Letter: New law lets those with chronic pain suffer

This year a prescription law went into effect that is going to adversely effect people who live with chronic pain. The government, in all its wisdom, has decided how much scheduled pain relievers a person is allowed to have prescribed to them. The problem is that many of those people have been on scheduled medications for years and are now having to go through a forced withdrawal based on a blanket law.

Some of the reasons stated for this law are the misuse of said medications due to their reputation for causing addiction, and because death from taking certain drugs that may have been prescribed together. Both the former and the latter are already something that chronic pain sufferers know about. Most have not misused their medications and see their pain management doctor on a regular basis to test for drug levels. Pain management clinics are strict. Legal agreements are signed by patients warning them not to take any other prescribed pain killers before contacting their pain management doctor. They are subject to pill counts at any time.

How do I know this? Because I am one of them. I have never abused my prescriptions, never taken anything from another doctor or sold any drugs on the street. This afternoon, the family toilet looked a bit like someone was murdered in it after I'd retched out the contents of my stomach and started vomiting blood. My doctor is a caring, compassionate man who is being forced to tell his patients, "I'm sorry. There is nothing I can do."

This will come as no surprise to many people who read this. I think it is nice that programs are there for people who have become addicted innocently while on a course of prescribed drugs. That does not excuse the fact that many people will now have to face the pain of withdrawal (even slowly, side effects can and do occur), but will have to descend back into the hell they came to their pain clinics to climb out of. Pain management doctors tell their patients the pros and cons of their medications. Many of us would gladly sign a legal document excusing the doctor of any malpractice from prescribing potentially dangerous drugs.

Drug abuse has been a problem for years. Some patients have died from their prescriptions. This isn't new.

There was another avenue the DEA and the FDA could have chosen. Instead of a blanket law to cover everyone, they could have grandfathered out people who had already been on these medications for years. Certainly that has been done before with other issues. I suppose it makes their lives easier so they can get home earlier and abuse their own form of drug that comes in a glass. Is that an unfair statement? Yes, but no more than committing innocent, responsible patients to spending the rest of their lives in pain. Will the dealers be hurt by this? Probably not. Will patients? Most certainly.

Alexander Wolf

West Lafayette

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