{"id":134702,"date":"2015-09-25T21:52:09","date_gmt":"2015-09-25T21:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/09\/25\/vietnam-veteran-denied-pain-pills-after-testing\/"},"modified":"2015-09-25T21:52:09","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T21:52:09","slug":"vietnam-veteran-denied-pain-pills-after-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/09\/25\/vietnam-veteran-denied-pain-pills-after-testing\/","title":{"rendered":"Vietnam veteran denied pain pills after testing positive for marijuana"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vietnam veteran denied pain pills after testing positive for marijuana<\/a><\/p>\n

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vaspider<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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vaspider<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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riot-bunny<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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vaspider<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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doallbluelivesmatter<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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If this is how we treat our troops, you\u2019d think that the\u00a0\u201cSupport Our Troops\u201d crowd would want to end the war on drugs.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Unfortunately, speaking as someone on probably very similar medications \u2013 I have permanent spinal damage due to having had a tumor removed from my spine \u2013 this has less to do with \u2018not supporting our troops\u2019 than it very MUCH has to do with \u2018illogical and scare-mongering tactics as regards pain medication.\u2019<\/p>\n

Doctors who do pain management are REQUIRED to pee-test or blood test their patients (I get tested every time I go in for a refill, so about once every eight weeks), required to keep logs, etc. The alternative is getting shut down for running a \u201cpill farm.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is all directly attributable to the scare tactics in which the public believes that o noes oxycontin\/oxycodone\/etc. gotten from doctors is where pill habits come from! Your pill problem comes from a legit prescription! \u2013 and that\u2019s just not the case.<\/p>\n

This is a) utterly shameful and b) completely tied to the shit-ass, scare-mongering way in which we handle pain meds. I get treated like a criminal every time I go in to CVS to refill my meds, especially if my favorite pharmacy tech isn\u2019t there. It\u2019s common knowledge among spoonies you avoid ERs no matter how bad you hurt, unless you have a letter from your pain management doctor telling them to contact the doc, because they\u2019ll treat you like a drug seeker. You go to the same pharmacy, and find a \u2018good and sympathetic one\u2019 or someone might decide you\u2019re trying to get pills you don\u2019t \u2018deserve\u2019 and flag your profile in your state\u2019s pill-monitoring software, and then suddenly, magically, every pharmacy will start telling you that they\u2019re \u201cout of stock.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s absolutely horrible, and what\u2019s happened to this man is totally unconscionable. Don\u2019t think it doesn\u2019t happen to pain patients every. single. day.<\/p>\n

Because it does. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Except it\u2019s important to note that not everybody who is on pain meds needs them or uses them correctly. There IS rampant abuse of prescription pain pills. It\u2019s absurd because there ARE places that prescribe pain pills indiscriminately. The VA by my home is under investigation after prescription drug abuse issues because of irresponsibly prescribing them. People have died because of it.<\/p>\n

And where do you think people who can\u2019t afford or get access to the pills they are addicted to? Do you know what somebody going through that withdrawal is going through? It\u2019s fucking agonizing. It\u2019s monstrous. <\/p>\n

Alternatives to that level of suffering present themselves in buying the pain pills off the street or turning to abusing other similar drugs like\u2026 You guessed it! Heroin! <\/p>\n

The amount of OD\u2019s on pain pills is staggering.<\/p>\n

I think that this is less fear-mongering than you may think and more of a misguided attempt at managing pain pill abuse. <\/p>\n

Which is all the more reason to legalize marijuana and to start treating addicts like human beings. Start cracking down on dealers of pain pills and heroin instead of casual pot smokers.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry you\u2019ve been treated this way and feel this way, but it isn\u2019t just a fear mongering tactic, it isn\u2019t just a way of guilting people. It\u2019s a method of keeping drug abuse in check, which is unfortunately not effective and is misguided because of he society we live in. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Yes, I know what withdrawal is. When I miss my medication I go into withdrawal pretty quickly. I\u2019ve had family members nurse me through withdrawal more than once \u2013 the worst was when I was in another state for my grandmother\u2019s funeral & our flight got delayed more than the extra medicine I carried on me, because of course I didn\u2019t carry more than an extra day since I was afraid of my bag\/pills being stolen. Why was I afraid? Because then I couldn\u2019t get them replaced due to the policies that we\u2019re discussing. If someone stole my bag, or it was lost (and my son\u2019s Kindle was <\/i>stolen on that trip) then I\u2019d be shit out of luck. And of course when I called my doctor\u2019s office they were very sorry but he isn\u2019t licensed in that other state and so they told me to\u00a0\u2018take Aleve and pray.\u2019 Really.<\/p>\n

