Chronic pain patients say the aftermath of a 2016 Centers for Disease Control guideline misunderstanding has had lingering effects on prescribing practices in the Permian Basin.

The CDC previously issued guidelines about prescribing opioids for chronic pain with lower dosage recommendations, but acknowledged at the end of last year in a news release that those recommendations directed at primary care clinicians were often misapplied to pain specialists in such a way that adversely affected patient care and created unnecessary barriers for chronic pain patients.

Odessa resident Gina Bruton said her family has seen the impact firsthand.

She said her husband has lower back pain and neuropathy in his legs and feet and travels to San Antonio to receive needed pain medication because local doctors will not take him on as a new patient after his pain doctor’s office was raided by the Drug Enforcement Administration in January.

“The DEA has targeted so many of these pain management doctors, thousands of them all over the United States, so now doctors are fearful and they have tapered back their patients,” Bruton said.

A major setback for Bruton’s husband and others who were patients at Dr. Carl D’Agostino’s office in Midland was a lack of access to their medical records, which were seized by the FBI during the search.

A Texas Medical Board news release from June 2018 stated D’Agostino violated the standard of care with respect to several patients he treated with controlled substances for chronic pain, and failed to adequately document findings of patient monitoring techniques.

Bruton said although they were advised to call the FBI office in El Paso and request their paperwork, some say they have yet to receive complete medical records.

“Six months later, I am only now being called saying they have part of my medical records,” Crane resident Linda Herard said.

Herard she had been a chronic pain patient of D’Agostino for about a decade before the incident took place, but now travels to Houston to see a specialist.

“It’s left all of us without medications that we need and scrambling and people with pain are suffering until they can get in to see someone else,” she said.

Bruton said her father, David Lackey, also sought care from D’Agostino for various conditions such as degenerative disc disease, arthritis and other pain problems accumulated from years working as a machinist. She said her 74-year-old father had an appointment scheduled the following week after the raid but soon found himself without the medication he had regularly taken or any records to give to another doctor.

She said on Jan. 29 there were no doctor referrals or contingency plans for patients who would soon find themselves without pain medication.

Immediately tapering or abruptly cutting off opioid therapy altogether poses even greater risks to the patient, the CDC release stated.

Lackey reportedly suffered from withdrawal and died from a heart attack in March.

“It was horrible to be there and see him just deteriorate right before your eyes and no matter how many phone calls you make nothing you could do would help him,” Bruton said. “He was vomiting, shaking, sweating and he was completely exhausted because he could not sleep because of the pain and the withdrawal symptoms.”

Bruton said national efforts aimed at combating heroin and opioid pill abuse have turned chronic pain patients into collateral damage.

“There’s a difference between addiction and dependency,” she said. “They take it to be able to participate in life and addicts take it to escape from life. Without the medication they don’t have quality of life.”

Bruton invites the public to join her at the Don’t Punish Pain rally on Oct. 16 at the DEA building in Midland to support victims of the opioid crisis.

Pain specialists from Medical Center Hospital, Advanced Pain Center in Odessa and D’Agostino’s office could not be reached for comment.