Living with Chronic Pain

There is a national movement to prevent doctors from prescribing opioids to manage their patients chronic pain.Arizona governor Doug Duecy is quietly pushing through legislation that will effectively keep doctors in this state from treating their chronic pain patients by putting limits on the amount and type of opioids. In essence Gov. Duecy believes that he knows better than doctors who specialize in treating chronic pain. Governor Duecy believes he knows better what chronic pain patients need to live each day in excruciating pain, and that keeping these medications from them, he is somehow saving their lives. The reasoning? There is an epidemic of drug abuse in this country. People are dying from taking heroin, Percocet, OxyContin, etc. There is no denying that. But the truth is that the people who are dying aren’t those afflicted with the conditions that rob them of the quality of life that the unafflicted enjoy. It’s those who are looking for that high that taking medications for no other reason than recreational use will provide. So they turn to the street and access the black market to obtain those drugs.
If that’s not enough, insurance companies are funding groups that would allow them to recall pain patients who are being treated with opioids under the guise of a theory that the opioids actually are causing the pain. The patients are sent to a doctor who is paid by the insurance company and after an “examination” , the determination is to take the patient off the opioids. The fact that the patient has never had any problems with the medications, or attempted to seek these drugs in excess are ignored, as is the success of the medications in allowing patients who take opioids a quality of life they would otherwise not have. It’s about allowing the insurance company to renegotiate a supportive care award but now minus the monthly cost of medications. In other words it’s quality of life versus the bottom line.
What Gov. Duecy is doing is creating a situation where chronic pain patients will turn to the black market in order to obtain the medications they need to live. You will see a large number of people that will rely on the ER for pain management. Those who will need hospitalization. And for those who don’t have the resources, they will seek a more definitive solution to end their pain.
Arizona is a stepping stone for rest of the country. Politicians should not be allowed to make decisions for medical care. They aren’t licensed to practice medicine, nor are they trained.
Insurance companies must also be held in check when it comes to supportive care awards. If a patent has successfully proven in court that they have a need for it, insurance companies must not be allowed to subject the patient to continual legal harassment.
Fibromyalgia, Arthritis, Degenerative spinal diseases are all horrific pain conditions that so many Americans are forced to live with. Conditions such as Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) tops the list, and is also known as the Suicide Disease because there is nothing else known that causes such debilitating pain.
Please, send Governor Duecy and the other politicians a message that they need to stay out of our healthcare decisions and leave it to the doctors and patients to determine what the best course of treatment is.
Thank you.