“Some state lawmakers are contemplating enacting laws that permit certain patients with severe substance use disorder to be involuntarily detained for short-term observation and, in some cases, treatment. Such laws raise ethical, legal, medical, and practical questions.” Will Emergency Holds Reduce Opioid Overdose Deaths?
This is getting worse & worse every single day.
Guess who they classify as a risk for OUD? Patients, with painful conditions that need or take opioids correctly. This is dependence NOT addiction. What else causes dependence? Sugar, coffee, alcohol, cigarettes, carbs, phones, anti depressants... anything you take daily your body becomes dependent on. So why are they ignoring this science & classifying patients as addicts instead? What do they get out of it? Money.
Drugs to treat addiction, like Suboxone are much more $$$. Opioids got too cheap. Now, they label anyone with chronic pain with having “opioid use disorder” & forcing expensive meds on them insurance doesn’t cover, or forcing them to suffer. So now pain patients have to risk being involuntarily held if they go to the hospital for something painful & alarming? (Which is going to cost them $$ & make the hospitals & insurance companies more money!)
This won’t stop overdoses, this will make patients like me even MORE afraid to go to the hospital when something is wrong. This will result in more deaths.
People will continue to die by suicide (or fight that feeling daily) or go to the streets for relief instead of risking being treated like a criminal. Even if it is something severe, involuntary hold is traumatic & so most will refuse to go to hospitals all together (Many of us have medical PTSD already).
It’s a waste of money to be shamed & treated like we are the scum of the earth, liars, hypochondriacs, addicts. All for having multiple painful conditions completely out of our control. The pain & illness is enough to deal with. This fear, lack of compassion in health care on top of it all... is horrifying.
Untreated pain changes the brain & central nervous system. It causes more pain.
“Chronic pain often outlives its original causes, worsens over time, and takes on a puzzling life of its own … there is increasing evidence that over time, untreated pain eventually rewrites the central nervous system, causing pathological changes to the brain and spinal cord, and that these in turn cause greater pain. Even more disturbingly, recent evidence suggests that prolonged pain actually damages parts of the brain, including those involved in cognition.
Central sensitization is bad news, but worse still is how few health care professionals are aware of the neurology and make things worse with careless or even deliberately rough, no-pain-no-gain treatment. It’s bad enough that ignorance of central sensitization leads to wild goose chases and patients riding a merry-go-round of expensive and ineffective therapies, but many kinds of therapy are also quite painful — and can make the problem worse. With tragic irony, the most likely victims are also the most vulnerable and desperate patients, patients going through the therapy grinder, their hopes leading them right into the hands of the most intense therapists.” Sensitization in Chronic Pain
They’re torturing legitimate patients because of the exception. Because of those that become addicted. Do we stop selling alcohol to everyone because some abuse it & even kill because of it? No, right? Because that’s not how it works. Addiction has been proven to be genetic. They would have become addicted to something else but even so. Should many suffer because of the few?
Maybe we should concentrate on what’s going on in the streets, better mental health services & take a good look at our society & government that’s causing such depression & helplessness causing people to need to escape our current reality turning to drugs including heroin. Not demonize actual patients that are suffering.
“In April, the Food and Drug Administration released a warning admitting that rapid opioid cessation had led to and can cause “uncontrolled pain, psychological distress, and suicide,” telling doctors to stop doing it.
“And some insurers are now actually paying doctors not to prescribe opioids: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan increases the amount it will pay for specific surgeries by 35 percent if surgeons only prescribe a minimal amount of opioids afterwards. This could yield thousands of dollars per procedure for the doctors performing them. For example, with a complex gastric sleeve surgery for obesity, which can pay as much as $49,900 to the doctor, the additional payment would be as high as $17,465. This obviously provides an enormous incentive for doctors to skimp on medication, regardless of the amount of pain their patient reports.”
“It’s a bad time to be a pain patient in our history of medicine,” he said, explaining that the backlash against opioids has ignored the fact that “science hasn’t given us any other medicines that are truly effective for severe levels of pain.”
