Chill Over Pain Management Deepens as Leading Specialist is Sent

[mongo]

Feature: Chill Over Pain Management Deepens as Leading Specialist is Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison 4/15/2005
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/382/hurwitz.shtml

The most closely watched in a growing procession of prosecutions of doctors involved in aggressive pain management with opioids came to an end in a suburban Washington, DC, federal courthouse Thursday as presiding federal circuit court Judge Leonard Wexler sentenced Northern Virginia pain specialist Dr. William Hurwitz to 25 years in prison as a drug dealer for his prescribing habits. The sentence was more than the 20-year mandatory minimum sentence, but less than the life sentence sought by prosecutors. At Thursday's hearing, Judge Wexler said that Hurwitz deserved more than the minimum sentence because he continued to flout the law even though he had opportunities to "reform" his behavior. Hurwitz, who appeared in court in his jail uniform, will be transferred to federal prison pending the outcome of his appeal.

A pioneer in using large doses of opioids in pain management, Hurwitz closed his practice in 2002 after it became apparent he was a target of federal investigators. He was found guilty of multiple drug trafficking convictions in a contentious and controversial November trial that not only spotlighted his prescribing practices, but also highlighted the growing confrontation between the US Justice Department and doctors and pain patient advocates over the aggressive use of opioids in pain management. Prosecutors accused Dr. Hurwitz of improperly prescribing large amounts of opioids, mainly Oxycontin, to some two dozen of his more than 5,000 patients. Many of those patients, facing federal charges themselves, testified against Dr. Hurwitz, presumably as part of plea bargains to save themselves prison time. Other patients testified fervently that Dr. Hurwitz was a life-saver, not a drug dealer.

Also key in building the case against Dr. Hurwitz was the testimony of Dr. Michael Ashburn, who told jurors Hurwitz prescribed in quantities far beyond accepted medical practice. That testimony has since been harshly challenged by experts in pain management, including six past presidents of the American Pain Society, who, in a January letter to Judge Wexler, pronounced themselves "stunned" at the "errors" in Ashburn's testimony. The letter was not shown to the jurors. It is not known whether Judge Wexler responded to the doctors.

In a hearing described by some witnesses as highly emotional and by one as a theater of the grotesque, the aggrieved family members of Dr. Hurwitz' patients who died called for a lengthy sentence, while other patients and Hurwitz family members pled for leniency. "People on both sides spoke from the heart in a very passionate, powerful way," said Eric Sterling, executive director of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, who attended the hearing. "In the case of family members, they spoke of the irreplaceable loss of loved ones; in the case of the defendant, they spoke of the caring, compassionate qualities of the defendant."

more http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/382/hurwitz.shtml

[Demit]

1. why are you a proud purveyor of smut? (your sig line)

[mongo]

10. My wife and I own and operate

Private Desires Lingerie and Erotic Boutique in Zanesville Oh.

We sell lingerie, hosiery, adult toys and novelties, lubes lotions and oils, and of course adult movies and magazines.

[davidinalameda]

36. Zanesville?

I grew up south of Wheeling

do you give DU discounts?

[mongo]

73. you bet

10% off. If I'm not here just tell Chuck you know mongo online and he said so.`

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

102. what's Mongo short for? did you just leave off the "loid"? har har har

And wasn't there a "Mongo" in "Blazzing Saddles"?

P.S. I don't care what you do for a living.

to each his own

[Jim Sagle]

99. I'm shocked and revolted!

:9

[Warpy]

2. Come the revolution, the DEA has got to be the first against the wall.

Having failed at stopping the really harmful and illegal drugs, even with the maximum heavy handed intervention in other sovereign nations and the international resentment it's inspired, they've turned to doctors who treat chronic pain patients.

Way to go, Einsteins.

Chronic pain KILLS. People in chronic pain socially isolate themselves because any social interaction on top of the constant drumbeat of pain is incredibly uncomfortable. People in chronic pain are depressed, often to the point of paralysis.

Then they kill themselves, solving the DEA's problem. No patient, no pain, no more drug "problem."

Chronic pain patients do not get high. In fact, there is often a paradoxical reaction as decreased pain energizes these folks. There is no upper limit on opiate dose, and cases of true addiction (differentiated from dependency by cravings and addictive behavior) are extremely rare. Opiates are the safest drugs for long term pain control and lack the severe side effects of long term NSAID use.

I would wish my disease on all DEA agents involved in targeting doctors. Note that I don't wish my disease on the present administration. I do wish it on these guys, though. This is unconscionable.

[Mistress Quickly]

4. Here's a hug for you

I know your predicament to an extent.

Its a gentle hug too.

:hug:

[pie]

7. As a fellow sufferer from chronic pain I understand and agree

Physicians should line up in support of this guy.
After all, they took an oath to relieve suffering.

[Selteri]

12. Agreed, the DEA doesn't care about people, they care about

making sure people don't use anything that they don't approve of.

When I informed my new doctor I live in pain every day he asked, "What do you take?"

I replied, "Nothing."

He asked, "Why?" while looking completely flabberghasted.

My reply was simple, "Because I can't operate on the drugs in coses large enough to maange the pain."

I didn't answer part of it though, that even a bowl of marijuana a day leaves me in enough control of my pain that I don't NEED those drugs.

[Cornczech]

103. very good to see

another person taking control of their own pain. I too smoke marijuana for pain management (and chronic severe insomnia). I was under the care of a pain management "team" in Utah about 10 years ago...almost killed myself on the pain meds...because I had to take so much to be able to deal with the pain....almost lost my damn job over it too. I took nothing for a while...but the depression was intolerable (like mentioned, I socially isolated myself....my life revolved around pain cycles...)

I work in medicine and have had more than one patient tell me about their daily use of the herb to relieve pain....and these are people in their 30's to 60's....normal everyday people trying to take control of their health.

back to the thread.....sad, sad day in America, what happened to this obviously compassionate man who took his oath seriously.

Peace, Ya'll

[Redstone]

23. Those cocksucking, motherfucking sons of bitches.

Please excuse my language. Those of us with RSDS( http://www.rsdhope.org/ShowPage.asp?PAGE_ID=3 ) tend to get a little bit worked up about this stuff.

I guess I'll just go have a fucking drink or seventeen, since these bastards won't let me get any decent treatment.

Put 'em against the wall, and I'll do the dirty work, and without the slightest compunction or hesitation.

Redstone

[ninkasi]

51. I'll have a few with you

RSDS is also what I suffer from. I hope you can find something to help you. My best wishes to you, and thoughts and prayers. It's hell, isn't it?

[Redstone]

61. Why thank you, my new friend.

We Pain People must stick together and help each other whenever we can.

Yes, hell is what it is. If I didn't have a family, I'd have been off the bridge years ago. Fortunately, I do have a wonderful wife and two good kids, and that's what keeps me away from the railing.

Hope you have that kind of good counterbalance to the pain as well.

You need to talk, PM me any time.

Thanks again,

Redstone

[ninkasi]

66. And I thank you, Redstone...

I do have a wonderful, supportive family. Without them, I wouldn't be here. I truly hope that everybody who suffers receives the same kind of support from their loved ones.

And by the way...you can always PM me, too, any time you need to. I check in on this board just about every day, but it's just from time to time. Hang in there. These insane attitudes about being an addict are absurd.

The ones who I feel for the most are the ones who are dying of an agonizing condition, such as cancer, who can't receive adequate pain relief because some idiots are afraid they'll become addicted in the last days of their lives. It takes someone completely devoid of human decency and compassion to have an attitude like that.

[Redstone]

71. Yes, they're the ones to feel bad for.

At least we RSDS folks and other Pain People know that what we have won't actually kill us in and of itself (though sometimes we do break down and kind of wish it would).

The terminal patients deserve better. Thanks God for hospices and the saints who work there, many of whom are willing to mix up Brompton's cocktails when needed, despite the risk to their careers.

Terminal patients should get the best painkiller known to man, which is heroin, and all they want. They're dying, for Christ's sake, what difference does it make if they're addicted to heroin for two months?

Now I'm getting wound up and that makes the pain spike. I'll talk with you later. Yell if you need anything; I'll be here.

Redstone

[ninkasi]

50. Chronic pain sufferer here, too

Warpy, I understand what it's like. One of my constant fears is that the pain management doctor who treats me will fall victim to the same absolutely insane policies.

