Scott Morgan lives in what he calls a "prison" in Branson West, near the shore of Table Rock Lake.

The 64-year-old retired teacher spends about 14 hours a day sitting in a leather recliner, near a fireplace and in front of large-screen television. His wife and two small dogs — Paisley and Lil' Brown — keep him company.

"It's not a bad prison," Morgan said, but he feels trapped nonetheless.

Pain is his jailer — incurable, severe and daily burning pain in his back that keeps him from sleeping through the night, causes his legs and feet to twitch and makes him bite down so hard that, at times, his teeth have chipped and cracked.

It wasn't always like this, Morgan said. Fifteen months ago, he kept his pain at bay through powerful prescription opioids. He said he lived an active life, boating, fishing, traveling and attending church.

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The same type of pills that Morgan relied on to suppress his pain have come under intense scrutiny in recent years.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, doctors used to prescribe opioids with a free hand. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, increased prescription of opioid medications led to the misuse of prescription and non-prescription opioids, such as heroin. In 2016, opioid overdoses accounted for more than 42,000 deaths, with 40 percent of those involving a prescription opioid.

In 2017, the Department of Health and Human Services declared the national opioid crisis as a public health emergency.

In recent years, there's been a big change in how doctors view and treat chronic pain, according to Stacey Cottrell, department head of CoxHealth's Pain Medicine Center.

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Medical professionals have moved away from the "Band-Aids" of quick-acting narcotics, such as prescription opioids, and towards long-term solutions, Cottrell said.

Doctors realized that prescription opioids are highly addictive because they act on the brain, not the source of pain, according to Cottrell.

Those pills can also make pain worse, not better, in the long run. People who use prescription opioids for extended periods of time — for months or years — can develop hyperalgesia, where they become "super sensitive" to pain, she said.

The focus is now on prescribing extended-release medications in combination with a variety of other tools, such as physical therapy, proper diet and exercise, psychological services and other treatments such as localized injections to the area in pain, Cottrell said.

"It's a whole treatment plan that doesn't focus on medicine alone," Cottrell said. "It's important to get medicine. Once you become chronic ... you're going to have to do a lot more than take medicine to achieve a higher quality of life."

There's also been a heightened emphasis on testing to obtain "objective data" to understand the patient's pain, according to Cottrell. While in the past, physicians would go off of the patient's perceived pain level, now they go through a wide variety of tests — genetic tests, blood tests, urine drug tests, psychological behavioral health tests, MRIs, X-rays and more.

The change in pain management standards was brought on by increased awareness of the opioid crisis and the publication of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for primary care physicians that set standards for maximum doses of opioids, among other things, Cottrell said.

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She recognizes that change has been difficult for chronic pain patients but said the key is continuing re-education on how to best treat pain.

"I'm sure it's been very frustrating for those patients when they feel like that the medication that has made a difference in their lives may not be continued anymore," Cottrell said.

In Morgan's experience, it's been very frustrating indeed. He said it's now hard to find physicians who will prescribe doses of opioids at the strength and frequency he says he needs to live a pain-free life.

He believes it's important to keep opioids out of the hands of people who don't need them and agrees with some of the reforms aimed at limiting the spread and abuse of opioids.

However, he says there are "millions" of people nationwide whose lives have been negatively impacted by the "demonization" of opioids. He says they feel "forgotten."

Morgan sees himself as a victim. He doesn't do illegal drugs, doesn't misuse medication and has never experienced negative side effects from opioids.

After trying dozens of alternatives to pain relief, such as injections into his spine, hemp oil, electrical shocks to dull his nerve endings, chiropractic work, over-the-counter medicine and other types of prescription pills, Morgan is convinced that nothing works for his pain except for opioids.

"Medicine gave me life," Morgan said. "I could be cured tomorrow, I could be cured by this afternoon .... but doctors say, 'Sorry, we can't help you.'"

Morgan's medical history

Morgan's debilitating back pain stems from an old injury he suffered during football practice in college. He temporarily lost feeling in his legs and never played on the team again.

Morgan doesn't blame football; he blames genetics. Spinal degeneration runs in the family, he said: "The bone just kind of softens. It crumbles, breaks easy."

