The link below will take you to the docket and to where you can comment. As of this morning there are 500 comments, and we need more like 5,000 or 50,000!!! I know there are MANY, MANY MORE out there that have not commented yet on this vital and important subject. PLEASE take a few minutes and go to put your comments in.
I know we are busy with the holidays, but this could truly effect the rest of our lives and holidays in the future!
I saw many "names" I recognized, and also you can be "anonymous" if you prefer. Whatever you do, get your comments in no later than January 13th, which is not far away.
By the
way, the link works, not sure why this "sign" comes up as far as the
link:
http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=CDC-2015-0112-0001
Here is my comment and gosh I could have written 4 times this much!
Here is my "comment":
"First of all I want to Thank the CDC
for allowing "us" as patients, along with physicians, caretakers, and
those who see what chronic daily pain does to people's lives. Even in my
20's, and 30's, due to severe migraines, although trying to work, raise
two children, go to college at night, and do everything in life that
needed to be done, I found myself in the emergency room once, twice,
even three times a month. I missed days of work, that led even after
being employed for 6 years or more, to me either resigning due to the
severity of pain, nausea, and all that went along with migraines, other
than being fired. As time went on, in my mid 30's my joints literally
began to fall apart. I had knee pain, neck pain,shoulder pain, elbows,
hips, and went through surgeries trying to rid my body of pain, so I
could have "a life". Back then women stood as being "stressed, having
hormone problems, have anxiety" when we went in complaining of "pain". I
went through every type of treatment, from injections into the back of
my occipital nerves, to chiropracter's, to every type of a specialist,
even being hospitalized with special treatments, yet nothing helped. My
Internal Doctor would give me "some" pain medication at times, but never
really enough to help me with the severe pain. By the time I was 35
multiple joints had been through surgery, I had a hysterectomy, and I
knew even back then "they" the medical professionals were "missing"
something. I ate properly, I exercised daily, I kept my weight down, I
"appeared" healthy, but the pain continued. At 40 years old, I had my
1st heart attack. Out of the blue, no "symptoms", just on the 8th day of
January 2001, I took myself to the ER, a drive of 20 plus miles to the
ER, and I was having a heart attack. I was told that if I did not get
away from the "abuse" at the time that I had been enduring, either the
"ex" would kill me, one way or the other. So, I left my home & moved
to Seattle WA. I spent 6 years there, "getting well". In 2003, I began
to have severe pain everywhere. I was seeing a pain doctor, who was
giving me a very tiny dose of pain medication, again but not anything
that was enough to help me to try and "live" with a quality of life. I
was so ill, I had no choice but to resign my job, and file for my
complete disability. I could no longer work, any type of job I was
trained for, under as much pain as I was in. I had been told by a PCP at
the time, he felt I had some autoimmune problems, & should see a
Rheumatologist. With no insurance, no salary, it took also almost 3
years and 2 appeals to get my complete disability, when I did go in
front of a disability judge. By this time, I lost my Dad, & was my
Mom's only child, & had to move back to TX. After many surgeries,
knee replacements, shoulder replacement, elbow surgeries, back and neck
pain, my PCP did some extensive blood work and I had Lupus, RA,
Sjogren's and Raynaud's. Which all explained the deterioration of my
joints, connective tissues, my spine "giving way" (I also have
osteoporosis in the most severe of forms), yet still I fought to find a
pain specialist, someone who could take care of the pain problems, that
had plagued my life for 40 years, and that meant medications. We "fixed"
what could be fixed, but some things are just going to cause chronic
daily pain, and the only way for me to have any quality of life, is the
medications, that are of course opioid in nature, narcotics. They are
the only things that "helps" me to get the "edge" off the pain, so I can
have somewhat of a normal and decent quality of life. I have never had a
"high" off of them, not even wanted one. All I want it to try and have
enough pain control, that I can try and enjoy what time I have left,
after 55 years of living with so much severe pain. And no they cannot
"fix" or completely rid anyone of all pain. But, they can give enough
relief so you can deal with what pain is there for the most part. It
infuriates me to be "lumped" into those who "choose to abuse". The
people that either steal medications, or "quacks" that cause us as
legitimate pain patients, to feel like we are "addicts", which we are
NOT! If I could throw away all medications now, and not have pain, I
would be happy to. Even after all I have endured, I came down with
abscesses from my "Rheumatoid Arthritis" medications, so those had to be
stopped. I need two new surgeries, due to degenerative disease in my
cervical and lumbar spine again. My story and journey through this is so
long, that I am writing a 3rd book about my own nightmare of pain, of
not be treated when I should be, not getting the medications I needed,
and the horrible time I see so many others having, all of their stories
much like mine. I am an Ambassador for the Arthritis Foundation, an
advocate, doing activist work, all for autoimmune, chronic pain, heart
disease, trying to get new medications, new treatments, a way to change
the "Faces of Pain" forever. We can and need to move mountains. "
