Shannon MacLeod (Harris clan)
Shannon just turned 50 on the 16th he may not live to see 51. Most with this disease don't make it past stage 2. He's begun Stage 4.
Posted on 06/28/2019 7:42:24 AM PDT by GailA
Even as rates of opioid prescribing dropped by 25% between 2011 and 2017, opioid overdose deaths continued to rise.
It is time for Congress to direct the CDC to withdraw its guideline for a ground-up rewrite by an agency like the NIH or FDA that actually knows what it is doing. Likewise, the Veterans Health Administration must be directed to withdraw its closely related “Opioid Safety Initiative.” Veterans tell me that medical practice standards embedded in the initiative are driving vets to suicide by denying them treatment with opioid pain relievers. Finally, the DEA must be told to stand down and stop persecuting doctors who are legitimately prescribing opioids to their patients with chronic pain for “over-prescribing,” something for which no agency has yet created an accepted definition.
There ought to be a law … and I volunteer to help write it. AMA Resolution 235 (described earlier) must become mandatory policy for all federal health care and law enforcement agencies: the CDC, FDA, NIH, DEA, VA, the National institute on Drug Abuse, and the Department of Justice, to name just a few. Then state-level drug regulators and law enforcement need to be informed of the policy change — pointedly.
It is time to end the madness!
(Excerpt) Read more at statnews.com ...
22 of our Veterans now mostly younger ones than older Senior Veterans. Veterans where Forced Tapered 3 months before the Civilian population was hit.
We are looking at over 100 MILLION Intractable Pain Patients, who are now committing Suicides, having fatal Heart Attacks, being forced into pain clinics with Criminals. 78 yr old Hip replacement patients are being given 700 mg doses of Tylenol post surgery.
He is anti Socialized Medicine. While congress dithers on the Border Wall, Illicit drugs flow into the USA, both from Mexico, South America, China, and the M.E. (Sandbox). Philly just busted 2 cargo ships of 17.2 Tons of Cocaine. This story is still evolving as more ships are searched.
Chevy's made Cars were found with $4.5 Million in Heroin. This is a 2 day haul.
The FDA has many problems beyond opioids. Start with Generics coming from China, India, Japan, etc. with little or no inspection. We have no idea what’s in them, e.g., cancer causing ingredients like the ARBs linked to lung cancer that they’ve known for 10 yrs and hidden. Side effects anyone?
Anticholinergic Drugs and Dementia: The Link Gets Much Stronger!
Statins, Low LDL Cholesterol and Nerve Damage in People with Diabetes
AMEN!!!
The dragnet that has been spread has severe unintended consequences that those who suffer from chronic pain are being caught up into. Doctors prescribe and pharmacists withhold due to the fear of DEA audit and revocation of license.
I know a doctor, and he complains about how government interference has increased in all areas of his practice over the years.
With respect to pain management, we’ve had occasional conversations, and he noted that there is increased surveillance not only over the dispensation of pain meds, but also their possible diversion from the prescribed patient to someone else.
That said, the attitude towards pain management for those who need it in this country is rather barbaric, putting legal correctness ahead of obvious in your face suffering.
“....can last up to one year.....”
Rookies as far as chronic pain goes. Just sayin.
I just had to switch doctors because the office I’ve been going to for 20 years decided I needed to go to a pain management doctor for......tramadol. I have degenerative disc disease with sciatica and have been taking tramadol for about 10 years. You would think they’d be happy I don’t request stronger drugs. I could request them but refuse to take them. I just deal with the pain.
Agree.
I spoke with my PCP about this earlier this week.
I have a spinal cord injury and was prescribed only ibuprofen after being on hydrocodone and oxycodone by a PA.
I have a surgery coming up and went to a site to see about others who have had this surgery and people were in such pain they were talking suicide.
It is horrible. There is absolutely no quality of life for many of us.
I see nowhere in the Constitution where the government was granted any authority over what one puts in their body. Consequences of actions, of course, but merely what goes in my lungs or bloodstream? No.