So yes, I know what withdrawal is. I went through it while on a cross-continental airplane flight, trying very hard to look\u00a0\u2018normal\u2019 while I went through airport security. I went through it while my husband was driving me home.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also aware that abrupt withdrawal from the psychiatric medications that are often prescribed in lieu of opiates is actually much, much worse in many cases \u2013 and far, far more dangerous.* No one seems to want to talk about the fact that you cannot simply abruptly stop any medication that you take on the regular, or that the effects of, say, someone stopping taking their diabetes or anxiety or depression or heart medication would be similarly devastating. Withdrawal from prescription medication is terrible, full-stop.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But yes, I know what withdrawal is. I know how it feels. I know what it does. Personally. From the inside. And I know what withdrawal is because of these policies<\/b><\/i>.<\/p>\n

It is, however, a fear-mongering tactic, since a truly negligible amount of addictions begin with a doctor\u2019s prescription written for the person who becomes addicted. They begin with a prescription written for a family member, something picked up at a party, et cetera. That these addictions are then furthered by doctor\u2019s offices is a problem, yes, but that isn\u2019t where the vast majority of abusive addictions begin. (There are an awful lot of studies out there on the topic, I encourage you to read where addiction actually begins).\u00a0<\/p>\n

The amount of ODs from opiate-based medication from those who have their pain medication prescribed by a pain management physician (or even, consistently, the same doctor) are actually pretty negligible and can largely be attributed to mismanagement of dosage (double-dosing due to not properly tracking dosage) or someone who is already in pain forgetting that they\u2019ve taken breakthrough medication and taking a second round.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been on pain medication for multiple years at this point. You don\u2019t get high anymore after a certain point \u2013 and that\u2019s just\u2026 medical fact. The side effects drop away as your tolerance is built, and what remains is you not being in pain. For an addict, this is a problem, because then they have to seek higher and higher doses. For a legitimate patient, this is not a problem. This is living. This is good<\/b>, because now I can go about my life.<\/p>\n

Now, add on to this the fact that in order to get my prescriptions \u2013 because this is one of those lovely add-ons that I didn\u2019t mention before \u2013 I have to get a shot into my spine every eight weeks or so. It doesn\u2019t really do all that much, if anything, but my doctor is required <\/b><\/i>to continue alternative treatments with me rather than simply prescribe the medication we know works. Now, this opens me up to a lot of really scary things, and I\u2019ve been monitored more than once in the last 2 years for spinal cord\/brain infections due to the fact that someone is sticking a needle into my spine every 2 months at most. Fun times in the ER being treated like a drug seeker because I have an infection in my back from the needle. Big thumbs up!<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve tried every other medicine under the sun, and the only thing that works without making me fall asleep behind the wheel of my car, turn into Dora from Finding Nemo, slur my words and sound like I\u2019m drunk, et cetera.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The spectre of pain medication patients turning to heroin is \u2013 again \u2013 a mask, because it\u2019s far more likely for a pain medication patient to commit suicide than to become a heroin addict. Buuuut that doesn\u2019t fit with our pre-established ideas of what Those People Do, so we don\u2019t talk about that part of it \u2013 that people who live in unending pain are far more likely to eat a bullet than to start shooting or snorting heroin. And if our system is making people turn to heroin when their pain medication is denied, isn\u2019t that a problem?<\/i><\/p>\n

Putting legitimate chronic pain patients through humiliating drug screens \u2013 which does\u2026 what, really? as we\u2019ve seen above, all it did was deny a terminally ill patient his medication<\/i>, and how many non-medical addicts does it catch? \u2013 requiring\u00a0\u2018alternate therapies\u2019 lest the doctors be raided by the DEA, labeled pill mills and lose their license, etc. and even the way we discuss this (pain pills <\/i>vs. pain medication<\/i> \u2013 do we call it\u00a0\u201cpsych pills?\u201d\u00a0\u201cdiabetes pills?\u201d Does anyone call them\u00a0\u201cheart pills\u201d outside of 1950s television?) is, yeah, fear-mongering. Add on to it that the overwhelming majority of chronic pain patients are women, and you have not only a medical issue but a heavily-gendered medical issue. I\u2019m not surprised that we\u2019re hearing about this with shock and horror when it happens to an aging male veteran when this happens to middle-aged women all of the time. (Hell, it\u2019s super funny to make fun of female pain patients – just ask Patton Oswalt and his hilaaaarious\u00a0\u2018is oxycontin gluten-free?\u2019 tweet. o ho ho me and my celiac are laughing real hard duder.)<\/p>\n

Now. Are there problems with pill-shoppers? Sure are. There will be any <\/i>time there is an available drug which gets people high. But this can be dealt with by the same functions that are already in place in many states; I would support nationalizing them in order to make things easier for tracking purposes, which should have the side effect of making it easier for patients to move from state to state, since their histories would be nationally-stored.<\/p>\n

