The Doctor's Corner Show S2 E57 Call-Ins How Family/Friends Respond to Patients Taking Pain Meds

June 25, 2019
S2 E57
Call-Ins How Family/Friends Respond to Patients Taking Pain Meds

8PM EST
THE DOCTOR'S CORNER with hosts DR. KLINE and JONELLE ELGAWAY

Topic: CALL-INS How Family/Friends Treat Patients Taking Pain Medications

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[jesuslovesyou.]

Thank you both! I miss these! I'm so glad to be able to go back and listen from time to time.

[metalmamasue]

Excellent show. I'm a disabled RN who functioned for decades, worked for 20 years and raised 2 boys. On pain medicine. Since the crack down, 2 of my PCP's were fired for helping people in pain and the 3rd Dr I ended up with said from day 1, I dont like giving pain meds. I told him I didn't like having pain for most of my life. He was miserable to me and threatened me almost every visit to drop me as a patient. He sabotaged my efforts to go to pain management x3. And then after 2 years of being terrified of being taken off, and being tapered for those 2 years despite me fighting that, and against my wishes, he finally did indeed drop me. I was left with no choice except to go get medicine for addiction. Because it was better than nothing but yes, I am undertreated. And labeled. And stigmatized. And I hate it. It doesn't relieve my pain nearly as well as other things did and of course I have to do counseling and urine tests which are an enormous waste of money over the last how many years. I have NEVER failed a urine test. Never overdosed. But yes I have been labeled and I don't even speak to 2 of my immediate family members. I have fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis since my teens, 5 spinal fusions, I had a severe case of c diff x3 and have had 2 surgeries as a result and will have #3 in the fall. It will be my 21st operation. I'm so used to it, it doesn't even faze me anymore. I really hope I can some day be properly treated again because the quality of my life is not great. I will not give up and I will keep fighting but it has aged me. This false crisis against pain patients.

[Gpacharlie]

You do have to consider that fighting this takes strength. Many of us are too sick to fight. All our fight is used up just getting out of bed and putting on a happy face.

[ParadigmAudio]

Thank you for your efforts. I am so beaten most days, now, that I can barely be an hanger on and listen. The cycle of cruelty will continue unless I do one thing. I feel like I can do nothing. Maybe if I just like or comment on one other person's comment here that would do something.
so @Chuck W here's your

[carolynjenkins]

Thought I was too sick to fight. Just e-m'd Med.Bd. of CA a caustic profanity driven but short message about the "CURES Report"! I'm exhausted! So full of anger & in so much unnecesary pain. Damn their research & the damage their doing!

[Gpacharlie]

My family has been cautiously supportive yet they also are influenced by the hyperbole of the ‘opioid crisis.’ There is so much ignorance and I am chronically under treated for pain. Proper treatment looks like letting the dog out of the cage to eat and play with the other dogs. Under treated looks like being kept in the cage and given occasional scraps.

[Gpacharlie]

The woman with type 2 CRPS at the end of the show describes many of our experiences. A painful condition from a trauma event becomes chronically under treated. The brain responds haphazardly and the total “shit storm” ensues. Now we are chasing symptoms and seeking gurus when the cause is under treated poorly managed chronic pain. Many have surgery and many of those are made even worse by it. The surgeon doesn’t follow these folks at all and their country doc is overwhelmed. Enter the opioid crisis and forced tapering. Now their life is unraveling and they can’t work. Their financial life is being flushed and the pain and stress and anxiety is overwhelming. Some just kill themselves.

[Gpacharlie]

I have never felt “energized” by opiate meds. Relieved yes, energized no.

[Gpacharlie]

VA/DOD has set an arbitrary ceiling of 50 mg eq per day with forced taper.

I get reasonably good function at 90 - 120 eq as a retired disabled Vet with no side effects. Frustrating and aggravating doesn’t even describe it. For me a conservative dosage of Oxycodone cuts my pain in half to a manageable level which allows me to engage in life where pain is no longer all consuming. At that level I can walk and engage in the “other modalities.” At half the dose I can’t move and pain overwhelms. I have explained this ad nauseum both to private docs and VA docs for years. I experience 20 of the symptoms of the Mind Body list of symptoms when pain goes above 7 and stays there. When I get it below 5 those symptoms all calm, depression lifts and my blood pressure normalizes. One would think that this evidence based feedback would be a joy to a physician but they just shrug. I broke my upper spine when young in the Army with over 20 fractures from C2 to T4. If I didn’t have a very ugly looking MRI I wouldn’t even get meds. I feel so sad for others that are going through what I do. People’s lives are so desperately harmed by under treatment of pain in so many ways. It’s criminal negligence and the opioid crisis has made it so much worse. It is a terrible terrible thing. We have very little advocacy and are now treated as drug seekers instead of people in pain. I have effectively lost my family from this. I provided for them all through college and even a paid off mortgage for their mom. She left too. She said if I get better she would remarry me. People have no idea the damage that chronic pain causes, no idea.

There is good news though. A younger family has adopted me. They have a child with significant disabilities. They get it, and have made me a welcome and important part of their family. I am now the dad they didn’t have and the Grampa they longed for. I think Ill stay as long as they’ll have me.

[Vexx_Line_]

Recent experience as a patient advocate:
My patient's Dr told her to "STOP TALKING" x4 & that he didn't care about "her science" every time we attempted to discuss the data mistakes the CDC had made [the pt is a retired Biologist who was forced to retire due to the intractable pain caused by her health conditions].

He said he didn't care what the result of any study is/was, that he IS ceasing to prescribe her necessary pain medication. When she asked who can she go to that will provide continuity of care, he responded that it is NOT HIS RESPONSIBILITY to find her someone who would continue her care & she was now on her own regardless of the circumstances.

When she or I attempted to ask basic questions we were told to "STOP TALKING" over & over. He then began to guilt her, a seriously ill patient, about his family & his other patients.

The "Pain Mgt Clinics" we called all said they would require her to sign over complete control of her medical care to them & that she would need to start all over taking medications & undergoing invasive procedures that caused severe adverse reactions, did not work, caused more harm, and are contradicted with the conditions she has.

This is all beyond madness! I never imagined I'd witness severely ill, suffering patients be treated worse than garbage.

The "moral" puritanical holdovers need to leave these suffering patients alone & get out of dictating the practice of medicine. I wish that somehow a massive violations of human rights suit can be brought against anyone who had a hand in this very deliberate discrimination & inhumane cruelty.

[lucabratsie]

Are these weekly shows? How do we know when the next show is?

[Vexx_Line_]

I'd say YES a medical alert "certification" bracelet would be a good Provided they are recognized. Exactly, certified Pain Patient.

1:01:13... This is exactly how they treat pain patients. They will absolutely not listen to anything you have to say, any scientific literature is ignored & they simply tell you to "stop talking" they don't care what evidence you have or what the studies say; they will not be risking their licence for the patient, point blank period.

[Gpacharlie]

The Bracelet idea is great, except if it is scoffed at by doctors it will backfire. The problem is with the MD’s. They are arrogant and egotistical and poorly trained for chronic conditions like ours and their insecurity becomes a cognitive denial the minute we open our mouths. Their bias is ingrained and they scoff and are dismissive. If we protest they take the power position and begin the scolding. It’s a terribly demeaning experience. Good docs are in my experience becoming a rarity.