“The Quest survey also found that 72 percent of doctors “worry that chronic pain patients will turn to illicit drugs” and that while the crackdown might reduce prescription opioid deaths, “the trade-off is a greater number of patients whose pain is not properly managed.”
Doctors Are Still Denying People Pain Meds and the Results are Deadly
Did you read that right?! Surgeons are getting bonuses to *not* prescribe pain medication! So it’s not about individual need or treatment at all. It’s about money. All about money.
If overdose & addiction we’re their worry, like I have said many times before...why is alcohol legal & abundant? Thankfully the media is finally writing about what we pain patients have been screaming about for years. Unfortunately it isn’t enough. If the CDC, FDA come out saying they were wrong & things STILL aren’t changing because the DEA is also involved as well as insurance companies now offering bonuses for less pain medication prescriptions, anyone with severe pain is in for a life of torture. A life housebound. The couch or the bed. Hardly being able to shower, being abandoned by nearly everyone because they’re sick of you’re “negativity” (which being honest about struggling is not negativity, being open about struggles is healthy & I have every right to talk about what affects my life every single day just like you have the right to talk about what affects you every single day. Your kids? Your job? You don’t want to hear about my illnesses but they are my job. Not a job I get paid for, it isn’t something I get to experience that comes with serious positive benefits (like having children & experiencing their highest most purest form of love). The least a true friend can do is listen to what affects me daily.
Ableism is an entirely other topic however, so many who think they couldn’t possibly be ableist have been towards me. Given their career choices it has surprised me quite a bit. A BIG issue I have is there are a couple people, anytime I see them, if I tell them of a new interest “you should do that for a job! Why don’t you do this?” I don’t understand why people can’t accept I cannot work. This doesn’t come when I am talking about finances, either. It’s usually when I am trying to share something that I
been enjoying (trying not to talk about my illnesses they despise hearing about so much), or when first meeting people & the ever dreadful “what do you do for work?” question. Can we stop this? Unless, someone wants to tell you what they do for a living, ask other questions! For example:
“What do your days look like?”
“What are some of your passions?”
“What would an ideal day be for you?”
“What helps you cope with difficult days?”
“How do you enjoy your spending time?”
“What are some of your favorite things to do?”
“Any new books or tv shows you’ve read lately?”
“Listen to any new music lately?”
So many conversation starters without having to revolve around what someone does for their job. Without bringing social status or money into the conversation but by getting to know the person, not their job.
This capitalist society has broken people. It’s made people think those who can’t work have no worth. It’s taken me YEARS to come to grips with this & to realize I have just as much worth as anyone else... but society hasn’t. It’s is ableist to every time you see a disabled person, to try to think of ways they can work, even though they have told you they can’t. It is crossing a boundary. It’s insinuating I am collecting disability just because I haven’t found the right job. Dismissing all the pain & health concerns I talk about that no one wants to hear. Before giving up I tried so many different jobs, different hours & yes working from home a few times...but my body couldn’t handle it. My flares are too unpredictable. So please, if your friend doesn’t ask for ideas, especially if they’re disabled & out of work, don’t keep suggesting what they should do. It comes off as you don’t accept us as we are. Don’t exclude us from gatherings because we have had to cancel too many times from health problems. That’s ableism. Don’t dismiss my experiences, feelings & emotions because they make you uncomfortable, ask yourself, why do my struggles make you so uncomfortable in the first place?
Even if you work in the medical community, with special needs....yes, you can still be ableist. The disabled can be ableist! I just won’t stand for it anymore, nor will I continue to be around people that “tolerate me” & talk trash behind my back. I need to trust my instincts a bit more. They’re always right but I end up giving people the benefit of the doubt or cough it up to my own anxiety/ptsd... it’s time to just start listening to them because things have recently become really clear this past year & listening to my instincts would save me a lot of time & energy. When I am more comfortable & accepted around someone I’ve only talked to a few months than I am people I have known over a decade, that’s saying a lot. I am done forcing superficial (and frankly hurtful) friendships. Experience has only sharpened my instincts so I think it’s time I finally trust myself. 💗
I know what it’s like now to have people who truly care for me & treat me with the respect I deserve. They don’t punish me for struggling, they check in, include me, send me cards, even care packages sometimes. This is how friends should treat their chronically ill friends.