If that judge had lived a year of our lives, he would be thanking the doctor. When you suffer chronic pain, you can't make any advance plans, because you never know when you go to bed at night...assuming, of course, that the pain lets you sleep any...whether the next day will be a "good" day, meaning that you can tolerate it, or a bad day, where you wonder how much longer you can go on facing life in agony.

Ask our families, who have sometimes had to listen to us beg them to understand the reason if we decide, at some time, that we would rather end our lives than endure the pain, and see our families and friends worry about us.

Let them see what it's like to have to give up, one by one, activities that we used to enjoy, that had value and meaning to us. Let them see how helpless we can feel, when we have to depend on others for things we used to do easily.

These people are cold hearted, cold blooded monsters, to take away so many people's hope, and chance to have some semblance of a normal life. This country's values are screwed up beyond belief.

[knitter4democracy]

88. Amen!

Honestly, my pain level is pretty bad. I try to hide it mostly and just get through the day. I'm a SAHM, so what else can I do? It's not like there's another adult around to watch the kids and make sure they don't kill themselves or one another.

Anyone who thinks that we need to so strictly regulate pain med obviously doesn't live with pain. I'd like to see them live with it every freakin' day, day in, day out, without any real pain management options.

My hubby is one of those doctors who believes in helping relieve suffering and prescribes a good bit of painkillers. He's constantly nervous and tries to make sure that he's within medical boundaries on amounts and stuff. Those feds are horrible! My husband shouldn't be worried about taking care of his patients, and neither should any doctor.

[Gelliebeans]

83. I wish it on them also

They are just targeting people because of the failed war on drugs.

I wish for one moment these assholes had to live in constant pain and then we could take away the drugs that help them cope with the day to day.

I can't take NSAIDS myself because of an intestinal disease. My only help comes with pain medication. Which means the difference between getting up or not getting out of bed at all.

Why is it so hard for people to empathize---sorry for my rant.:rant:

hugs to you warpy :hug:

[Mistress Quickly]

3. This just makes me ill

As someone who has dealt with lifestopping pain before, I had to cry at the doctor's nurse to get them to give me pain medicine. After 3 days of crying at night and no sleep. Oh, but they happily gave me the new stuff, Bextra, Vioxx and another one. You know, the ones that can KILL YOU!

The war on drugs has morphed into a war on doctor/patient privacy.

I have a friend who broke her back 8 years ago. She's got pins, plates, etc in her back (it feels creepy to the touch). She has a script for 160 hydrocodones a month. You know what? She takes it exactly as prescribed, every 4-6 hours. You know what else, she is practically paralyzed without it. With it, she can participate in life, and be the mom her daughter needs, a single mom at that. Without it, she can't get out of bed or off the couch or even stand up straight.

This crap pisses me off, holier than thou need to butt out.

Know what else? Marijuana should be prescribed for PMS. So there!!

[rodeodance]

8. "conviction should stand even if he wrote the prescriptions in good faith"

This is horrible!



......Some advocates accused the federal government of bringing phony cases and using deceptive methods to prosecute them. "In the Hurwitz case, and in all the other trials I have observed, the government has never produced evidence that the accused doctor intended to divert drugs outside his professional practice or to profit from any such diversion," said Reynolds. "In the Hurwitz case, government lawyers have said that his conviction should stand even if he wrote the prescriptions in good faith. No wonder doctors all over America are putting down their pens."

"Throughout the US, physicians are being threatened, impoverished, de-licensed and imprisoned for prescribing in good faith with the intention of relieving pain," said Dr. Jane Orient of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. "Law enforcement agents are using deceitful tactics to snare doctors, and prosecutors manipulate the legal system to frighten doctors who might be willing to testify on behalf of the wrongly accused doctors."

"We have a real legitimate worry that there is going to be greater reluctance to prescribe pain medication and as a consequence more under-treatment of chronic pain," Dr. Russell Portenoy, chairman of the pain medicine department at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, told the Times......

[frustrated_lefty]

5. Disgusting.

Oh, let's save Schiavo, but screw this bastard for caring for those in chronic pain.

[Mandate My Ass]

6. Any lawyers around here?

Wouldn't this be grounds for appeal? Suppressing exculpatory evidence?

six past presidents of the American Pain Society, who, in a January letter to Judge Wexler, pronounced themselves "stunned" at the "errors" in Ashburn's testimony. The letter was not shown to the jurors. It is not known whether Judge Wexler responded to the doctors.


And then there's this little tidbit:

Defense attorneys moved in vain to have Judge Wexler exercise "safety valve" rules that would have allowed him to reduce Hurwitz' sentence, but Wexler, who was the real star of the hearing, did add five years to the 20-year minimum based on an audio tape he claimed to have listened to that was never entered into evidence. And with a scolding of Hurwitz by Wexler for having squandered opportunities, the hearing was over and Hurwitz was hustled back to jail.
:wtf:

[rodeodance]

16. the pain FAQ vanished, pulled from the DEA's web site without explanation

this is the letter mentioned in the first post:

Newsbrief: DEA Pain FAQ Retract Flap Fallout Continues -- Criticism Comes from Unexpected Direction as Agency Seeks Comments

2/4/05
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/373/faqfallout.shtml

Controversy over the Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) mysterious vanishing guidance to physicians and law enforcers about what constituted permissible opioid prescribing practices for the treatment of pain -- the pain FAQ -- continues, this time with criticism of the agency coming from a most unexpected quarter: the nation's state attorneys general.

After years of consultations with academic pain specialists over the increasingly contentious issue of proper pain management with opioids versus the DEA's concerns about prescription drug abuse and diversion, the agency last summer posted the pain FAQ. While criticized by some pain patients' advocates and physicians with experience with unfounded prosecutions, the pain FAQ at a minimum represented an acknowledgment by the drug-fighting agency that prescribing even large amounts of opioids for pain management falls within the scope of legitimate medical practice.

But weeks later, the pain FAQ vanished, pulled from the DEA's web site without explanation. The agency also requested, without forewarning or explanation, that academic medical organizations that had participated in creation of the pain FAQ also pull down their copies of the Guidelines. Only after a rising storm of criticism from pain treatment advocates and the offended academics alike did the agency deign to explain that it felt the pain FAQ positions were too constraining on the government's power to investigate and prosecute physicians.

Now, the embattled agency has formally requested comments on the question of the proper prescribing of opioid pain medications. Leading pain physicians were quick to respond to news of the request, as would be expected, but so was the National Association of Attorneys General, representing the top law enforcement officers in each state. They were not pleased with the agency......

[Mandate My Ass]

20. It's so sinister

Wasn't there another doctor sentenced very harshly for growing medical marijuana? I think the judge prevented the jury from hearing that it was grown for medical purposes only.

[mongo]

28. I think you're talking about Ed Rosenthal

Rosenthal Sentenced for Medical Pot

by Liz Highleyman
February 6th, 2003
On January 31 a federal jury found Ed Rosenthal guilty on three counts of marijuana cultivation. The well-known author and cannabis expert faces an mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison. Yet in an unusual move, a majority of jurors in the case have said they made a mistake and have called for a retrial.

Rosenthal was arrested in February 2002 as part of a Drug Enforcement Agency crackdown that included a raid on San Francisco's Sixth Street Harm Reduction Center. He admitted to growing cannabis starter plants, or clones, in an Oakland warehouse under the provisions of California's 1996 Compassionate Use Act, or Proposition 215. Rosenthal, who was deputized in 1998 as officer of the city of Oakland, provided the plants to local medical cannabis dispensaries. Oakland's medical marijauna law was written to give federal immunity to those carrying out the ordinance's provisions.

District Court judge Charles Breyer did not allow Rosenthal to use the California law as a defense against the federal indictment. Lacking this defense, Rosenthal declined to testify on his own behalf. As the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in May 2001, federal law does not permit the cultivation or distribution of cannabis for any purpose.

Prospective jurors in the case were rigorously questioned and only those who did not express support for medical marijuana were selected. The jurors were not informed that Rosenthal acted in accordance with state law and the Oakland ordinance, and Breyer took pains to prevent mention of the medical aspects of the case during the hearings -- although he denied a prosecution request to impose a gag order on Rosenthal and his supporters. Before their deliberations the judge instructed the jurors, "You cannot substitute your sense of justice for your duty to follow the law. The issue is not what's just, but what's the law."

http://www.safeaccessnow.org/article.php?id=516

I get real worked up when I hear some conservative talking about state's rights over gay marriage (wich should be a protected civil right via the US constitution), but they have no problem with the DEA busting medical marijuanna providers, acting in accordance with local and state law - when it is a blatent violation of State's rights.

