Those that are physically able can attend a Don't Punish Pain Rally. There is another DPP rally coming up October 16. I have only been able to attend one rally. It's hard when one is in extreme pain and with limited funds to be able to travel to the rallies.

Why Are We Being Treated This Way?

What is happening to us? Why are our physicians, those trained to treat and care for us, turning their backs on us? Why are we being shunned? Why are we being treated like we did something wrong?

Why are people who abuse drugs being treated with compassion and care but not us? They hurt their families, they steal, they destroy their bodies, they seemingly don't care. We don't do any of that. Our pain is caused by diseases we never asked for. We care, we want to live and we want to participate in life.

They get clean needles, clean rooms to shoot up in, free Narcan, and in Canada they are giving Dilaudid (hydromorphone) to those who abuse drugs. Dilaudid is an opioid used for treating severe pain. I was on Dilaudid three years ago. Not anymore.

I just read about a county in England that is going to provide medical grade heroin twice a day to drug addicts. Why? The police are hoping it will lower crime in the area. I bet they have lines form they never expected.

So now those who abuse are getting free heroin. Yet pain patients are kicked to the curb. How can physicians care for one who abuses their body but refuse to treat a human being suffering from intractable pain? I don't mean to sound so cold when it comes to those who abuse, but people in pain are suffering unrelenting pain because of them.

If we ask for meds, ask for referrals or refuse a treatment we know will have adverse effects, we are accused of being non-compliant and dropped by our doctors. I believe the loss of compassion from our physicians is why many of us are having these unexplained pain flares that are becoming our new norm.

I have been reading on social media that patients on opioids who move or are dropped are finding it impossible to get a new primary care physician. I saw my PCP last week and asked her about it. She emphatically told me "they" would not accept new patients who are on or had been on opioids. I was afraid to ask who “they” were, but am assuming it's all or most of the doctors in this area.

I am sorry for all my friends in pain and for those I don't know who are in pain. I am sorry we are being treated like addicts. That those in healthcare would turn a blind eye to us. My heart breaks for those who feel the only solution is to take their life to end the pain. That is so wrong. Human beings are being pushed to that point by those elected to represent us and those in healthcare who are supposed to care but don't. I am so very sorry.