In a week when the DEA announced it is going further reduce the supply of opioids in 2019, a leading chronic pain activist has reopened her survey of chronic pain patients.

Dr. Terri Lewis pointed that while the argument continues to rage between those who want to strangle the supply of opioids and those who argue that only chronic pain patients are being hurt by the reduced supply, no one is really is talking to or about chronic pain patients.

Her survey, which already has attracted more than 2,000 respondents from across the country, is designed to hear what is happening to the chronic pain patients (and their families) in this war on opioids.

“We are finding out that many people are being negatively impacted in this opioid controversy,” she said. “The results of reducing supply are not reducing opioid overdoses or even deaths from overdoses, but it does seem to be hurting chronic pain patients who use the opioid therapy to manage their conditions.”

Need More Rural Response

Dr. Lewis pointed out that she is trying to get at least 30 respondents from each of the 50 states and has mostly attained that goal. Thus far, only rural states like Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Kansas and Nebraska are under the 30 response minimum, so if you live in those states in particular, we urge you to fill out survey.

Here’s a link to the survey.

“We’ve been developing some interesting in-state data that we are sharing with state leaders and chronic pain advocates which can help them make the case that the states need to create their own pain policies that have patients in mind,” she said.

Meanwhile, the DEA is continuing its efforts to restrict access to more commonly prescribed schedule II opioids, including oxycodone, hydrocodone, oxymorphone, hydromorphone, morphine, and fentanyl.

“We’ve lost too many lives to the opioid epidemic and families and communities suffer tragic consequences every day,” said DEA Acting Administrator Uttam Dhillon. “This significant drop in prescriptions by doctors and DEA’s production quota adjustment will continue to reduce the amounts of drugs available for illicit diversion and abuse while ensuring that patients will continue to have access to proper medicine.”

Reducing supply is beginning to reveal the consequences of current regulatory approaches. Hospitals increasingly report shortages of essential opioids and are resorting to the rationing surgeries, replacing standby medications with less effective alternatives, and implementation of opioid sparing regimens. A recent survey by the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) survey found that 95 percent of those who responded reported that shortages have affected the way they treat their patients.

The top five opioid medications in the shortest supply are hydromorphone (Dilaudid), fentanyl and morphine , the local anesthetic bupivacaine, and the lifesaving allergy drug epinephrine. R ecent efforts by the federal government to curb the opioid crisis — by cutting back on the raw materials used to make opioids — may partly explain why. Another factor is the delay of production capacity for drug manufacturing plants located in Puerto Rico.