painkills2
New Member
Hey, sketcher, I'm of the opinion that there's no such thing as an old thread on the internet, so welcome.
It wasn't until the Zohydro controversy that I read about how many pain patients are treated by general practitioners, who do not (and cannot afford to) require the same "security" processes that many patients go through with a pain specialist. Now, even more pain patients are being farmed out to expensive specialists as more doctors refuse to treat chronic pain. Soon, a lot of doctors will refuse to treat any kind of pain with opioids. Although I hope that doesn't happen... no one will go to the dentist again.
It used to be that chronic pain patients were not victimized intentionally, but I don't think you can say the same today. However, the Veteran's Administration has recently changed their policies for chronic pain patients already on opioid therapy, allowing VA doctors to actually recommend medical cannabis for chronic pain. And patients don't have to quit one to try another. Sometimes, progressive moves in health care can be tracked from the VA to the mainstream -- if military doctors agree about medical cannabis, that allows other doctors to play follow the leader.
I'll just add on this thread that many anti-drug folks will say that long-term opioid therapy hasn't been proven to work, and I would guess that most chronic pain patients know how untrue that is. These ignoramouses go on to say that this treatment causes more harm than good, which I also disagree with. Chronic pain patients have so very few choices for treatments that work, and all options should be available for patients to experiment with and stay on if they so choose. It's always a combinations of treatments that work best for chronic pain, but it's also important to be able to switch from one treatment to another -- if it becomes ineffective or causes too many side effects.
The next time you hear someone spout this nonsense, just use this search term in Google:
Opioid Treatment 10-year Longevity Survey Final Report
Patients in this study were found to be functioning quite well after 10 or more years on generally stable opioid dosages
It wasn't until the Zohydro controversy that I read about how many pain patients are treated by general practitioners, who do not (and cannot afford to) require the same "security" processes that many patients go through with a pain specialist. Now, even more pain patients are being farmed out to expensive specialists as more doctors refuse to treat chronic pain. Soon, a lot of doctors will refuse to treat any kind of pain with opioids. Although I hope that doesn't happen... no one will go to the dentist again.
It used to be that chronic pain patients were not victimized intentionally, but I don't think you can say the same today. However, the Veteran's Administration has recently changed their policies for chronic pain patients already on opioid therapy, allowing VA doctors to actually recommend medical cannabis for chronic pain. And patients don't have to quit one to try another. Sometimes, progressive moves in health care can be tracked from the VA to the mainstream -- if military doctors agree about medical cannabis, that allows other doctors to play follow the leader.
I'll just add on this thread that many anti-drug folks will say that long-term opioid therapy hasn't been proven to work, and I would guess that most chronic pain patients know how untrue that is. These ignoramouses go on to say that this treatment causes more harm than good, which I also disagree with. Chronic pain patients have so very few choices for treatments that work, and all options should be available for patients to experiment with and stay on if they so choose. It's always a combinations of treatments that work best for chronic pain, but it's also important to be able to switch from one treatment to another -- if it becomes ineffective or causes too many side effects.
The next time you hear someone spout this nonsense, just use this search term in Google:
Opioid Treatment 10-year Longevity Survey Final Report
Patients in this study were found to be functioning quite well after 10 or more years on generally stable opioid dosages