Study Linking Suicides to Rx Opioids Not Supported by Data

 

Study Linking Suicides to Rx Opioids Not Supported by Data

..."Recently, an article in the American Journal of Psychiatry (AJP) that was widely covered in the lay press, suggested that reductions in the chronic use of prescribed opioids for patients with pain slowed an otherwise discouraging national 20-year rise in suicides. Further, the paper suggests its findings should alleviate concerns about dose reductions in pain patients who have relied on these medicines long term. However, these conclusions were not supported by the data in the study or in any other available data.

Given rising national concern about a burgeoning opioid crisis, many doctors forcibly reduced doses in long-term recipients of prescribed opioids, often under pressure from regulators and boards. Unfortunately, suicides started happening among patients who were taken off their medication. "

see the rest on the link....

https://www.painnewsnetwork.org/stories/category/Pain+Medication

(Open Letter) signed by over 300 pain specialists, other physicians and those in the medical profession to the CDC & how their "Guidelines" on Opioid Medication could drive Chronic Pain Patients to Suicide...

Are Federal Guidelines for Prescribing Opioids Hurting Patients with Chronic Pain?

(Open Letter) signed by over 300 pain specialists, other physicians and those in the medical profession to the CDC & how their "Guidelines" on Opioid Medication could drive Chronic Pain Patients to Suicide... (letter URL below)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RzQDSppUKhjiAsEmhW2WbTXlP5V8vJ4M_vBPQLKhK_8/edit

Information comes from the links here....
www.democracynow.org 
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/3/27/are_federal_guidelines_for_prescribing_opioids


For many years my Mom would ask me "How did I stand the severe pain of Migraines at first, then later, Lupus, RA, Joint issues that turned into replacements, and all of the severe chronic pain she watched me have to go through... she told me several times, that there was no way, she could endure what she watched me go through, that she would have possibly committed suicide rather than put up with all I had to go through so many years BEFORE I could get some "real help" after searching for a decade or more for physicians, diagnosis, medications and things to help me not have to live with such horrid pain in my life.... 

I always tried to reassure her that things would someday "get better"... and yet here we stand worse off than a decade ago when it comes to severe chronic pain... 

Pain Patients Get Relief from Results Positive from on Opioids from U.S. Agencies!

Pain Patients Get Relief from Results Positive from  on Opioids from U.S. Agencies!

from the Scientific American

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pain-patients-get-relief-from-war-on-opioids/

By Claudia Wallis on April 19, 2019

Ever since U.S. health authorities began cracking down on opioid prescriptions about five years ago, one vulnerable group has suffered serious collateral damage: the approximately 18 million Americans who have been taking opioids to manage their chronic pain. .... Red rest of article on link above...

© 2019 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, A DIVISION OF SPRINGER NATURE AMERICA, INC.

SICK and TIRED of the "stigma" placed on so many of us with Chronic Pain and just how horribly it effects our lives, I feel it's time for me to step up and also state my feelings on the subject!

For a long time, I've kept my "mouth shut" when it comes to the business over those who want to make EVERYONE, with Chronic Pain and Chronic Illnesses, look like a bunch of junkies! But, I am just too fed up with it! It's gotten to the place that rather than focus on other countries who could destroy our nation with bombs, or talk about how to "help" those with pain problems, or use their talk to make available more research dollars, funding to help those who are ill, rather than make us all feel as if we are doing something wrong. 

As I use the example of someone with Diabetes, would you take away their insulin? A person with high blood pressure would you deny them medications to lower their blood pressure? I've been thru just about every type of other "pain reliever" you can imagine. chiropractors, injections into my spine and occipital nerves in my neck, injections into just about every joint on my body, I am on several medications for the Lupus and RA, yet some other medications that I had MANY SIDE EFFECTS FROM, that were supposed to help with chronic pain, I have every surgery that is a promise to help my pain, I walk daily, I don't stay sedentary, I try and do all I can to ease my pain. I've gone through NSAIDS that can cause me to have another heart attack. 

My 2nd MI partially was caused from chronic pain, and after the fractures to my hip, my pain level increased, due to many things such as the change of my gait, my neck in such bad shape, that he has to "stretch" it 2 INCHES, because I lost that much disc space... So, I KNOW ABOUT ALL F THE alternatives. Some of which work wonderfully for some people. I am thrilled that some find relief from things such as Gabapentin, which caused me to "hallucinate" even on a small dose. So, after going through SO MANY YEARS, of every type of other treatment available, what "works" for me, may not be what works for someone else. "Chronic Pain" in itself is extremely complicated. Due to having SO MANY CONDITIONS, that can cause this type of pain, it's taken an "army of physicians", medications, treatments, surgeries, injections, therapy, you name it, I've done it to find "what works" for me, with the least amount of side effects possible. 

So it just "burns my butt" to hear the crude and down right stupid remarks some say about us patients, that live with pain daily. I give a good example. I had NO CLUE, HOW PAINFUL, a fractured hip was, UNTIL IT HAPPENED TO ME! That was one of the most excruciating times in my life, as far as pain goes. OMG, kidney stones are horrible and unrelenting at times. But those two fractures of my right hip.... were almost unbearable. Every tiny movement caused me so much pain, I thought I would go into convulsions. Even being put on the stretcher and taken over my lawn to the ambulance, I was literally screaming, crying and probably cursing so badly and loudly, all of my neighbors heard me! I even waited over 2 HOURS, before calling the ambulance.
  