Meet Shannon MacLeod of Glace Bay, N. S. Canada, where their doctors can REFUSE ANY PATIENT AT WILL. He’s dying in torture. https://www.cumberlandnewsnow.com/news/regional/glace-bay-man-with-incurable-condition-cant-find-a-doctor-174052/?fbclid=IwAR1DPHt7ewjb4TaZC_fgfoszdqtolN09KWW2Okp7-3Ggx2Nawnd4_XLW6uM 1 bad surgeon to fix a blown disc left him with a spine and Pain to the level of Stage 4 Bone Cancer. Like those of us in the USA Canada has Forced Tapers.
Shannon MacLeod (Harris clan)
Shannon just turned 50 on the 16th he may not live to see 51. Most with this disease don't make it past stage 2. He's begun Stage 4.
It doesn’t work that way. When you’re a regulator you have to prosecute someone.
So you prosecute doctors for oversubscribing. The one’s with the sickest patients are the easiest targets.
And then when the pendulum swings back, you prosecute doctors for not treating pain.
Always Always prosecute doctors.
Quite agree. Bad drugs, bad products. Entire Med system needs a Capitalist, Free Market overhaul.
That especially goes for Medicare, Medicaid, VA Care and Tricare. We can’t keep hemorrhaging $65 Billion in Medicare Fraud a year and giving it to Illegals to boot.
Tramadol is not very powerful...silly to regulate it so strictly.
It is ototoxic for some patients and can cause them to lose hearing so regular testing is a must.
o·to·tox·ic
adjective Medicine
adjective: ototoxic
having a toxic effect on the ear or its nerve supply.
Whole Earth Catalog Supplement September 1970. Claim that a case of a Dr. prescribing to a WW1 wounded vet, went to the Supreme Court, the Dr. won, but the Bureau of Narcotics (predecessor to the DEA) continued to prosecute Drs.
What’s the point of having all of those highly paid drug warriors if you can’t persecute someone?
Amen. I had a severe sciatica bout about 6 years ago. Lasted about 2 years, while I got a few epidurals. The tramadol got me thru it, and saved me from requiring surgery.
Sciatica can sometimes be managed, but takes the sufferer time to get thru the worst - to the tune of a few years.
A summary of a summary from the WSJ.
I could not find it beyond the paywall?
This essay is adapted from Dr. Rieder’s new book, “In Pain: A Bioethicist’s Personal Struggle with Opioids,” published by Harper
The Perilous Blessing of Opioids
An injured bioethicist learned firsthand how desperately patients with severe pain need the relief of powerful drugs—and how little support they get to stop taking them.
... a young man drove his large white van directly into the side of my bike. My left foot was crushed, and I was tossed to the ground.
I had five surgeries over the course of a month, at three different hospitals. There they gave me intravenous morphine, fentanyl and hydromorphone. They sent me home with powerful oxycodone pills. The drugs were a godsend for getting through my ordeal, but I soon faced the results of being on high and escalating dosages for too long. I had formed a profound dependence. When my orthopedic trauma surgeon finally told me, two months after the accident, that it was time to get off the meds, I was caught completely off-guard.
That day radically changed my life, and not just because of the injury itself. As a bioethicist at Johns Hopkins University, part of my job is to think about the moral quandaries raised by the practice of medicine. Unexpectedly becoming a trauma patient can be a particularly good way to uncover such issues. My own experience exposed a pair of linked challenges for patients like me and for our health care system: how to alleviate severe, debilitating pain while making sure that lives aren’t destroyed by the opioids that remain, for now at least, an irreplaceable remedy.
... I was incredibly fortunate. With the help of my family, I made it through the intense withdrawal and escaped the chemical hooks of the medication.
Opioids are not only dangerous; they also can be powerfully effective. Perhaps the greatest challenge about them today is to resist the urge to be simplistic or reactionary.
We cannot allow medical professionals to play hot potato with opioid patients, trying to toss them to someone else before the timer goes off.
Finally, physicians must compassionately engage with so-called “legacy” patients—those who, thanks to aggressive prescribing and overprescribing, have been on opioids for years or even decades. Taking the drugs away can send them into debilitating withdrawal, and the correct course of action isn’t clear. The overdose crisis is no excuse to be callous about their suffering.
But people are suffering, being badly medicated and dying every day. Inaction isn’t an option
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-perilous-blessing-of-opioids-11560504600
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