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They call it protection, but it's punishment
for people who have done nothing wrong.
A war on drugs that forgot the wounded
left the sick in the crossfire,
and buried compassion under an avalanche of bureaucracy and lies. 2- CDC dropped a guideline like a guillotine—
PROP’s manifesto dressed as medicine
but it wasn’t healing, it was erasure.
A one-size-fits-none decree that turned doctors into gatekeepers and patients into suspects.

1-
Our pain is not just in our bones or nerves, and it's not just in our heads. It lives in the silence after we speak the truth about our pain and are met with disbelief. It festers in the sterile smiles of professionals who dismiss our agony with platitudes or excuses. 2-We begin to vanish from our own stories.
Rooms shrink.
Conversations end too quickly if they happen at all.
We become the unbearable weight in the room everyone pretends doesn't exist.

1-And to wrap things up today...
This is our Critical Analysis of fallout from the 'opioid crisis scam'.
Misattribution of Deaths: The lack of IMF testing until the mid-2000s falsely attributed overdoses to prescription opioids, inflating their perceived role.
#PainCareCrisis 2-It was clear by 2015, (due to more widespread testing upon death), IMF was the dominant driver of drug poisinings, yet policies like the CDC’s guidelines and DEA’s quota cuts continued targeting prescriptions, harming patients without addressing illicit markets.

1-Continuing the conversation about how the 'opioid crisis' scam is harming and killing vulnerable patients with serious illnesses and injuries...
#PainCareCrisis 2-Harmful Outcomes: Forced tapering or discontinuation increases risks of suicide, mental health crises, and illicit drug use. A 2019 Health Affairs analysis linked restrictive policies to an 8% rise in suicides among chronic pain patients.

1-An overview of my conversation with @Grok, on how the 'opioid crisis' scam is harming vulnerable patients/ a scam that's led to policies which severely limit access to opioids, benzodiazepines, and ADHD medications, devastating patients who rely on them. 2-"Overprescribing" lacks a clear legal or medical definition. It is a made up term that emerged in the late 1990s and 2000s as a catch-all term to describe high prescription opioid volumes based on a medically baseless maximum 'morphine milligram equivalent', or MME.

This is a cry for help!
Not because I’m considering suicide.

This is a cry for help for millions in pain. It’s a cry for those who are taking their own lives to end the agony they've been told that they  just need to learn to accept.

#PainCareCrisis 2-It’s a rallying cry for people to start talking about what’s happening, what has been happening for years now, to people with serious illnesses & injuries in this country. Virtually no one is talking about this in the public forum-This is the other side of the ‘opioid crisis’.

1-BEER
Imagine: Beer poisoning kills a few thousand.
Gov declares beer to be highly addictive & dangerous. They implement gov database monitoring of sales & restricting access to beer, you are monitored through your DL. DEA put restrictions on sales & commercial production... 2-There is evidence that deaths are not the beer from the store that's killing most people, although alcohol related deaths do include store bought beer. Some studies say deaths are from a new strong smuggled beer, and beer being made in garages.

The Pain Care Crisis: A Call for Compassionate Policy
The majority of people who rely on RX opiate medicines for chronic pain are being unfairly penalized and harmed due to policies aimed at 'misuse'.
Thread...1/
#PainCareCrisis 2-Deadly policies-touted as well-intentioned-have led to unintended consequences across the board, leaving millions of chronic pain patients struggling to access the medications they desperately need.

1-Thread about the barriers to care for people in pain and what needs to change.
I. Addressing Chilling Effect
End Morphine Milligram Equivalent (MME)
Prescribing must reflect individualized patient need, considering benefits/risks for each patient.
#PainCareCrisis 2-Regulation of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs):
Define clear & limited circumstances under which law enforcement can access PDMP data.
Protect healthcare providers from unjust prosecution based on PDMP data and require warrants for any LE investigation.

Thread: Denying opiate medications to individuals who genuinely need them for pain management can lead to many serious health issues and so much more...
#PainCareCrisis #TheOutlawAdvocate 2-Increased Pain and Suffering:
The most immediate effect is an increase in pain, which can severely degrade the quality of life, making daily activities unbearable or impossible.

Kolodny laid out a detailed plan in how to reduce opioid Rxing in a meeting in NY, before guideline was even published.
@jmkillingnyc has so much information on how insidious this anti-opioid agenda was from inception in early/mid 2000s and even earlier I believe.
#PainCareCrisis

https://twitter.com/ravensspirit68/status/1858158515380265283

2-In order to fight back against draconian prescribing protocols, we need to understand how we got here & what's preventing change.
Changes in Standard of Care requires MDs to stay withing the bounds of restrictions.
Law enforcement in medicine has created a chilling effect.