[AngryAmish]

52. Letter is not grounds for appeal

In general, for evidence to be entered you need a live body there testifying. This letter is classic hearsay - an out of court statement offered for the truth of the matter asserted: ie the 6 docs were not there, under oath and subject to cross-examination and their allegations of impropriety is what they are asserting.

If the gov't's doc was so out of line they should have voir dired him pursuant to Daubert, ie junk science test. Guess they did not.

[leesa]

9. Very sad. As a nurse in Oncology for a quarter century, I'm all for

using narcotics liberally. It is malpractice NOT too. Hospitals are being cited for inadeqaute pain management all the time, yet they send this good soul to prison for doing his job.

[Mandate My Ass]

13. they're turning back the clock again

This is like the contraceptive moralizing thing that's going on right now in this country. We've come light years in the last few decades with regard to pain and pain management. It's the the same fundie wackos who wanted to keep Terri Schiavo alive in a vegetative state and who'll blackmail patients into testifying against the doctors that treated them humanely. It's so sad.

[Bo]

106. Back to the inquisition we go

[rodeodance]

17. i agree (as a nurse who used to work in homecare/hospice)

[hyphenate]

59. My dad suffered horribly

in his final days as a lung cancer patient. He begged for pain killers and they were giving him a placebo!!!! My mother wanted to sue the bastards, but she never did. I would have thought 21 years after the fact that hospitals showed more mercy, but evidently not.

[AzDar]

78. So sorry about your Dad...My Pops died in 1994 from lung cancer...

when he was in hospice (toward the end) he was in so much pain, my boyfriend would drive to South Phoenix (our local 'wrong side of the tracks')to procure marijuana for him. He was studying for his pilot's
license at the time, and I was sooooo afraid he would be caught and his entire future would be jeopardized; luckily he wasn't, and my Dad not only finally had some relief from the pain, but actually had an APPETITE when he smoked it.It was amazing.Pops finally passed away in August 1994 after a long fight, and my heroic 'boyfriend' and I will celebrate 10 years of marriage in October.

[PopSixSquish]

87. Your Boyfriend/Husband is a Good Man

I would do just about anything to spare a loved one physical pain, particularly when they are near death.

Congrats on the anniversary.

[AzDar]

95. thank you!

[AnneD]

79. Hello

leesa :hi:
I started out in oncology. We were taught by pain management that what ever amount it took for a patient to do their activities of daily living, no matter the amount, was the right dose. They were always snooping in one Dr's record (due to the sheer number of scripts he wrote, they'd swoop down to audit)..Gee he only runs the pain clinic for MD Anderson Cancer Center. I hope he is dispensing pain meds.
My secret pray, dear Lord, if it is possible to have justice in this life ...Please let those Docs, Nurses, and now Judges, that knowingly allow others to suffer in pain, have to endure the same pain without relief in there lifetime.
This just shows such ignorance. People in pain commit suicide, are short tempered with loved ones, heal slower......

[potone]

86. I entirely agree with you.

In 1996, my mother had a heart attack and subsequently underwent bypass surgery. When she returned home, one week later, her doctor was unwilling to prescribe pain medication for her, for fear that she would become addicted. I told the doctor's nurse that my mother was in her 70's, and had never been addicted in her life, and was in serious pain. It was only because of my strenuous insistence that the doctor prescribed a small number of pills for her. It was because of this that my mother chose to get a new doctor, rightly fearing that if she had another heart attack, her previous doctor would not give her the pain medication she needed. I have no doubt that her doctor's reluctance to do so was because she felt that the government was closely watching doctors' prescriptions of potontially addictive drugs.

My mother died, at the age of 85, on Febr. 1st of leukemia, four days after she was diagnosed with the disease. Her doctor and nurses in the oncology ward couldn't have been better. One nurse lectured my mother after her first night there because my mother, who did not like to trouble anyone, had not asked for morphine although she was in pain. The nurse rightly said that no purpose was served by suffering needlessly.

I cannot help but think of the contrast between the treatment she received in the cardiac ward, where they wanted to send her home just four days after her surgery, despite her age and the fact that she had asthma, with the compassionate care that she received in the oncology ward.

I am sorry to go on at such length, but I feel very strongly that the government should not interfere in medical care unless they have clear evidence of criminal intent. I also want you to know how deeply I respect nurses such as yourself who care for patients dying of cancer. I will never cease to feel grateful to those who cared for my mother in the last days of her life.

[Redstone]

97. Welcome to DU, and thank you

for your thoughtful post.

Redstone

On edit: Few people who do not experience chronic pain can truly understand what it's like. You seem to. You have our gratitude for that.

[AnneD]

108. welcome potone

:hi: I am glad your mom had a peaceful transition and was well cared for.....I always watched out for those that DIDN'T complain. I feared they would suffer needlessly. :hug:
One thing I hope people realize is that this NeoCon GOP is interfering in our personal life more than any Dem government ever dreamed of. I think that is a good hot button for the 06, 08 election. I want their hands out of my Social security, out of my uterus, off my death bed, out of my library, and off my property and house when I am not there.....did I leave anything out...oh yes, you can keep keep your mits off my kid too. I didn't vote for you and my child is not your cannon fodder....

[jayfish]

11. Yet, Oxymoran...

and his stable of prescribers fly free. Chalk me up in the "come the revolution" column. Enough is enough!

Jay

[Trillo]

14. The Bush administration's health-care plan.

1. Ratchet up pharmaceutical costs.
2. Allow pharmacists to dispense subjectively.
3. Jail doctors who prescribe.

Bottom-line projection from the trend of 1-3: even if you can afford to pay cash for health care, good luck finding it!

[meganmonkey]

15. I used to work at a pain specialist clinic and many ARE drug dealers, IMHO

(Preface - there are people who suffer such constant deep pain that they probably need to be hooked on opioids. This is just an anecdote based on my experience and I am NOT making a judgment on the doctor from the article...)

I was an office assistant, hired thru a temp agency. There were 8 doctors in the clinic, and they all prescribed tons and tons of Oxycontin, Vicodin, (as well as Vioxx and all those other NSAIDS being pulled off the market - although not for their addictive qualities). I would read the patients' charts and it seemed like the docs got tired of telling people to exercise so they just kept giving them drugs. And every day there was at least one patient call in for their Vicodin refill early - and the doc would ask how often they do that, and the secretary would say, oh, this is the third time. And the doc would say - well, okay, call it in but make the patient schedule an appt. And the cycle continues. These people were hooked on drugs...it was sad. And scary, we had one patient who was a commercial pilot and we got a call from a pharmacy in Miami who had a prescrition 'from our office' - the pilot had made a fake prescription pad and was getting vicodin scripts filled all over the country! He finally got caught - but he was a PILOT!

Then there are the drug sales reps who would get lunches catered for us - we got 2 or 3 free lunches per week from great restaurants....Aaaah...I could go on and on. Thank goodness I got out of that job!

I had a back injury in 1997 - I am not clueless about this. I have chronic pain from that injury. I know what it is like to not sleep well for weeks at a time. But I finally learned that I can manage it through exercise and stretches, and I have changed ALL my habits as far as how I sit, walk, sleep, etc. But I do just fine, and I keep some muscle relaxers on hand for really bad flare-ups, just so I can sleep (maybe 3 times a year I need them). I am not anti-drug, I am not trying to be judgmental. I just think there is something seriously wrong with the way we deal with pain in this country and this is one aspect of it.

[Warpy]

21. How nice for you

however, my RN trumps your temporary office assistance, and here's why.

You talked about the patients "hooked" on opiates. Well, there is a huge difference between dependency and addiction. Diabetics are dependent on insulin. Severe asthmatics are dependent on steroids. People dependent on opiates are using them to make up for the lack of adequate endorphins and enkephalins in their systems, neurotransmitters that help us cope with things like the pain of putting our entire weight on the sensitive soles of our feet. Pain patients suffer from conditions that have depleted these neurotransmitters to the point that they simply cannot function without pain control.

