First Do No Harm: The DEA targets Physicians who treat their patients pain.
Public Comments (15,444)
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Jan 28th, 2016Someone from La Fayette, NY signed.
Jan 28th, 2016Someone from Boynton Beach, FL signed.
Jan 28th, 2016Someone from Citrus Heights, CA writes:
As a chronic pain patient I can relate to this problem. No one should be made to suffer by their doctor being afraid to prescribe narcotics especially when they have extensive records documenting their medical conditions! You can't imagine what its like to be in excruciating pain every single day. How depressing it is, how frustrating that you can't do so many basic things that regular people take for granted. I can't remember what it felt like to NOT have pain. I have a great pain management doctor but even on the strongest drugs it doesn't make the pain gone it just drops it enough to be able to do some things but often after activity there is a backlash and the pain will be worse for a day. Treat patients with compassion, instead of suspicion. Pain contracts and random drug testing combined with diagnostic tests, mri, etc should be more than sufficient to weed out the drug seekers.Jan 28th, 2016Someone from Columbus, OH signed.
Jan 28th, 2016Someone from Land O Lakes, FL signed.
Jan 28th, 2016Someone from Long Beach, CA signed.
Jan 28th, 2016Someone from Burnet, TX writes:
I have a rare, congenital kidney disease, Medullary Sponge Kidney Disease, which was not diagnosed until my kidneys had both filled with stones. Because I pass kidney stones so frequently, 20+ per month, I am considered a chronic pain patient, and I am in pain management. If I passed only a stone every now and then, my pain would be controlled, no questions asked. But because I need pain medicine every day, I am now at risk of losing the drugs that have kept me out of the hospital and ER and have allowed me to pass over 300 stones in less than 3 years. I can't believe I have to write to our Congress to ask that my pain be treated, or that I lose multiple Constitutional rights when my pain is treated, or that I have to justify my use of opioids to treat my pain. No amount of physical therapy or exercise or happy thoughts is going to relieve my pain. The pain of passing kidney stones has been compared to childbirth, and I go through this almost every day. Please, please help me live with less pain and without the stigma that goes along with being a patient in pain. I am a patient with severe, unrelenting, unbearable pain. I am not an addict.REPORT COMMENTS
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No, CancelJan 28th, 2016Someone from Little Rock, AR writes:
I've lived with chronic pain for over 20 years but in the past 6 or so, it has become harder for my pain management doctor to treat me.It seems my physician only has a say after the DEA,pharmacists, and the rest of the fear mongers jump on the band wagon. Narcotics are not the problem. It's the people who abuse whatever substance they can get a high from that should be focused on. I don't understand how patients that are seeking relief from constant pain and never get a high from their medicine are always lumped together with addicts. It's like comparing apples to trucks. It's that much of a difference. Addicts will find a way to abuse nutmeg if nothing else were available...should we ban that too?REPORT COMMENTS
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No, CancelJan 28th, 2016Someone from Ypsilanti, MI signed.
Jan 28th, 2016Someone from Adrian, MI writes:
People affected by decisions that impact their quality of life need to be included in the decision making process. Then we might have a chance at having laws that make sense and actually do some medical good.REPORT COMMENTS
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No, CancelJan 28th, 2016Someone from Ypsilanti, MI signed.
Jan 28th, 2016Someone from Lincoln, AR writes:
We are suffering needlessly, we need advocacy by our Dr.'s who know us! Talk to them. Please talk to us, it impacts so many lives. We are real. #PatientsNotAddictsREPORT COMMENTS
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No, CancelJan 28th, 2016Someone from Riva, MD writes:
The CDC and the DEA are forcing doctors to abandon their patients with chronic pain. We are being sacrificed to "save" people with addiction issues. It is a shame that the people writing and enforcing these guidelines are so intellectually limited that they cannot see they will be forcing people who would normally never consider taking illegal drugs into that market. I refuse to live my life in pain. I have a right to take medication to relieve that pain. I also have a right to take doses of medication that are provided by a reliable source like a pharmacy. Unfortunately I can see that in the future I will be forced to risk my life by taking drugs from questionable sources because the CDC and the DEA think I deserve to live a life full of pain. I was pretty surprised to find that in the UK they actually use heroin for pain management, they simply call it Diamorphine. They provide it to patients as both tablets and injections. If the DEA thinks they have a heroin problem now, just wait until the pain patients realize they can get Diamorphine on the street for less than the copay for their doctor's appointment with no humiliating drug test and no condescending pharmacy technician. One possible solution to the crisis facing millions of chronic pain patients across this country.REPORT COMMENTS
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No, CancelJan 27th, 2016Someone from San Antonio, TX writes:
#PatientsNotAddicts Honest Science, Politcal integrity, can most certainly differentiate between patients and addicts. I am sorry that healthy people make the choice to abuse medication. We do not deserve to be punished because of them. Post honest research. Those deaths were due to alcohol and other medications mixed in their autopsies. You must promote opiod for pain management for Chronic Pain Patients, we have no cure. We do not suffer a tooth ache, or a sprained ankle. We suffer the incurable. I beg you to search your hearts for the people. More restrictions will give you a suicide rate you've never seen before in history. Is that what you want?REPORT COMMENTS
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No, CancelJan 27th, 2016Someone from Walla Walla, WA signed.