The way that pain medication prescriptions are already tracked in my state, I don\u2019t know how well they\u2019re tracked elsewhere, is pretty simple and pretty solid. If I go to pharmacy A and fill Medication X, and then try to go to pharmacy B and fill Medication X, even written by a 2nd doctor, they\u2019ll say \u2018no, sorry, you already filled that, it\u2019s too soon.\u2019 Pretty simple. Pee tests and requiring <\/i>sometimes-dangerous\u00a0\u2018alternative therapies\u2019 don\u2019t accomplish anything meaningful, get into the relationship between the patient and doctor in a way that most women would (rightly) be screaming about if it were about reproductive rights, and strip people who have already lost too much of their lives to pain of the dignity which remains them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

tl;dr – there are a lot of other medications which can be used for a high and which can kill you, which we don\u2019t treat the same way that we treat pain medication. The day we start instituting mandatory pee-tests for people taking Adderall**, and docs who prescribe Adderall are terrified of DEA raids, is the day I\u2019m going to believe we\u2019re legitimately interested in dealing with potentially-dangerous addictions and misuse across the board. Until then, yeah, pull the other one, it\u2019s got bells on.<\/i><\/p>\n

*Never mind the side effects of those off-label psych meds can be truly horrific, and that NSAIDs are worse for the gut in long-term use, affect bone density especially in those who can least afford to lose bone density, etc. A recent ten-year study of athletes showed that for long-term use of pain management, opioids caused the least physical damage \u2013 and these are people who are otherwise in good condition, and can best manage and mitigate side effects.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

**Adderall can be fatal at as low as a single 15mg dose, which is less than the typical ADHD high school patient is prescribed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So, interesting follow-up to this, since it cycled around to my dash again today: I\u2019m sitting in my chair right now with four holes in my belly all stitched up neatly. <\/p>\n

Why do I have four holes in my belly? Because I had my gall bladder pulled out on the 21st. <\/p>\n

On the 20th, just after midnight, I was sent home from the ER with a diagnosis of \u2018unspecified abdominal pain.\u2019 They didn\u2019t even do a fucking ultrasound. Why? Because when I told the doctor that I was a chronic pain patient and that I had a pain management doctor \u2013 so that he would not give me medication that would get me in trouble with my pain management doctor \u2013 he decided I was in his ER for THE DRUGZ, and he sent me home. <\/p>\n

I came back in less than ten hours later, vomiting violently and dehydrated so badly that my arms look like I was beaten by a stick from the number of times I had to have them stab me to get an IV in me. (This is important because the night before they had no problem getting an IV in me. If I\u2019d stayed in the hospital, they would have had that good IV for much longer.)<\/p>\n

But no, this stigma that surrounds pain management and pain medication is SO STRONG that it got me sent home from the emergency room, only to come back much, much worse within half a day. <\/p>\n

By the time I left the hospital, I\u2019d had EIGHT separate IVs sunk in my arms, and that doesn\u2019t count the number of times I had been stabbed trying to find a vein. I\u2019m a hard stick on a good day.<\/p>\n

They made sure it wasn\u2019t a good day by their actions. By my 3rd day in the hospital, they were bringing in ICU nurses and charge nurses to do my IVs. They were talking about picc lines \u2013 for a fucking gallblader removal, do you understand?<\/p>\n

And this is directly tied back to the fact that one doctor in the ER looked at me, said to himself \u2018oh, she wants drugs,\u2019 and kicked me out of the ER without even doing an ultrasound. He had been in the process of scheduling said ultrasound \u2013 we had discussed it \u2013 until I said \u2018oh and I\u2019m a pain management patient so please check in with my pain management doctor before you give me anything, I\u2019m in a ton of pain but I can\u2019t be violating the rules of my practice or I\u2019ll get kicked out.\u2019<\/p>\n

This is so common that chronic pain patients are advised to carry letters with them from their pain management doctors just in case they need to go to the ER. It\u2019s so common that I was repeatedly saying \u2018no, I need to be given my maintenance medication AND the painkillers for acute pain, please keep me on my regular schedule\u2019 and I nearly had a panic attack over it because I have been denied acute pain medication in the past since people believed that my maintenance pain medication should be enough to also handle acute pain. In that case, it was from having a chunk of my spine removed. But oh, your 20mg of oxy that you use to walk will take care of that, won\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

So yeah, tell me again about how good we handle pain in our medical system. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be sitting here with my arms looking like someone beat me up (and won\u2019t that be fun going out into public with my husband for a while?), staring at you.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vietnam veteran denied pain pills after testing positive for marijuana vaspider: vaspider: riot-bunny: vaspider: doallbluelivesmatter: If this is how we treat our troops, you\u2019d think that the\u00a0\u201cSupport Our Troops\u201d crowd would want to end the war on drugs. Unfortunately, speaking as someone on probably very similar medications \u2013 I have permanent spinal damage due to … <\/p>\n

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