Addiction is a completely different thing, and can best be summed up by the AA slogan, "One is too many and a thousand isn't enough." People who are dependent on opiates take the drugs when and how they are prescribed, with no cravings and no deviation from the prescription. Peopl who are addicted will keep taking more and more drug, chasing an elusive high, and they will have severe cravings.

Both groups will have physical symptoms if the drugs are withdrawn suddenly. However, pain patients denied a supply of the drug will simply do without it until they're driven to suicide from the pain. Addicts will do anything to get the drug, including using street drugs cut with cement dust and gawd knows what else, just to satisfy the craving.

Clearer yet?

Health foods and exercise don't help everyone, for a variety of reasons. Alternatives to opiates have all proven to have much more severe long term side effects, some of which have proven to be fatal.

Since you disapprove of pain patients and their need for maintenance on long term opiate medication, I suggest you turn down that job in the future. The patients will be grateful.

[meganmonkey]

25. I think you are attributing things to me that I did not say...

Please re-read the end of my post:
"I am not anti-drug, I am not trying to be judgmental. I just think there is something seriously wrong with the way we deal with pain in this country and this is one aspect of it."

You clearly know more than me about addiction and dependency, although I am not completely ignorant on the topic.

Peace.

[Terran]

49. What's your point?

Okay, yes, there are two types of "patients": those who need chronic pain management and those who are merely addicted. This doesn't change the fact that there are doctors and other medical professionals (nurses, dentists, podiatrists, etc) who in fact do violate their professional practice and dispense or prescibe these susbstances to people who have not demonstrated any medical need for them, including themselves. As a nurse you surely have encountered this or heard of it.

Your characterization of the earlier post as being "disapproving" of pain patients' need for medication is totally off-base. All he/she said is that he/she had found an alternative way dealing with her own pain. And the incident with the pilot faking the script pad? That's far more common than you evidently know.

[cornermouse]

22. Pain is one of those things that seems to vary from

individual to individual. And drug addiction is also a problem. But you really need to remember that just because exercise and stretches worked for you does not mean it will work for everyone else.

[meganmonkey]

26. You are right, but I never said it would work for everyone else.

I just think that the drug companies have a lot to do with how many pills get prescribed, for everything from ADHD to pain...

I tried to make it clear that I wasn't making blanket statements. I guess I should have tried harder...

[Wind Dancer]

29. You ARE being judgmental, meganmonkey.

How wonderful that your injury improved with lifestyle changes, exercise and the like, others have not had that luxury. People like you cause enormous damage to those of us in need of pain management, try going YEARS without sleeping through the night.

I'm so sick and tired of people passing judgment on others who suffer emotionally and physically from chronic pain. There are very few doctors now willing to treat chronic pain patients with opiates so the story you illustrate is certainly not the norm, if at all.

[Warpy]

31. Thanks

I've been in chronic pain for DECADES. I cling to the mildest narcotics I can manage because I know the dangers of dependency all too well.

Nothing makes me slip my trolley and go all uncivil like somebody who preaches exercise, health foods, herbs, clean living, and positive thinking instead of pain medication. If it's around, I've tried it. If it's helped, I've maintained it. Judgmental New Agers have been the scourge of my existence, especially many years ago when I was selling health foods to them.

But I need those opiates to function. The DEA is dead wrong, and I sincerely hope Karma catches up to them sooner rather than later.

[Wind Dancer]

37. Warpy, I know exactly what you mean.

The DEA is wrong and many people will suffer as a result of this decision. Doctors are terrified to prescribe certain narcotics and the regulations have become much stricter.

I was fortunate enough to have found a wonderful doc 10 years ago that understands the toll chronic pain can take on a person. There are too many people that tend to blame and accuse chronic pain sufferers for not getting better through alternative measures. Oh, if only..........

Karma is a bitch.

[redqueen]

38. Having known several people who've had to live with chronic pain

I really do feel for you.

:hug:

[meganmonkey]

33. People like me?

Ouch.

I am NOT judging people who have chronic pain. If it makes you feel better to think I am somehow your enemy, so be it. I think it is a bit overreaching to say that I "have caused enormous damage" to people in need of pain management.

Peace.

[Wind Dancer]

40. I don't think it was your intention to be judgmental.

You had a back injury which improved with a COMPLETE lifestyle change and I am happy for you. There are others that have not had the success you've achieved - I don't know your personal situation but please understand injuries and circumstances vary with each person.

If I came on too hard, I am sorry. This is a situation I struggle with daily and many people truly believe certain types of pain can be relieved without medication. Unfortunately, that is not always the case.

Obviously, there are people who abuse the system but we have to suffer as a result. This is my Achilles heel, so to speak, I hope you understand.

[meganmonkey]

44. I appreciate that and I understand what you are saying

I probably should have thought more about my post, how to word it, and what I was really trying to say. I almost changed it but I thought that wouldn't be fair after getting 3 replies...

And I do understand what a sensitive topic this can be. I really do. I should have been more sensitive in my post and made it more clear that I was talking about the exceptions - I know that most people on opiates or other pain meds need them.

I was feeling a little attacked - but I have no problem admitting when I am wrong. I like to be educated, it is why I come here. I still have a hard time with the general mentality that pills-cure-all in our society, and the drug companies certainly have a big stake in that mentality. I apologize that it sounded like I meant that chronic pain patients are the bad guys and are abusing the system.

[Wind Dancer]

56. I appreciate your willingness to be open-minded.

Redstone summed it up beautifully in post 41.

I also struggle with the number of meds prescribed in this country and the profits made from drug companies. This makes it more difficult for those of us that have desperately tried alternatives without success.

Again, my apologies for coming on so strong.

:hug:

[meganmonkey]

60. All is well

:hug:

[frustrated_lefty]

62. You spoke your mind. A little clarification was helpful.

Sorry you were feeling attacked. Wildly disparate views are held on DU. In part, that's why it's a good place to express them here.

[Redstone]

41. Don't take it personally, please.

I know you are just trying to contribute to the discussion, and am not angry at you.

But some other people are, and this is another aspect of chronic pain. You see, you had some back problems and have been able to get them under control without drugs, and I am very happy for you.

However, you must understand that what you have is, for lack of a better term, "extended acute pain." It is not chronic pain.

Real chronics pain, such as that from RSDS and other conditions that some other people here have, is unresponsive to any treatment save opioids.

Chronic pain takes away the most precious thing many of us can have, which is hope. It's not like having knee surgery, and having an expectation that your knee will feel better in a couple of months.

There is no expectation of relief. There is no hope. There is nothing to give you any hope that tomorrow, you'll suffer any less than you do today. Or next month, or next year. You have to live with the fact that it's not going to get any better.

So people do get crabby when they feel that their life conditions are being minimized or misunderstood.

Sorry you had to listen to people whomping on you, but they can't help it. If it weren't for the fact that I'm having a reasonably good day, I might have done so myself.

We Pain People live in a different world. We really do. We're not asking for sympathy, just understanding.

Redstone

[meganmonkey]

45. Thank you for your informative post

I appreciate it. My post was worded poorly and I apologize for that. Please see my post #44.

[Redstone]

57. You're welcome. I could tell you meant well.

Redstone

[Gelliebeans]

85. Thanks Redstone

you wrote exactly how I feel. There is no light at the end of the tunnel with chronic pain and to live with diseases that have no cures is like constantly putting out fires.

I have an understanding doctor who basically summed my situation up the way Warpy did. I take my meds as prescribed and try to have some normality to life. I am lucky that my family supports me and I wish we all could have that kind of support system.

It is very frustrating for people who can't get relief and to have to defend themselves it justs makes a bad situation worse.

I have had 12 years of my disease and I have had one remission in all that time so a good day means I can get a shower and try to make dinner, then I'm doing good :) Baby steps! woo hoo :bounce:

[Redstone]

96. You're welcome.

It's hard to try to speak for all of the Pain People, because our situations are all so different, but there is a shared experience - so all I can do is try to explain our world as best I can.

Nobody can understand our world if they don't live in it.

Redstone

[dmr]

64. I think Megan, you might have misunderstood

the workings of that office.

I realize you've had several replies, but my expertise is Pharmacy, and now, unfortunately, chronic pain. So, I have to throw my two cents in, which is really something because I don't post all that often.

You said:
And every day there was at least one patient call in for their Vicodin refill early - and the doc would ask how often they do that, and the secretary would say, oh, this is the third time. And the doc would say - well, okay, call it in but make the patient schedule an appt.

