1-VERY early on we warned about 'pain contracts', the weaponized PDMP, & probable ramifications.
Some of us predicted that opioid policies would metastasize to other meds; suggested that a palliative care exemption for chronic pain patients and MDs who treated them was needed. 😔
2-We sounded the alarm about suicides in our community, real harms to people already sick and injured due to 'opioid policies'.
We were told that our accounts were anecdotes, that 'studies' would be needed for 'proof'.
We continue to suffer & watch friends/loved ones suffer/die.
3-We saw how 'DRUG' stigma was passed from one community to the sick & injured. How addiction tx options then somehow became the 'solution' for people with #chronicpain; patients already stable and functional on affordable, safe, and effective old school opioid medicines.
1-Husband established w/a clinic in our town-
Same one that refused to treat my pain a few yrs ago after exacerbating my neck injury carrying firewood.
MD had told me I'd need a referral to a pain clinic as my pain was related to a chronic condition. 🤨
Husband given a brochure.
2-He then saw this in the exam room.
He took photos for me of all of this as he knows how they treated me in the past and he also knows about all the hypocrisy of what they say vs what they actually do when it comes to CPPs.
1-I now have ppl searching for me on FB after reading my article.
One person put a link on one of my posts about how to 'get hooked up with doctors who will give people the pills they want'.
I'm tired.
No, I'm beyond exhausted and I'm really over all of this. #ChronicPain
2-I deleted his 'pill hook up' link, he also posted a link to his own article in which he regurgitated the tired THEORY of how- 'over prescribing started the opioid crisis' and how 'prescription pills are now being laced with Fentanyl'. #TheGreatOpioidLie
3-Probably 25 more articles I need to write now expanding on things I could only touch on in my recent article. The first being. dispelling #TheGreatOpioidLie that uses the 'over prescribing' theory to justify the DEADLY, draconian restrictions they've implemented on RX meds.
1/ Makes me sad-
The same arguments/facts we were making back in 2014 when Share Our Pain was one of the few E-advocacy groups here are the same things new people are just realizing.
Siobhan Reynolds-way before that.
GOV KNOWS the HARMS.
All the anti-opioid PROPagandists know.
2/EVERY #chronicpain pt needs to know our history re: our advocacy. Siobhan Reynolds was a lion, hunted down by GOV, cut down in the prime of her life.
Her voice will echo through time, forewarning the atrocities we see rapidly increasing in real time now. doctorsofcourage.org/siohban-reynol…
Thread-I've asked the pain community to write letters to the @WhiteHouse ATTN: @FLOTUS or @Potus.
This is my own letter already sent re: how MY family's been impacted.
Now an #OpenLetter.
It will take all of us writing for #PainAwarenessMonth to make an impression. #ChronicPain
1-Stop the, 'Over prescribing caused the opioid crisis.' narrative. I read article after article where 'liberal prescribing' is ascribed as the cause of the so called #opioidcrisis.
Many articles are written by people in our own community, self proclaimed pain pt ‘advocates’.
2-To this, I’d like to point out that in OC even a judge recently ruled:
"There is simply no evidence to show that the rise in prescriptions was not the result of the medically appropriate provision of pain medications to patients in need," #RxOpioidsSaveLives #ChronicPain