Thread...1-Prescribing practices should never have gotten to the point where some of the most vulnerable people in our society-the sick/injured/elderly-are left in agony, driven to the point of desperation with little to no hope in sight of things changing.
#PainCareCrisis

https://twitter.com/StefanKertesz/status/1856559200052146527

2-People with serious illnesses and injuries have been being told every year for over a decade to 'hold on', that change is coming. I know from having boots on the ground in the chronic illness community that for most, things have only gotten worse.
#PainCareCrisis

1-What I've noticed over 14 years of advocating for people in pain is when you make it clear you're not anti-opioid, MDs, legislators, media, and GOV officials become rude then dismiss you. If you still don't go away, they'll then attack your character/ignore you.
#PainCareCrisis 2-Even when presenting facts-like the extremely low incidence of 'addiction by prescription'.
Or if we explain the safety/efficacy of opiate medicines when taken as prescribed, or the real dangers of leaving someone without effective pain control, including death- we are ignored.

Thread-There's probably more to unpack here than X or my current flare will allow me to elaborate on.
From deflection to gaslighting and than on to dismissal of anything we #chronicpatients or even professionals say.
#ChronicPain #PainCareCrisis @DEAHQ
federalregister.gov/documents/2024… 2-Section 306 of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) (21 U.S.C. 826) requires the Attorney General to establish aggregate production quotas for each basic class of controlled substance in schedule I and II...
Maybe next letter writing campaign to the U.S. A.G?
#PainCareCrisis

1-The most idiotic & insulting things those with #ChronicPain face is the implication or direct accusation that we 'just want opiates'.
The truth is, we ARE 'seeking' the meds from MDs we require for pain relief but usually ONLY AFTER trying almost everything else already. 2-When one is ill or injured they usually try the old standby's first vs before going to a doctor.
Ice, heat, OTC meds like Ibuprophen or Tylenol-Even both. Some try herbal supplements, massage, gentle exercise, diet, even acupuncture before seeking help from an MD.
#ChronicPain

1-Objective: SAVE LIVES.
Recently I said a #SafeSupply is the pinnacle of saving lives but I realized it's not; it's the FOUNDATION, upon which we build policies to actually save lives.
I'm going to refer to this moving forward as the GOLD STANDARD in reducing #DeathsOfDespair. 2-Drugs would be legalized. A safe, known potency supply of substances created by existing drug manufacturers. It would include supply for RX'd medicines as well as for OTC public, adult, sales and consumption. Similar to how alcohol is sold & consumed now.
#SafeSupply

1-#ChronicPain patients knew that the opioid 'guideline' re: prescribing practices was not law.
But as intended, PROP's 'guideline' shaped the Standard of Care re: #opioid prescribing practices so it might as well have been law.
Why?
Tort law.
Let's try and break it down. 2-Once PROP's ‘opioid guideline’ was published through CDC, prescribing practices started to formally change nationally and altered how doctors were to treat pain; altering the Standard of Care. This was crafted around an ‘opioids are dangerous drugs' narrative.
#ChronicPain

Let's break down #TheGreatOpioidLie.
1-"Over-prescribing was the cause of the opioid crisis."
First according to the Medical Board of CA, there is no legal definition of 'overprescribing'.
Second, it is a THEORY that the mandate to treat pain led to the overdose crisis
cont... 2-The Gov's own stats disprove the access theory. As access to RX meds declines we continued to see a steady increase in drug deaths.
Seems something else might have been a the heart of why we saw a rise in ODs and continue to see record numbers of PEOPLE dying.
#ChornicPain

1-How is the #WarOnPainPatients being waged, let us count the ways...
You're probably seeing an MD because OTCs aren't working.
You're told ibuprophen works well for pain & offered an RX for ibuphropen.
You decline as you've been taking it OTC for months.

You just refused meds. 2-If you counter any aspects of #TheGreatOpioidLie, citing facts vs fiction...

It's can be charted that you're emotional-hostile-agitated.
'Drug seeking' behaviors.
*Women are often labeled hostile just for being in assertive when dealing with people in positions of power. 😔

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.

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Every pain patient should know our history and know who Siobhan Reynolds was.

#ChronicPain #RememberingSiobhanReynolds 2-

#ChronicPain