That is not so unusual. As you mentioned, there were 8 physicians in that office, meaning they must have had a high ratio of patients needing medication refills.

A doctor's office cannot just call in a Scheduled III Controlled Substance and leave it at that. The pharmacy may fill it, but chances are they won't unless they trust that the doctor will follow through with providing a hard (written) prescription (United States Code Title 21, Section 503(b) of Act (21 U.S.C. 353(b)).

If the pharmacist cannot assure they will get that hard copy, they won't fill it. We would call that playing 'bet your license", because pharmacists know that busy doctors do not remember to follow through.

Now, about patients calling in for refills. That is not unusual at all. I'll use myself as an example. I am on a slew of medications, including Vicoden and Avinza (Morphine). Each month I call in for a new script for the Morphine. My doc mails me the script. Morphine,which is a Schedule II Controlled Substance, can only be prescribed one month at a time, which is why the doc has me call in, saving me a trip to his office each month. This week, I needed a renewal on my Vicoden. I called the doc, and he mailed me my script. My pharmacy, who knows me well, will not fill any Controlled Substance with a phone call from my doctor. They require a written prescription.

These medications, along with a TENS Unit, give me a quality of life. Without them, I would just want to crawl into a hole and die. There are unbearable days where the meds just barely touch the pain. But most of the time, I can participate in the minimal of ways, and be able to smile and converse with my family.

Now, here comes my close to 30 years of hospital and some retail pharmacy experience (I am now retired): That pilot you mentioned, who flew around the country with bogus Vicodin prescriptions baffles me. Pharmacists will fill out of state non-narcotic prescriptions for travelers, it is difficult for me to believe he found a pharmacist who would fill an out of state Schedule III Narcotic. Hairs raise up on the back of our heads when we see a script like that. My guess, he got caught the first time when the pharmacist called to verify the script. I know I would have made the same phone call, and if the script was presented to me after hours, then he'd walk out without his Vicodin, and perhaps his script confiscated.

Anyway, this post isn't intended to dump on you because I think you are a positive and valued DUer. I honestly think you, (and your office mates,) do/did not fully understand how it all works.

As an aside, there are health care professionals who do abuse their prescription writing privileges, and there are otherwise healthy addicted users. IMO, the non-abusers far outweigh the abuser.

[genieroze]

18. The war on drugs has hit a new low, pathetic.

:banghead:

[mongo]

19. This maybe a little tin-foil hatish of me

but I can't help feeling that this crackdown on doctors has something to do with the fact that we are in Afganistan were most of the opium is grown. In effect, giving the CIA the opportunity to control the herion business in America.

If you don't allow people in chronic pain to get medication legally - they WILL self-medicate. And heroin availability is already increasing.

:tinfoilhat:

[Terran]

43. No offense but that's VERY tinfoil hat

99.999% of the population would not have a clue as to where to get street heroin. And the pharmaceutical companies have no interest in seeing these drugs cease to be prescribed. They try to work closely with physicians on how to correctly prescribe them because they have a lot at stake. If the CIA somehow caused these dugs to no longer be available, there would be a bit of a stink.

[preciousdove]

46. It's not just opiates they want to control

No doubt there was over use of antibiotics but it is a matter of perspective when you realize the amount of antibiotics that went to preventing animals from getting sick and the fact that anyone can walk into a drug store in the third world (Mexico) and get what they want.

Micheal Osterhom former MN state epidemiologist wrote a book advocating the withholding and state government stockpiling of antibiotics. Any state that did not go along with it would be denied help during epidemics. That is totally against the Geneva Convention. He is a consultant to the CDC/FDA/NIH and also works with the bio-terror spooks. They gave him an infectious Disease Lab at the University of Minnesota.

He had some high profile cases his office investigated but he worked against the Lyme Disease advocates and in 1999 his start up ICAN with grant from the big HMO's and CDC did a witch hunt for Doctors who over prescribed antibiotics. They reviewed patients records without their knowledge because they were working for the HMO. The only reason we knew is that each and every board member of the Lyme Disease Coalition of Minnesota was targeted. My doctor left the state, the treasurers doctor left private practice and went into Urgent Care and the other two board members had their doctors drop them as patients.

Don't believe the hype on Lyme Disease it is every bit as serious, debilitating and lethal as its cousins, Yaws, Relapsing Fever and Syphilis. We were without a leg to stand on until last year when ILADS published a position paper on treating persistent Lyme Disease and Dr Fallon's five year study was published showing that long term treatment was effective and needed. We had a 41 year old colleague in MI commit Suicide late last month because she was so sick and could not get treatment in Michigan either. They raided doctors and labs for treating late Lyme there in the late 1990's. The legal and political nightmare trying to keep Dr Fallon's study going long enough to publish is worthy of a book.

The fight fight you need to know about is in NY where the reform of the OPMC giving doctors due process in anonymous complaints passed the Legislature unanimously at the end of the session but was vetoed at the last possible minute by Gov Pataki. It is in play again and Pataki is vulnerable. They are hyping that it lets bad doctors walk but it was very carefully written to protect patients from bad doctors and prevent good doctors from being destroyed by medical politics and drug company greed.

[AngryAmish]

24. This is crazy

I don't know the specifics of this case, but too many patients need a lot of opiates. If your spine is fused and you still have intracable sciatica, then all you can do is be prescribed oxycontin and the like.

Insurance companies will not pay for an implanted morphine pump. These things do work, but it costs around 100k to get one.

My father lived in constant pain for twenty years before he passed away. He did not want to take opiates but could probably have used them. My mother died of cancer, but was extremely pain free for whatever reason. I don't know what I would have done if they could not get relief, but I know I would have ignored these stupid laws.

[Wind Dancer]

32. Exactly, AngryAmish.

You eloquently state the need of opiates for those suffering from chronic pain.

Thank you!

[bvar22]

27. Pharmaceutical opiates...

..are flooding the black market making it harder for the BFEE to sell off the Afghani opium crop?
:tinfoilhat:

[mongo]

30. Very glad I'm not the only one who sees a connection

[bvar22]

34. I didn't used to be this way.

I'm suspicious of EVERYTHING that happens in our bush*/NeoCon controlled government. I'm also suspicious of the TRUE allegiances of most of our Democrats.

bush* did this to me!
I used to be normal (almost).
I had friends and everything.

[Iowa]

39. Great comment bvar22!

My sentiments exactly.

[hector459]

35. It's about time. This is just the tip of an "elite" drug trafficing system

If you smoke or sell pot you can get 20+ years in prison. If you get a Dr to write a prescription for a drug that can make you a crazy killer or purveyor of lies that lead people to vote for an idiot President that leads the nation into an illegal and immoral war that costs lives and billions of dollars you get a talk radio show.

[Terran]

42. Don't assume the DEA is wrong here.

I used to work for the state version of the DEA in Missouri as an investigator. And I can say confidently that no one here should be supporting this doctor without knowing exactly what the evidence is. Chronic pain management is not an exact science, and it could well be that he developed some new techniques that involved larger than normal amounts. But what consitutes an 'appropriate' dosage is NOT determined by the DEA, it's determined by the manufacturer of the drug and is vetted by medical licensing boards.

This man's medical practice could not have been seen as criminal without the say-so of his state's medical board...*unless* his records show fairly clearly that he *was* acting as drug dealer to these few patients. We here don't and can't know what those records say; it could be that he was prescribing within normal ranges for most of his 5000 patients but these 12 he was basically handing the stuff out like candy, whatever his reasons might have been. It depends on the patients, on his records, and on his own professional judgment. He would have had to justify giving those 12 the large amounts of opioids. If he couldn't do that through his medical records, then I can see how the DEA made a case against him.

You guys shouldn't automatically assume that the DEA is evil; there are a lot of crooked doctors and other medical professionals out there.

[Warpy]

47. There are a few Dr Feelgoods out there

and their clientele consists of the rich and famous. However, this guy by all accounts was a conscientious physician doing the best job he could for his patients, as suppressed evidence would indicate.

The DEA IS AN EVIL ORGANIZATION when it substitutes attacking pain specialists for getting things like meth off the streets.

So what if there are a few Dr Feelgoods catering to a few overfed, overpaid hypochondriacs? What the hell problem do those people cause you or me or society as a whole? BACK THE HELL OFF. Every time a doctor is targeted, the whole profession feels a distinct chill and patients start to go unmedicated.

