The other end of this is the situation I have come face-to-face with. Due to age and unfortunate genes, I am subject to bouts of back pain that Tylenol, et al, simply won’t resolve. So, in April, I got a five-day course of Percoset from my family physician. Three months later, when an orthopedic surgeon was getting ready to give me another five day course of the same, he stopped himself because he was afraid of having his license pulled for acting as an adjunct to my theoretical “drug seeking” behavior. Two five day courses of an opioid three months apart is “drug seeking”? Pure stupidity. So, the only answer is to gut it out. Once again, lawyers pretending to be doctors get in the way of the people they claim to be helping.
“Between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, 2016, the number of opioid doses dispensed decreased by more than 11 million from the same quarter of 2015.”
And how many lives were saved. Did heroin deaths go down. Nothing is said of course. I guess we’ll need to reduce opioid prescriptions by another 11% to see if anything good happens.
I think that the Gestapo agents at the DEA and state DHS want the war against doctors and patients. You know, they could just work with doctors and pain patients to create clear and easy to follow rules, but it’s always more fun to send in SWAT teams to doctors offices.
Now if you were a DEA agent getting up in the morning what would you rather do? Get all dressed up in SWAT gear and raid a doctors office where the only weapon you’ll find is a pen or go into a drug house where there’ll be a few guys in the back waiting for you with ARs?
They won’t be satisfied until people living with chronic pain are forced to do without pain medications.
Mark