Managing Chronic Pain without Narcotics | UCLA Health

[anoshya]

Alcoholism is much more prevalent in society with multiple more deaths than opioid addiction...

[sheilapugach]

There is too much emphasis on the abuse of opioids but with little concern for those who really need it and who have tried other modalities. It often means that opioids allow us to function!

[nisanight]

Does everyone notice that these videos are always made by people who don't suffer from chronic pain? That is because no one who lives with the reality of pain would say these things.

[sjpugsie]

Shouldn't alchohol require a prescription too? I'm pretty sure it's ruined more lives than pain meds

[beccareul]

These people make me sick, if like to see them try to walk around with 2 broken legs, left untreated and see if they don’t come begging for help. What the hell difference does it make to them whether or not you take pain medication? I don’t get it? Because it’s more socially acceptable to die of a bleeding ulcer from the synthetic stuff they try to give you that does nothing, rather than pain medication? It’s ridiculous.

[rileykinn]

I've tried every single thing they said and many more. Unless you've lived I the agony of debilitating chronic pain there is no way for you to understand what it's like. I have severe CRPS from a nerve getting permanently damaged from surgery. It's inhumane and let people suffer knowing there's medication that can help and not give it to them.

[STONEDay]

You're right my chronic pain didn't happen over night. It happened in a day on a surgical table at the hands of a doctor.

[sjpugsie]

But who pays for the alternative treatments? I know insurance companies will not. What does that say to people with severe chronic pain?

[sheilapugach]

There will be an increase in deaths from those of us who can no longer get the opioids we need for the pain.  No one considers this. Even pain specialists are threatened by the DEA. We should allow them to manage their practice without interference!

[sheilapugach]

If there was less emphasis on the abuse of opioids, we who are in chronic pain would not suffers the consequences of excruciating pain and then withdrawals as more and more doctors are afraid of the DEA and no longer prescribe opioids! Consider us, the chronic pain person! The DEA has too much power and pharmacies and doctors are just getting on the bandwagon and not prescribing the only relief (or at least the lessening of the pain ) that many of us experience.

[smittyo]

I think if there was a requirement that you must experience severe and or chronic pain before you can make any decisions for people who do suffer, things would be very different. I'm sick of people deciding what I can do for my body. Theyd rather people go through invasive therapies that may or may not work than take a medication that gives people their quality of life back.

[jerry-zxdy]

What is the ratio of the number of people these opiods help versuses the number they kill. I have been on opiods for 14 years at levels 6 times this 90 MME limit and I only take what my doctor gives me and I have never taken heroin or any thing illegal. There is something wrong here. I don't feel I have this tolerance either which requires you needing more and more. These drugs have saved my life and if they continue to take them away from me I will be taking my life because nothing else works fro me !

[merrittswift]

I am tired of suffering.Relaxed breathing and pressing on sensitive points with my fingers has not helped me at all during this past three weeks of overlapping chronic kidney stones, migraine and TMJ.They have not helped me in the past forty years of my wasted life due to the distraction and often obliteration of self from pain.I was given two Percocets once at the emergency room and I split and rationed out those priceless angels of mercy for near two years.I practically have drank no alcohol for the past couple years but Im asking myself why?I let an ounce of pot go stale on me, I rarely take even an aspirin in months yet Im considered just a junkie wanna be if I tell the Doctor that want to live a remotely human existence.

[hgallegos]

What if the ONLY thing that aleviates my pain IS opiods... im tired of trying different things.. now im addicted to lyrica and thats not even an opiod. I have a brachioplexis injury and ive had it for a year... if this thing is FOR life... im not willing to suffer all my life.. im ending it... im giving it one year.. but theres so much someone can take.. anyone.. 2 years ago if i would have been asked to choose pain vs death... i would have chosen death.

[jmsmith]

I couldn’t disagree MORE with this line of thinking and the limits the measures they’ve taken have only increased opioid related deaths and turned more and more people to heroin. I myself was hit by a drunk driver New Year’s Day 2010 and broke my back in three places. I was unable to walk for almost a year and after nine years I walk unassisted but am in constant chronic pain. Over the years I was able to wean off the medication and only take a very small dose when needed. I can not tell you the amount of pain patients I’ve met who has Dr’s who ran for the hills because of threats on their license from the DEA. (my Dr works very closely with the DEA and consults for them so he did not have to stop treating legit patients) can you imagine policy makers telling board certified pain management Drs how they should run their practice!?

Yes pill mills HAD to be stopped and those places were easily identified through basic monitoring of DEA licenses. The threats against legitimate pain specialists has cost lives. One woman I new through my chronic pain support group was a retired school teacher in her mid 70’s who had a clean urine EVERY SINGLE TIME she was tested was taken off meds with no taper because the Dr was taking ALL patients off opioids in one fours swoop, who died from an overdose of trying to snort heroin that she driver onto a know drug tract she saw on the news because she was so desperate to not be in pain anymore. Her funeral was probably the hardest.

[ravenvoyager]

Where is the chronic pain patient’s voice in your analysis. Where is the analysis of increased suicides, heart disease, alcoholism, isolation, depression, street drugs, diabetes, high blood pressure which affects cardiac health and obesity when a doctor restricts or refuses to prescribe to chronic pain patients. This video was brought to you from the dark ages. We will next report to you that if you wrap your ailment in a bandage soaked in wolf urine during a full moon you will feel better.

[daretolive]

More political correct agenda please!
They think it is better to suffer in misery and poverty, while your life falls apart.than to become an addict!

[mildredbradway]

Then you need to develop a pain meds that people are not going to be overdosing or commuting suicide! Not everyone wants to die!

[MT-kqwi]

Wish I had access to one of these pain management specialists. My pain is so unbearable that I just want a way out.

[americorestojr]

Ive used for 8 years and never abused the medication. Im in server chronic pain i chllenge any of these Doctors