Drug company bureaucrats obviously don't have a clue, but there is no upper limit for any single opiate pain medication. NONE. What patient A needs to control his sciatica might be lethal to patient B, but one can't say that patient A is getting a lethal dose because he is clearly walking and talking to us.

Too many bureaucrats are dabbling in medicine, and garbage like this case is the result. At some point, you have to trust medical professionals to DO THEIR JOBS, and that means treating pain without having some bureaucrat with a messianic complex breathing down the backs of their necks.

[Terran]

54. You don't know WTF you're talking about.

I try to make a rational response and this is what I get. Very nice.

Look, I'm the first to support chronic pain management, and I really don't know why you think, based on one case, that the DEA is out to get all doctors who step one pill over the line. You seem to be majorly missing my point. Your description of "a few Dr. Feelgoods" is incredibly misinformed and quaint. I investigated this stuff for five years in a low-population state. We had DOZENS of licensed physicians every year get in trouble over this, and there were a dozen or more overall hard core criminal cases going on at any given time. So just imagine the scope of the problem in California, New York or Florida.

And their clientele are not the rich and famous, they're middle-class and poor people. Again, I don't know where you think you get your information, but the scope of this problem is huge. Abuse of prescription drugs is just as bad as abuse of street drugs, and the societal costs are the same. I'm all in favor of legalizing some street drugs, because they are much less harmful than many of these Schedule 2's when they are abused. But frankly you are the one who needs to back down because you are speaking emotionally and without a shred of fact to support you. I return to my original point: WITHOUT KNOWING THE FACTS OF THIS CASE, YOU CANNOT MAKE AN INFORMED OPINION ABOUT IT.

[Warpy]

65. I work in healthcare

and you bet your ass this has a chilling effect on every doctor out there who is prescribing pain medication. The DEA has absolutely NO BUSINESS in policing doctors whose practice is concentrated in treating pain.

I'll say it again, BUTT OUT. Dr Feelgood and his patients aren't hurting you or yours. The junkies they're supplying are getting safer medications than the street provides, and eventually many will seek treatment, something that won't happen if they're dead from street drugs. However, every time one of them is busted, especially on trumped up charges like the doc in the subject line was, every single doc in the country starts to cut back on his prescriptions for narcotics, leaving patients in untreated pain.

You want to accuse somebody of ignorance, I'd suggest you start closer to home.

[Terran]

82. And I worked in REGULATING health care.

I know more about this stuff than you do. Period.

[Jim Sagle]

100. What you know ain't worth shit without the heart to deploy it humanely.

[bvar22]

104. and YOUR medical background and credentials are exactly....

...what????

[mongo]

74. How is the DEA supposed to know better than a DR.

What an appropriate dose of medication is for a patient?

Abuse of prescription drugs is just as bad as abuse of street drugs

Ok, a script for 60 vicodin costs less than $20.00 without insurance. Are people robbing and prostituting themselves for legally obtained vicodin? I think not. People may need to prostitute themselves to pay for vioxx or the next "non-narcotic" anti-anflamitory, but not vicodin.

These types of cases DO have a chilling effect on Doctors. The DEA is a sham organization, more interested in violating the State's rights of Ca. medical MJ patients and terrorizing doctors than cleaning up the harder drugs which do impact society.

[Terran]

80. Your question points out the ignorance rampant in this thread

No offense, but clearly there's something none of you understand, so I'll repeat myself: the DEA DOEs NOT make a judgement about a doctor's treatment of a patient. The DEA has to rely on the doctor's state licrensing board for that determination. This why I said earlier that said board MUST have ruled already that the doc in question was violating his professional practice. There are few other ways the DEA could get a conviction in this matter, unless the doctor was outright violating DEA regs, such as failng to keep written records regarding the prescribing of Schedule 2's.

I'll say this again, for the last time: not one person in this thread has enough information about this case to make an informed judgment. All your opinions are worthless because they are based on assumptions and stereotypes about what the DEA does. YOU WOULD HAVE TO HAVE ACCESS TO PRIVATE PATIENT MEDICAL RECORDS AND NO ONE HERE HAS SUCH ACCESS.

[Dogmudgeon]

48. The DEA certainly IS evil

Look at the thousands of young people -- often with no culpability at all -- who are imprisoned on conspiracy charges, when their "crime" consisted of knowing the perp, or being his girlfriend, or some such non-crime. When busts are made, as many people are charged with as many crimes as possible. Many of them rot in prison so that some asshole junior D.A. can make his or her bones.

Every time there's a major doctor bust like this, my local pharmacists panic and refuse to fill my pain med prescriptions. (Yes, I'm one of those chronic pain patients that the local GOP insists simply lack a Work Ethic and sufficient Bible study.) If you want people to look at the DEA in a better light, you have your work cut out for you.

--p!

[Terran]

55. I have many reasons for not approving of DEA people

having actually worked closely with them for several years. But I find your statement about your local pharmacist a little hard to believe. I mean, how many times, really, has that ever happened to you? It's exceedingly rare that a pharmacist will refuse to fill a script unles there's hard eveidence of fraud right in front of them. And for a patient with a long and documented record with the pharmacy? Come on, a little exaggerated, isn't it? I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of pharmacists on this issue, and very very few of them are prone to panic about such things.

[Dogmudgeon]

58. About once a year, on the average

I had to stop going to Walgreen's after Noelle Bush's bust for Xanax -- they wanted a 3-day waiting period, then they wanted to "call the doctor" about why I was on two Schedule 2 meds, for another potential 3-day wait. And if you try to fill a Schedule 2 med a week early, they think you're abusing. I had been shopping there for a couple years. AND I knew one of pharmacists pretty well, and he was aware of my medical condition. (Nominally RSDS, but since it's in the cranial nerve system, they're looking for a new name.)

The early and late 1990s were pretty bad, too, but each time I was living in Philadelphia, and they acted like a Schedule 2 scrip was a stick-up note.

I have no criminal record. I do not keep multiple active scrips at different pharmacies. I get my prescriptions filled at the same pharmacy -- until another one has a substantial price cut -- so I am not a one-time piece of street business. I always offer my driver's license for verificiation. And approximately once a year, I get some kind of hassle over my medication. Sometimes I have gone three or four years without a problem, sometimes I have two or three in one year.

Yes, I've also met quite a few people who have had problems with their medications -- even birth control pills.

There are more problems with pain-patients getting meds than you may realize -- or, you may have had a different social and law-enforcement milieux in Missouri. We had a major problem with crank and biker gangs here in the 1980s, and there are plenty of newly-minted junior DAs looking for a new drug problem to solve for the media.

And a few months ago, a local pharmacist was convicted of dealing. He plea-bargained for a long sentence rather than face life in prison. He was a pharmacist recommended by a local cancer treatment center. A relative of mine used his service when she was dying with cancer.

I seriously question whether his conviction was legitimate, and whether he plea wasn't coerced.

There ought to be a reasonable, rational way around this. But there is nothing for politicians to gain by it.

--p!

[frustrated_lefty]

63. Initially, I started to reply with a lot of anger.

Maybe you're right. I've spoken and interacted with a lot more people who were shafted by the DEA than those who felt the DEA did them justice.

Maybe there are a lot of crooked doctors and medical professionals. Understand this, though. Chronic pain is chronic pain. These people DON'T make this up. They want relief. But, you wouldn't understand that, because you've never been there.

[nolabels]

67. Pain sometimes gives you a message something is wrong

After paying for three or four doctors to tell me that my aching back was muscle problems I have come the conclusion that doctors can be idiots.

Everyone of them prescribed pain medication of different amounts. The whole problem was a kidney infection. After it got a little better and was able to travel, I met up with my aunt who lived out of town. She told me that she had the same thing every once in while and knew it to be a kidney problem. She told me to drink lots of water, stay away from salt, sugar, coffee etc. The best trick was the cranberry juice, it just knocked that stuff right out. Often doctors will prescribe sulfa drugs for such problems because antibiotics get broke down before the get that far.