Jan 27th, 2016Someone from La Crescenta, CA writes:
Pain meds help me to function and to raise 2 children. Without them, I'm bed ridden and incapable of moving. The stigma must STOP. We didn't ask for this life. But if there are meds to help our quality of life and we are not abusing them, then stop labeling everyone as addicts.REPORT COMMENTS
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No, CancelJan 27th, 2016Someone from Wasilla, AK writes:
Pain is subjective. Pain is debilitating. Pain is frightening. Acute pain is not chronic pain. Acute pain ends. Chronic pain is pain that does not end. Pain is different for each person, therefore each person in pain should be treated differently. Don't continue the current method of treating every patient in pain exactly the same.REPORT COMMENTS
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No, CancelJan 27th, 2016Someone from Dyersville, IA signed.
Jan 27th, 2016Someone from Saint Louis, MO signed.
Jan 27th, 2016Someone from Tulsa, OK signed.
Jan 27th, 2016Someone from Menasha, WI signed.
Jan 27th, 2016Someone from Beaverton, OR signed.
Jan 27th, 2016Someone from Boulder Creek, CA writes:
I am disabled, and have been in extreme chronic pain for over twenty years. During that time, I was a responsible pain patient. I don't get high from the meds. They just blunt the pain. I have been under medicated for the past two years, and now am bed bound and crippled by pain. Now they are taking away what little medication I was allowed these last two years. The DEA says it's "not justified." I think about suicide everyday, the pain us unbearable. Why is the DEA doing this? This is cruel beyond description. What if this happens to you or someone you love?REPORT COMMENTS
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No, CancelJan 27th, 2016Someone from Napa, CA signed.
Jan 27th, 2016Someone from Saint Augustine, FL writes:
Legit pain docs willing to prescribe narcotic pain meds are few and far between. Even with MRI showing joint disease and injury, it is not a given one will get their long-term prescriptions written on any given monthly visit. There is a monthly urine test to pass, which can sometimes be inaccurate. And that is half the ordeal. Then comes finding a pharmacy that had not run out of their narcotic quota for the month. If they do have the meds, and it's day 29, or 30 since the last fill, there is always a look, a barb, or demeaning comment usually from a pharmacy tech. Not to mention that the media hoopla has alarmed friends and families to the use of pain meds, even though legitimately necessary, causing bad feelings and even rifts.REPORT COMMENTS
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No, CancelJan 27th, 2016Someone from Woodbridge, CA writes:
Something must be done for pain sufferers. This is barbaric and inhumaneREPORT COMMENTS
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No, CancelJan 27th, 2016Someone from Abita Springs, LA writes:
The D.E.A.is the problem, why they want to make criminal out of people who need help? It does not make since. There is no good that come from them, they destroy good people lives. They have no business being involved in health care.REPORT COMMENTS
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No, CancelJan 27th, 2016Someone from La Fayette, NY signed.
