Then came the CDC guidelines in 2016. Although they are voluntary and only intended for primary care physicians, Rob’s pain management doctors reduced his daily morphine dose to 120 MEMs, with the ultimate goal of getting it down to 90 MEMs – what the CDC recommends as the ceiling for high doses.

With his pain no longer being treated properly, Rob’s health deteriorated and he started taking high doses of Motrin, a prescription form of ibuprofen. He took so much Motrin it built up to toxic levels in his kidneys.

“I was hospitalized in May, when my father couldn’t revive me in the morning. I woke up intubated, with IV’s and wires connected everywhere. I was unconscious for 4 days, and when I finally awoke, I thought I had died and come back,” Rob said. “I was told if my dad hadn’t found me, I would have died within hours."

The cost to Medicare and taxpayers for that one stay in the hospital was $91,000 -- one of the unintended consequences of weaning or tapering a patient off high doses of opioids. Their healthcare costs often go up.

"None of that would have been necessary if I hadn't been denied my meds in the first place," Rob adds.

Rob was hospitalized a second time in June. His pain now grows worse every day, his health is failing, and he feels his time is running out.

“I nearly died, all because of this ‘opiate crisis.’ I just wanted to tell you that I’m home, albeit on oxygen, because my lungs are still filled with fluid, and I’m not sure how long I have to live,” he said. “My old palliative care doctor and my current GP doctor think all of this that I’m going through right now is because of the trauma of the pain that I’ve been feeling since they started cutting me back.”

Rob feels he and other pain patients are being held responsible for an overdose crisis they didn’t create. He’s written letters to the CDC, FDA, DEA and to President Trump -- and only gotten form letters in return.

“The simple truth is this: They are killing us off - all of us chronic pain patients. We are, quite simply, a drain on the system, and the whole system would function much better without us. They'll get what they want, too. Before long, we'll all be gone - whether by our own hands, or by complications from our untreated pain, like me,” Rob wrote.

"I sure hope something changes soon. I’m not ready to give up the ghost yet, but I’m so weak that I can hardly type. Why are they doing this to us, man?"