When you see no end in sight for the pain and you are rolled up on the floor because of the pain, you might do anything for relief of that pain. The pain was so bad at on point, I went to the county hospital emergency room. I had to pay over $300 for the visit and all I got from them was shot in the ass of pain killer that knocked me out for about 18 hours :mad:

[Terran]

81. I DO understand it because i've worked professionally

with this issue. And I have absolutely nothing against people with genuine medical issues around chronic pain getting WHATEVER they need to lead normal lives. Period. But there ARE a lot of people out there who fake their pain to gain access to drugs illegally. I know this because I saw it personally. It is rampant.

[Redstone]

84. You've never been in chronic pain and had to deal

with The System, have you?

NO number of people abusing prescription drugs is high enough to justify torturing people in chronic pain.

And torture is exactlly what we Pain People go through, and that's no exaggeration.

You cannot understand, nor can you judge, unless you're one of Us.

Redstone

[shockra]

89. Wow, Redstone.

Color me surprised. I can hardly believe that the person posting in this thread is the same one that was one of the least sympathetic posters in the animal rights threads, to say the least.

I've also had a chronic pain syndrome since I was a teen, fibromyalgia, and it's made me *more* sympathetic to others' suffering. In fact I thought to myself a few times when perusing the PETA threads that some of these people just don't know what severe pain is like.

Goes to show you can never tell.

I am aware that being in pain can make even the nicest people mean sometimes, though. Been there before.

There is an inexpensive treatment that usually works for pain syndromes and immune system diseases (which often occur together) called low dose naltrexone. Like another poster in this thread mentioned, lack of endorphins causes pain, and people with these diseases have a lack of endorphins. Taking LDN at night before 2 a.m. - 4 a.m. (when your body makes the most endorphins) blocks their production, tricking your body into thinking it's not making enough, thus it makes more during the day.

http://www.lowdosenaltrexone.org/index.htm

It's not well known because it only costs about $40 a month, and the drug companies can't make big profits from it. The main disease that it's used for is Multiple Sclerosis, and the drugs for that (CRAB's --Copaxone, Rebif, Avonex, Betaseron) cost thousands of dollars a month and require injections daily or several times a week.

When I heard about LDN a year ago, it was gaining notice, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that there seems to have been a surge in people's awareness of the treatment. It's #1 with a bullet now with MS posters at the treatment-rating site remedyfind:

http://remedyfind.com/hc-Multiple-Sclerosis.asp

Doctors who won't prescribe pain killers are a real sore point for me. It took over ten years for anyone to give me anything stronger than an Advil, and I was in totally life-altering pain. Constant migraines were the least of it. But would any doctor even give me a migraine prescription? No. Now when I see them advertised all over the tv and in magazines, I could just spit nails. "Just ask your doctor!" If only it were that easy before.

[Redstone]

93. I want you to know how much I appreciate your

long and thoughtful message, so I'm going to reply at some length as well. I'm going to copy this post to you via PM to make sure you see it; so if you read this, you can ignore the message from me that will be in your inbox soon.

First, let's clear one thing up: I like animals. I like all kinds of animals, though I'm not particularly fond of cats. I do not believe that any animal should be mistreated, and have never mistreated an animal in my long life. I have rescued baby eagles from the wild, and baby dogs from testing labs, and raised them to maturity and freedom.

However. The reason I was tweaking the PETA types in the other thread was this: I have a problem with self-righteous people who believe that their particular obsession trumps all other considerations, such as the welfare of human beings, whose welfare I value even more than the welfare of the animals I like so much.

The thread you are referring to concerned people protesting the lousy treatment of chickens by interfering with the business of some poor schmuck who has no control whatsoever over how the chickens are treated. He's just a guy who is trying to make a living.

If these people were so concerned about the way KFC kills chickens, they should have taken their protest to KFC headquarters, not an outlet in Brownsville, Texas. That strikes me as the worst kind of cynicism and cheap sensationalism, because they KNEW that protesting at this out -of-the-way KFC would have exactly ZERO effect on KFC corporate policy.

Do you understand now?

Plus, I grow weary of the preaching. People will demonize those in Newfoundland and Labrador who kill seals in order to feed their families (because there's no other way for them to make a living), yet will not offer to go there and build a factory to give them some other way to make a living.

Living in Alaska as you do, I think you'd agree with me that this is a hypocritical attitude for anyone who doesn't understand local conditions to take.

So that's why I don't quite get the chronic pain / animal rights connection you mentioned, but that's OK. You have the best of intentions, and I thank you for it.

On to the second subject. I checked the links you provided, and I do have to tell you that the first of the two didn't make me feel too hopeful, given the claims that the medication can cure THIRTY-SEVEN different diseases, some of them truly horrible ones. As a fellow Pain Person, I'm sure you've learned to be skeptical of "miracle cures."

But the second link you provided tells me that this is indeed a drug that has been shown to work - and it's of particular interest to me because of its effectiveness with MS, which I also have.

I'm going to check it out. And if it works, for the pain or the MS or both, I will be forever in your debt.

Thank you again. Sleep well tonight, my new friend; you've earned some Karma this day.

Redstone

Edited for really bad typing, which produced a word the spellchecker didn't catch because it's a real word, just not the one I meant.

[ebayfool]

101. I see nothing @ his state's medical board saying ("say-so") his practice

was in any way criminal in the link by the OP. I do see that the DEA itself "monitors the prescription writing of all doctors" & "get their prosecution expert witnesses to testify". Sounds like the DEA is totally in control of the whole roadshow, to me. Sounds like they make alot of 'easy' money to justify their job descriptions, as well. Those handy asset forfeiture laws help them fund their department - I would daresay much easier, safer & profitable to hit a pain specialist than a street thug peddling poison to people w/a credible addiction problem.

As far as:
"You guys shouldn't automatically assume that the DEA is evil; there are a lot of crooked doctors and other medical professionals out there."

The same can be said of drug enforcement agencies, their attendant investigators & enforcers.

There are a lot of crooked cops and other law enforcement professionals out there.


Just saying!
------------------------
"This man's medical practice could not have been seen as criminal without the say-so of his state's medical board...*unless* his records show fairly clearly that he *was* acting as drug dealer to these few patients."
------------------------
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/382/hurwitz.shtml

snip/
The case is the most closely-watched yet in an escalating confrontation between the imperatives of pain management and those of drug abuse control. For the past decade, the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) drug diversion control program, ironically funded by doctors' licensing fees, has spent tens of millions of dollars annually to investigate doctors it suspects of improperly prescribing prescription drugs. Equally ironically, the diversion control fund also includes money from an asset forfeiture kitty that includes goods once belonging to doctors prosecuted by the DEA.

With those funds, the DEA monitors the prescription writing of all doctors. Those who prescribe large doses of drugs such as Oxycontin are flagged for investigation. Typically, the feds find former or current patients who are abusing or selling prescribed drugs, charge them with federal crimes, then plea bargain with them to get them to testify against the targeted doctor. At trial, prosecution expert witnesses testify that the prescribing was outside the bounds of accepted medical practice, while defense witnesses testify it was not. Jurors, who may or may not have a firm grasp on the medical science involved, tend to come down on the side of prosecutors.

[pokercat999]

53. It's time for all juries to find not guilty on all "crimes" until

prosecutors bring only "real" criminal cases.

Any idea how to actually GET jury duty, I've never been called even though I have been registered to vote for 30 years or better.

[tblue37]

77. I have been called 6 times--

even though I am severely hearing-impaired and would not be able to follow the testimony, even with my hearing aids. I don't sign, so the only way I could follow testimony and lawyers' arguments would be if the speaker had to stand right in front of me and speak clearly, projecting effectively, and repeating frequently.

Closed-captioned video testimony (if that were even available) wouldn't work, either. I use closed captioning to watch movies on DVD, but when you have to read the dialogue, it is hard to watch what is happening on the screen, especially if the action is rapid or if the camera cuts quickly from face to face or image to image. Even with closed-captioned movies I have to rewind frequently to catch what I have missed.

In other words, reading closed-captioned testimony would be like reading a transcript of the trial--I wouldn't be able to watch the speaker to judge whether he seemed to be telling the truth, hedging, or lying outright.

Every time they call me for jury duty, I explain all of this. I usually get excused, but with a warning that the excuse is only good for this time, and I may be called again in the future.

The very first time (about 25 years ago), I actually wasn't excused, but I had no hearing aids at the time because I couldn't afford them, so they probably didn't think I was really hearing-impaired enough for it to matter. (I was dismissed from the jury pool in the courtroom, though. I asked a question that the prosecutor didn't like. He thought it meant that I might be too sympathetic to the defendant. He was wrong--but I wasn't going to tell him that!)

