If Dr. McLellan wants to truly help prevent deaths of pain patients, then there are 3 things I recommend the current administration focus its' efforts on:

1. Revise DEA mandate that creates prescription fears even for doctors who treat legitimate pain patients. Don't restrict access to any of the FDA-approved opioids.

2. Ensure pain treaters have access to appropriate documentation on HOW to objectively diagnose pain patients, such as the article written by Dr. Forest Tennant, who has treated pain patients for 25 years. Source: www.pain-topics.org/pdf/Tennant-PainSigns.pdf

3. Create a nationwide Pain Patient's Bill of Rights, similar to the one in California. Include the CA patient rights, plus the objective diagnostic criteria, as noted in #2, above.

By doing all three, a more comprehensive system of care will be in place, throughout the country. People are beginning to open their eyes to the truth about opioids. The Stossel Show is a wonderful step in the right direction. You, Dr. McLellan, as the Deputy Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, can be on the forefront of meaningful differences in the quality of care. Plus, with education comes less severe uncontrolled pain and, most certainly, less needless deaths.

I realize it is hard to understand our plight as someone on the outside of all this suffering. I didn't understand use of morphine or methadone until I was suffering and near my own demise. I urge you, Dr McLellan, to look at things from a fresh perspective, talking to pain patients and their doctors, to see what it is to live with pain. We take our opioids just as diabetics take insulin. There really is no difference.

Please, Dr. McLellan, as the #2 Drug Czar working under Director, R. Gil Kerlikowske, you have the power to make positive changes to the way pain patients are treated. I urge you to take a stand in the right direction--to help pain patients--we are counting on you!