This is getting worse & worse every single day.
Guess who they classify as a risk for OUD? Patients, with painful conditions that need or take opioids correctly. This is dependence NOT addiction. What else causes dependence? Sugar, coffee, alcohol, cigarettes, carbs, phones, anti depressants... anything you take daily your body becomes dependent on. So why are they ignoring this science & classifying patients as addicts instead? What do they get out of it? Money.
Drugs to treat addiction, like Suboxone are much more $$$. Opioids got too cheap. Now, they label anyone with chronic pain with having “opioid use disorder” & forcing expensive meds on them insurance doesn’t cover, or forcing them to suffer. So now pain patients have to risk being involuntarily held if they go to the hospital for something painful & alarming? (Which is going to cost them $$ & make the hospitals & insurance companies more money!)
This won’t stop overdoses, this will make patients like me even MORE afraid to go to the hospital when something is wrong. This will result in more deaths.
People will continue to die by suicide (or fight that feeling daily) or go to the streets for relief instead of risking being treated like a criminal. Even if it is something severe, involuntary hold is traumatic & so most will refuse to go to hospitals all together (Many of us have medical PTSD already).
It’s a waste of money to be shamed & treated like we are the scum of the earth, liars, hypochondriacs, addicts. All for having multiple painful conditions completely out of our control. The pain & illness is enough to deal with. This fear, lack of compassion in health care on top of it all... is horrifying.
Untreated pain changes the brain & central nervous system. It causes more pain.
“Chronic pain often outlives its original causes, worsens over time, and takes on a puzzling life of its own … there is increasing evidence that over time, untreated pain eventually rewrites the central nervous system, causing pathological changes to the brain and spinal cord, and that these in turn cause greater pain. Even more disturbingly, recent evidence suggests that prolonged pain actually damages parts of the brain, including those involved in cognition.
Central sensitization is bad news, but worse still is how few health care professionals are aware of the neurology and make things worse with careless or even deliberately rough, no-pain-no-gain treatment. It’s bad enough that ignorance of central sensitization leads to wild goose chases and patients riding a merry-go-round of expensive and ineffective therapies, but many kinds of therapy are also quite painful — and can make the problem worse. With tragic irony, the most likely victims are also the most vulnerable and desperate patients, patients going through the therapy grinder, their hopes leading them right into the hands of the most intense therapists.” Sensitization in Chronic Pain
They’re torturing legitimate patients because of the exception. Because of those that become addicted. Do we stop selling alcohol to everyone because some abuse it & even kill because of it? No, right? Because that’s not how it works. Addiction has been proven to be genetic. They would have become addicted to something else but even so. Should many suffer because of the few?
Maybe we should concentrate on what’s going on in the streets, better mental health services & take a good look at our society & government that’s causing such depression & helplessness causing people to need to escape our current reality turning to drugs including heroin. Not demonize actual patients that are suffering.
“In April, the Food and Drug Administration released a warning admitting that rapid opioid cessation had led to and can cause “uncontrolled pain, psychological distress, and suicide,” telling doctors to stop doing it.
“And some insurers are now actually paying doctors not to prescribe opioids: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan increases the amount it will pay for specific surgeries by 35 percent if surgeons only prescribe a minimal amount of opioids afterwards. This could yield thousands of dollars per procedure for the doctors performing them. For example, with a complex gastric sleeve surgery for obesity, which can pay as much as $49,900 to the doctor, the additional payment would be as high as $17,465. This obviously provides an enormous incentive for doctors to skimp on medication, regardless of the amount of pain their patient reports.”
“It’s a bad time to be a pain patient in our history of medicine,” he said, explaining that the backlash against opioids has ignored the fact that “science hasn’t given us any other medicines that are truly effective for severe levels of pain.”
“The Quest survey also found that 72 percent of doctors “worry that chronic pain patients will turn to illicit drugs” and that while the crackdown might reduce prescription opioid deaths, “the trade-off is a greater number of patients whose pain is not properly managed.”