[Conservativesux]

91. I've been on JD and it just doesnt work like that. First the judge informs

the jurors that they have to come to a decision based on the law and the facts of the case and not for any other reason, as in that you dont agree with the law at all.

Then, when you get into the jury room there is always some @$$h*le or two who think they are the cocks on the block, think that the defendant should be found guilty and sent to prison ASAP, no matter what, and that is what tainted and undecided juries are made of.

It sure sound nice though.

Jury nullification did actually work back in the Prohibition days of the Great Depression, when everyone was drinking anyways and let people off the hook in court who were making or buying booze, which was almost everyone back then, if you include all the "home" distillers too.

[mongo]

109. The judge is LYING

There is a long tradition of finding people not guilty because of an unjust law. Many slaves who ran away to the north were freeded because of juries who would not convict.

Jury nullification is still as valid today.

[NorthernSpy]

68. none of my goddamn business what other people put in their mouths

If there's a victim, then there's a crime. For there to have been a crime committed, someone must have been robbed, cheated, stolen from, assaulted, injured, or threatened with immediate significant harm (as is the case with drunk driving) by someone else who acted without the victim's consent.

I don't know the doctor in the story, but I'll bet that he didn't put a gun to anyone's head and force them to take the pills. The consenting adults who deliberately misused their medication are not victims: they are people who chose to harm themselves.

If these same people had made the same bad choices with booze, not many people today would think it reasonable to imprison the owner of the liquor store.

But once upon a time, lots of people would indeed have wanted the liquor store owner jailed -- and who can forget the time when those people got their way? It was called Prohibition, and it brought us sky-high crime rates, poisonous contraband hootch, and the Mafia.

The War on Drugs is Prohibition's child, and the harm it does society is pretty much the same. Once again, our crusading "protectors" are a far worse threat to our health, safety, and freedom than all the pill-mill doctors in the world could be.

[Redstone]

98. Well, damn. Well said.

You understand, even though you're not one of the Pain People.

Thank you.

Redstone

[Karenina]

69. Marijuana is effective for many symptoms

AND you can grow it easily, it'a a FUCKIN' WEED. When it works for you, JUST DO IT. Fight the machine if it gets up in your face, but the POINT is the ability to FUNCTION.

[rodeodance]

70. this nonsense goes on and on-and I am afraid it will only get worse.

yes, i am a pessimist today.

[Q]

72. The DEA's War on Pain Doctors

The DEA's War on Pain Doctors

Some in the medical community call it “a war on pain doctors,” or “state-sponsored terrorism.” However you describe the current campaign, Frank Owen writes, the DEA’s hardball tactics have scared physicians nationwide to the extent that legitimate pain sufferers now find it increasingly difficult to get the medicine they need.

by Frank Owen
November 5 - 11, 2003


Twenty-four years after Darlene broke her back in a swimming pool accident, crippling pain still rules every aspect of her life, from getting up in the morning (which she describes as akin to "climbing the highest mountain") to falling into a fitful sleep at night. After years of botched surgery that left her in even more agony, she knows there is no real cure for what ails her, but thanks to synthetic opioids (which include such regulated substances as Vicodin, Dilaudid, and the devil drug of the moment, OxyContin), she says that she can now lead a halfway normal life. Just folding sheets or washing dishes or sitting at the computer are daily miracles for Darlene, who claims she would otherwise be bedridden and suicidal without the chemical crutches that high doses of these powerful opium-like painkillers provide.

But in some ways worse than the pain, says Darlene (who doesn't want her last name revealed), are the shame and fear that come with it. Shame when she goes to have her special triplicate prescription—required for all scheduled drugs—filled at the drugstore and the pharmacist looks at her as if she were some addict abusing the drug to get high. Fear that her medications will soon be taken away by the Drug Enforcement Administration's ongoing crackdown on pain doctors. "You worry every day that the medicine won't be available for much longer, or your doctor won't be there tomorrow because he's been arrested by the DEA," she claims. All the bad publicity in the press about the abuse of OxyContin by celebrities such as Rush Limbaugh and Courtney Love doesn't help matters. But, says Darlene, the media scare stories shouldn't blind people to the fact that these drugs—when taken under medical supervision—have made life livable for hundreds of thousands of chronic pain patients, herself included.

Some in the medical community call it "a war on pain doctors," others "a government jihad" or "state-sponsored terrorism." However you describe the current campaign, which according to pain-patient advocates began under Janet Reno, but which they say has increased in intensity under John Ashcroft, the DEA's hardball tactics—storming clinics in SWAT-style gear, ransacking offices, and hauling off doctors in handcuffs—have scared physicians nationwide to the extent that legitimate pain sufferers now find it increasingly difficult to get the medicine they need. Doctors' offices today display signs that say "Don't ask for OxyContin" or "No OxyContin prescribed here." And medical schools advise students not to choose pain management as a career because the field is too fraught with potential legal dangers.

"The war on drugs has turned into a war on doctors and pain patients," says Dr. Ronald Myers, president of the American Pain Institute and a Baptist minister who operates a string of clinics for poor people in the Mississippi Delta. "Such is the climate of fear across the medical community that for every doctor who has his license yanked by the DEA, there are a hundred doctors scared to prescribe proper pain medication for fear of going to prison. The DEA is creating a situation where legitimate pain patients now have to go to the streets to get their medication. It's a health care catastrophe in the making." (Myers theorizes that Rush Limbaugh is probably "a neglected pain patient" and another victim of the crackdown: "Why else would someone with all his money have to go to the street to get enough medication, other than if he couldn't find a doctor to give him an adequate supply?") --- http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0345,owen,48381,1.html

[rodeodance]

76. says the media tells scare stories--she is RIGHT ON!!

from DEA article:
.....required for all scheduled drugs—filled at the drugstore and the pharmacist looks at her as if she were some addict abusing the drug to get high. Fear that her medications will soon be taken away by the Drug Enforcement Administration's ongoing crackdown on pain doctors. "You worry every day that the medicine won't be available for much longer, or your doctor won't be there tomorrow because he's been arrested by the DEA," she claims. All the bad publicity in the press about the abuse of OxyContin by celebrities such as Rush Limbaugh and Courtney Love doesn't help matters. But, says Darlene, the media scare stories shouldn't blind people to the fact that these drugs—when taken under medical supervision—have made life livable for hundreds of thousands of chronic pain patients, herself included.

[AzDar]

75. To me, this is just further evidence that the 'war' is not on drugs, but

on the American public.Between the Bankruptcy Rape, the end of inheritence taxes, and news like this.... I've effin' HAD IT!!!

[Conservativesux]

90. When is El Rushbo going to be tried for buying illegal drugs??

Hmmmm?

Clue: Not anytime soon, with * in power!

[hedgehog]

92. When he takes his pain medicine, my father-in-law is active,

working on his cars and interested in life. Whne he is off them for any reason, his bad knees turn him into a cripple who can only sit in a chair becoming increasingly depressed. He only takes an NSAID, but my mother-in-law and brothers-in-law nag him from time to time about getting "addicted" Many of my fellow depresives worry about geting "addicted" to SSRIs. That's an example of how foolish this war on drugs has made so many of us. When my daughter was in the hospital with a ruptured spleen, she had to wait an hour every time her pain meds wore off becaue it wasn't time yet for the next dose. Back then, I wasn't smart enough to demand someone call the attending physician and get the dose increased. It'sone of my biggest regrets. There is nothing good about pain.

[Feron]

94. As someone that had a herinated disc,

I only got to sample what many people live with daily. It is pure evil to not give these people the meds they need in order to function. Yes, some will abuse, but you shouldn't punish the many because of it. The goverment has no business telling a person what they can or cannot ingest.

If somebody commits a crime while under the influence, then I am all for additional penalites. But leave the peaceful people toking up or taking their meds alone.

[Bo]

105. ...Heroin importations OK if your an Afghan warlord though...

I forgot we are in the Alternate reality mode

[Zhade]

107. Just legalize marijuana, for crying out loud!

Good for the economy. Good for pain. Good for people.

Ridiculous that it's illegal.

I agree with the DEA-against-the-wall thing...though I'd offer them a choice between the firing squad or the bong squad. Once they light up, the propaganda will fail, and the scales will fall from their eyes.