I wanted to "make sure" I had a fracture, and not just a "bruised hip" before calling the ambulance. Then them trying to do an X-ray or moving me in any way, I shook and screamed in so much pain. And those things are "acute pain" issues. So, you take some of those and put them with someone often daily or many times in a month's time, and see how well they would function in life for very long. I tend to be one of those people who try and not "show my pain" or illnesses in public. But, believe me just because I am not limping or using a cane, or whining and moaning in pain, does NOT mean that it's not there. So, some of you may get sick and tired of seeing me post about all of this ridiculous uproar over this so called "crisis", but I intend to keep on getting the word out as much as I can, and supporting EACH OF US, who would be "lifeless" if we had to withstand chronic pain and illnesses without any type of relief. 

The LONG LIST of illnesses that can cause relentless pain are endless. You can have "diabetic neuropathy", many different types of arthritic illnesses, autoimmune illnesses and syndromes, nerve pain from degeneration of the joints, of bones, of the spine, migraines of many types now, TMJ, FM, torn muscles and ligaments, surgeries sometimes can cause pain, "neuralgia" comes from so many types of illnesses, whether sciatic nerve pain, from a lower back issue, or pain in the arms, wrists, fingers, from a cervical neck problem, or from problems with diseases causing bone pain, cancers of many types, all types of "myalgia's", torn muscles, chronic sprains, cartilage gone in joints, certain types of chronic bladder problems, certain intestinal chronic health problems, and the list goes on and on about health conditions that can cause or contribute to chronic pain and chronic illnesses. 

I've decided that I am going to "fight" as much as I can online, with petitions, letters and such the ridiculous claims that "everyone" who takes a pain medication is "addicted" or an abuser. Whether it be governmental bodies, the DEA, the FDA, or the President, (HOW CAN any of those people who have NEVER HAD A SEVERE AND CHRONIC PAIN DISEASE POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND OR KNOW ALL OF WHAT WE GO THROUGH IN A SINGLE WEEK?" ALSO, I am SICK OF the health insurance companies "calling" constantly, wanting to "go over" your medications "over the phone" when NOW THEY DON'T EVEN SAY WHO THEY ARE ON CALLER ID! Now rather than saying the name of the company, Caller ID usually say "1-800" number calling... how do I KNOW THEY ARE WHOM THEY SAY THEY ARE? Why do I want to "discuss" something that honestly, is NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS! That is between MYSELF, MY PHYSICIANS, and if I NEED HELP, MY OWN PHARMACISTS? It is insane how many calls I get from so called health insurance, wanting to discuss, "this, that or the other" about my "health".... I HAVE A LIFE TOO, and I don't care to sit on the phone for an hour telling a person I don't know and have no earthly idea who they are about my medications or anything else for that matter!!!!! 


We are WARNED AND WARNED ABOUT NOT GIVING OUT PRIVATE information over the phone to those we don't know.... so this is a prime example of what irritates the hell out of me!



I got a call earlier in the week, from a "guy" who I didn't even "understand" asking for me? He never said where he was from, or whom he worked for, and then when he mentions my medications, I got irritated and told him I was NOT at that time discussing it with him. In the first place, THE MAJORITY OF THE TIME, THOSE PEOPLE EITHER CANNOT SPELL 

MY MEDICATIONS, OR THEY HAVE NO CLUE WHAT THEY ARE FOR! Why should I have to "explain" those things over the phone to anyone????



So, some of you may get sick and tired of my ranting on the subject, but enough is enough!

Nightly News, the CDC and Those that have NO CLUE what "Chronic Pain" and trying to Live is all about!

As I said on my other post, I was so mad at the Nightly News with Lester Holt last night I could have screamed! They only tell a "piece" of the story, NOT the stories of us who would not be able to have a "life" or any quality of life if we were not able to have physicians help us take our pain down to where we can "stand it"... For ONE NO medication "takes all of the pain away".... but it does give us a place where we can "live" with it. It makes it bearable, most days. And for them to sit there and speak like this is something that is just a "surgery" issue etc...without even mentioning how many of us would not be able to take care of our families, work, do anything at our homes, nothing... we would only be able to sit, lay, or try and "live" with severe pain, that is what I call intractable and unbearable! without my great physicians and my medications, and that is not just pain medications, but my RA meds, my heart medications, Lupus medications, and so forth, I would have no life, I would never be able to take care of me, and certainly not be able to somewhat help my Mom... and try and do advocacy work, and write... my life would NOT be life but living hell! I am seriously thinking about writing the Nightly News and telling them how I felt about their "one sided" view of this situation.... and I have to wonder "whom is lining" whose pockets, when it comes to the CDC, Congress and all of these people that have NO CLUE what it is like to have a disease that brings on such an amount of horrid pain daily... they would think differently if it were them or one of their loved ones...

http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2016-03-15/cdc-guidelines-aim-to-curb-painkiller-prescribing

This is what I am speaking of on the Nightly News from Last night March 15th

http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news-netcast/video/nightly-news-full-broadcast-march-15th-645344323672

I sent my email to the Nightly News about this story last night. I hope you also take a moment to respond!