Jan 27th, 2016Someone from Englewood, CO writes:
The more I research this issue, the more disgusted I become because I'm sure the people making these regulations do not even have to abide by them. The numbers and "statistics" presented are inaccurate. Most notable to me is that most addicts and abusers of these life saving/sustaining medications for those who truly need them DO NOT start with a legitimate prescription under a Dr.s care. Chronic pain patients jump through enough hoops as it is with UAs, pill counts and pain contracts, but are now being under treated if at all, for their intractable relenting pain which, is a serious danger in and of itself. Most have tried or are trying other therapies in conjunction with the medication and are spending thousands on injections, nerve ablations and any other therapy they can to relieve or just lessen their pain enough to function. If I was an addict instead of a chronic pain patient having a 5 inch file at the Dr.s office, I would be spending those thousands getting my hands on whatever fix I could instead of trying to find some relief from my pain under a Dr.s care so I can have some function in my daily life. Out of 100%, the problem lies in about 5% so I do not see how this makes sense at all. 95% of chronic pain patients must suffer and be under treated if they can get treated at all. Many patients have been on steady doses for decades and have been able to actually continuing working and paying taxes, taking care of their families and children and living a somewhat better life due to these medications. It doesn't even make sense that a large part of the treatment of pain are these medications and they want to take them away from legitimate patients due to a truly small number overall of abusers/addicts. If someone dies, if there is an opioid in their system, they can immediately be put in the numbers of ODs even if that isn't the true cause of death. NSAIDS and aspirin seperately cause more deaths a year, but they aren't included in this proclaimed epidemic. It is a violation of our rights and just plain inhumane when people who have painful conditions they did not choose to endure suffer needlessly. It's a travesty that most chronic pain patients are looked at and treated like addicts when the majority just aren't. I'm appalled at the lack of true knowledge and understanding that these medications improve the life of someone in need of them but destroy the life of someone that does not. There will always be those out there that abuse any system, but they are going about this completely wrong. How can all patients be lumped into the same category and also be medically treated the same? It needs to stay between the Dr. and the specific patient that is seen on a very regular basis. I want my Dr. to make the decisions over my care, that knows my condition and myself well. Not these government agencies that will never know who I am unless I end up as one of their OD statistics because I couldn't take the under treated chronic daily pain anymore.REPORT COMMENTS
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No, CancelJan 27th, 2016Someone from La Fayette, NY writes:
I am now in so much pain thanks to the new changes in citizens being able to take medicine for relief. I am working at a job that requires physical use of my body that is only going to get worse. I cannot afford to retire and will not go out on disability. I like my job and will not have government dictate what I can put in my body.Please change this law and allow doctors to make medical decisions and do their job for their patients. LET DOCTORS PRACTICE MEDICINE WITHOUT HURTING MORE PAIN PATIENTS! !!!REPORT COMMENTS
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No, CancelJan 27th, 2016Someone from La Fayette, NY signed.
Jan 27th, 2016Someone from Saluda, VA signed.
Jan 27th, 2016Someone from Duluth, MN signed.
Jan 27th, 2016Someone from Sun City, CA writes:
I went to the Doctor today for chronic pain. I'm almost in tears at work . The Doctor told me that they are not in the business of prescribing pain meds . Instead she prescribed me ibuprofen. I told her this upsets my stomach . She didn't seem to care. I just want to live a normal life in as little pain as possible. I wasted $125.00 to be told no . I'm poor and it's just not fair.. Why make a pain med if you can't get it. I went to I care in Temecula I'm really upset they got my money and I wasn't even examined so so wrong this needs to stop.I don't want to break the law to seek relief. I think if you have legitimate pain then the Doctor should help make your quality of life as comfortable as possibleREPORT COMMENTS
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No, CancelJan 27th, 2016Someone from Freehold, NJ writes:
I urge all my fellow chronic pain family to sign this petition I am pasting the link. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH OF THIS ********! http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/bernie-sanders-change.fb49?source=c.fb&r_by=758258REPORT COMMENTS
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No, CancelJan 27th, 2016Someone from Alvin, TX signed.
Jan 27th, 2016Someone from Bolivar, TN signed.
Jan 27th, 2016Someone from Colorado Springs, CO signed.
Jan 26th, 2016Someone from La Plata, MD writes:
Everyone who has had a loved one commit suicide because the medication they took to not be in pain everyday and to help the have somewhat of a normal life got ripped away from them because our government (now being in charge of our healthcare) feels they know better than us and our Dr have decided that everyone taking these meds are just drug addicts seeking a high and they are to be treated as such. No longer having access to there medication that let them live life and having to go back to being in pain 24.7, unable to do what they once could, decided death was the only way out for them . Everyone who has had to watch a loved one suffer and die in excruciating pain all because their healthcare providers were too scared to give them any relief from there agony due to the new rules and regulations that BIG BROTHER has placed on these meds along with threats from the DEA and lose theirs of jobs if they dare make the mistake of not following BIG BROTHERS law!!!! Everyone who has lost a loved one due to this treasonous war on pain relief need to start bombarding the DEA and the CDC with copy's of your loved ones death certificate along with a detailed letter about who they were, how they died, and why there all are responsible for there deaths. The DEA, CDC and everyone else involved with this current dictatorship of a government needs to be faced with how many deaths they have caused and need to be held accountable for what they have done and are still doing. THEY CAN'T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS!!!!!! In fact I have the addresses to the department in charge of policies for both the DEA and the CDC right here. Reminde them exactly how much damage and grief there policies have caused!!! DEA Office of Diversion Control Attn: Liaison and Policy Section 8701 Morrissette Drive Springfield, VA 22152 Office of the Associate Director for Policy Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1600 Clifton Road, NE Atlanta, GA 30333REPORT COMMENTS
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