Doctors Are Still Denying People Pain Meds and the Results are Deadly
Did you read that right?! Surgeons are getting bonuses to *not* prescribe pain medication! So it’s not about individual need or treatment at all. It’s about money. All about money.
If overdose & addiction we’re their worry, like I have said many times before...why is alcohol legal & abundant? Thankfully the media is finally writing about what we pain patients have been screaming about for years. Unfortunately it isn’t enough. If the CDC, FDA come out saying they were wrong & things STILL aren’t changing because the DEA is also involved as well as insurance companies now offering bonuses for less pain medication prescriptions, anyone with severe pain is in for a life of torture. A life housebound. The couch or the bed. Hardly being able to shower, being abandoned by nearly everyone because they’re sick of you’re “negativity” (which being honest about struggling is not negativity, being open about struggles is healthy & I have every right to talk about what affects my life every single day just like you have the right to talk about what affects you every single day. Your kids? Your job? You don’t want to hear about my illnesses but they are my job. Not a job I get paid for, it isn’t something I get to experience that comes with serious positive benefits (like having children & experiencing their highest most purest form of love). The least a true friend can do is listen to what affects me daily.
Ableism is an entirely other topic however, so many who think they couldn’t possibly be ableist have been towards me. Given their career choices it has surprised me quite a bit. A BIG issue I have is there are a couple people, anytime I see them, if I tell them of a new interest “you should do that for a job! Why don’t you do this?” I don’t understand why people can’t accept I cannot work. This doesn’t come when I am talking about finances, either. It’s usually when I am trying to share something that I
been enjoying (trying not to talk about my illnesses they despise hearing about so much), or when first meeting people & the ever dreadful “what do you do for work?” question. Can we stop this? Unless, someone wants to tell you what they do for a living, ask other questions! For example:
“What do your days look like?”
“What are some of your passions?”
“What would an ideal day be for you?”
“What helps you cope with difficult days?”
“How do you enjoy your spending time?”
“What are some of your favorite things to do?”
“Any new books or tv shows you’ve read lately?”
“Listen to any new music lately?”
So many conversation starters without having to revolve around what someone does for their job. Without bringing social status or money into the conversation but by getting to know the person, not their job.
This capitalist society has broken people. It’s made people think those who can’t work have no worth. It’s taken me YEARS to come to grips with this & to realize I have just as much worth as anyone else... but society hasn’t. It’s is ableist to every time you see a disabled person, to try to think of ways they can work, even though they have told you they can’t. It is crossing a boundary. It’s insinuating I am collecting disability just because I haven’t found the right job. Dismissing all the pain & health concerns I talk about that no one wants to hear. Before giving up I tried so many different jobs, different hours & yes working from home a few times...but my body couldn’t handle it. My flares are too unpredictable. So please, if your friend doesn’t ask for ideas, especially if they’re disabled & out of work, don’t keep suggesting what they should do. It comes off as you don’t accept us as we are. Don’t exclude us from gatherings because we have had to cancel too many times from health problems. That’s ableism. Don’t dismiss my experiences, feelings & emotions because they make you uncomfortable, ask yourself, why do my struggles make you so uncomfortable in the first place?
Even if you work in the medical community, with special needs....yes, you can still be ableist. The disabled can be ableist! I just won’t stand for it anymore, nor will I continue to be around people that “tolerate me” & talk trash behind my back. I need to trust my instincts a bit more. They’re always right but I end up giving people the benefit of the doubt or cough it up to my own anxiety/ptsd... it’s time to just start listening to them because things have recently become really clear this past year & listening to my instincts would save me a lot of time & energy. When I am more comfortable & accepted around someone I’ve only talked to a few months than I am people I have known over a decade, that’s saying a lot. I am done forcing superficial (and frankly hurtful) friendships. Experience has only sharpened my instincts so I think it’s time I finally trust myself. 💗
I know what it’s like now to have people who truly care for me & treat me with the respect I deserve. They don’t punish me for struggling, they check in, include me, send me cards, even care packages sometimes. This is how friends should treat their chronically ill friends.