Sixteen years after the initial injury, Morgan's back began causing real problems. His legs would go numb. He would fall.

In 1995 — when Morgan was 37 years old — surgeons put screws, bolts and plates in his back. One surgeon said, "Scott, your back looks like an 85-year-old man's who has farmed all his life."

For a couple of years after the surgery, Morgan said he was "toughing it out" without prescription pain relievers. It wasn't until the late 1990s when he went to the pain clinic and began taking opioids.

"(It) changed my life drastically," Morgan said.

Morgan said prescription opioids kept his pain at bay and allowed him to live a normal life for the next 20 years. He worked with "exceptional" high school students, who had high IQs but struggled with learning disabilities ranging from severe dyslexia to "emotional disturbances." He and his wife owned a horse farm; he enjoyed spending time outdoors and traveling.

"Then, wham, I got hit in September 2017 with this opiate scare, and it's been downhill since then," he said.

One day, the pain doctor he had been seeing in Lawrence, Kansas told him that she would have to start tapering down his doses of prescription opioids.

"(My doctor told me): 'I have some horrible news for you... My clinic is going with CDC regulations and I can't prescribe the medicine you need any more,'" he said. "Every month after that until January, I took less and less doses until I was down to nothing. It was just awful."

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Morgan found another pain clinic closer to home but left its care after several months because he felt like he wasn't getting the help he needed and the medical professionals there behaved antagonistically, treating him "like (he) was an opioid addict."

He hated the barrage of tests he was subjected to, believing them to be an unnecessary waste of time and money. He hated that the doctors didn't listen to him.

After his last appointment with that clinic, Morgan said he had to go to the emergency room because he was in so much pain.

In the past year, the Morgan estimates he and his wife have spent at least $10,000 out of pocket on medical expenses related to his pain.

These days, Morgan spends most of his waking hours in his leather recliner, dreaming about being able to go outside.

"It's a joyless life," he said.

He watches the clock, counting the minutes until his next scheduled pill. He keeps meticulous records of his medications in a paper calendar. He watches television. Sometimes he tries to read the Bible, learn new skills or cook.

Morgan keeps a medley of prescription and over-the-counter pills next to his recliner. One is for his blood sugar, another is to keep his bowel movements regular, there's a muscle relaxer and an anticonvulsant.

Morgan handles a small, round pink pill with care. It's Oxycodone, the only medicine in the glass that really helps, he said.

He takes six "very small doses" of the prescription opioid per day. He said they help "take the edge off" but don't throttle the pain. Morgan said though six doses may seem like a lot, the total amount of medication is far less than what he used to take.

In comparison, before Morgan was forced to taper down, he took five 30-milligram pills of Oxycodone and two morphine pills daily.

Morgan said he's "dependent" on, not addicted to, opioids. For him, the distinction is that he feels nothing but pain relief when he pops a pill. There's no high, he said.

When he stops and goes through "withdrawals," there's no craving for the medication, Morgan said, only a desire to be free from pain.

Morgan is emotional when he talks about the toll his pain has taken on his wife's life.

Jody Morgan has been with Scott for 40 years.

"It was pretty much love at first sight" with the "very, very nice, very funny and very good looking" brother of her best friend, Jody said.

Jody was a nurse for 40 years and continues to use her medical background to help her husband.

She watches the combination of medicine that he takes, makes sure he's comfortable and researches any new medications and therapies that might be able to help.

"It breaks my heart to see him now," she said.

Scott Morgan said he feels like a burden to her.

"She didn't sign up for this. I was supposed to be taking care of her," he said.

She responds: "It's part of being married .... I don't mind that we're in it together."

For Morgan, it's hard to imagine a future like this. He is waiting to be admitted to the University of Missouri's pain management center. He holds onto the hope that doctors in Columbia will be able to help him.

If that doesn't work, he said, he's considering filing a lawsuit.

Morgan believes he has a right to prescription opioids, citing a Missouri law that says doctors can prescribe "controlled substances" to patients with intractable pain, meaning pain that cannot be treated with standard medical care.

"You're denying a whole bunch of people their right to what they need," Morgan said.