Pain , Pain Med Abuse and the Honest Truth

May 2011, at least the first two weeks, have been filled with Federal agencies announcing plans to stem the “Epidemic of Prescription Pain Medication.”  FDA has released information for consumers of long-lasting pain medication and SAMHSA has announced an effort to approach the issue of pain medication use, misuse and abuse with a comprehensive program over the next five years. 

As a person who has periods of chronic pain, I wonder where this leaves various Americans who–rightfully–wish to have a voice in addressing this problem. Persons with pain need access to pain management without undue hassle and persons with acute pain (e.g. from an accident or injury or dental surgery) need to be treated appropriately for acute pain. Acute pain treatment is important both to reduce the progression to chronic pain, but also to avoid the potential for acute pain, which could have been managed, to become, for the pain patients, the source of prescription pain medicine abuse, misuse or addiction.  Furthermore, more pain patients means more people who become the unwitting suppliers of diverted pain medications.  The following is my personal story. But this blog will be revisited as this issue develops.

Pain sufferers–you will relate to this post: it is about pain so terrible that every thought you have makes you feel like vomiting. The sound of the wind in the trees, through a window, is excruciating. Every image that comes to mind is so sickening you want to die. You think–to the extent that you can think at all–about how best to kill yourself and make the least possible mess in the house.

Pain is a terrible thing and so misunderstood by those who have never really experienced it or have only experienced acute pain. We pain suffers are big liars. We tell our loved ones that it is not so bad, because we can’t stand the thought of being forced out of our beds to go to the hospital. The idea of the trip there is beyond acceptable. We would rather lie in the dark and suffer than get our heads around the notion that someone somewhere–such as a doctor at a hospital–could help us live through the next few hours.

Oh, yes, we have medications at home. We take them all–risking serious consequences–in an attempt to make the pain subside. We nibble on saltines because the medicine is supposed to be taken with food, but all food is so nauseating to our minds that we can hardly bear the nibbling we must do on these three crackers we have set out as our goal.

People stop in, such as our children, to give us some interesting bit of news, like my daughter last night who was heading out with friends to celebrate her 16th birthday, and they see us with our head literally in our hands, wrapped in blindfolds left over from airline flights where they give out the eyecovers so you can sleep on the flight. Pain suffers save these items, because you need at least two or three to completely block out all the light, even at night, that is somehow shining through the darkness and making your head throb that much worse.

Headaches are not the only kind of chronic pain, but they are one of the kinds that I get. As a pain sufferer, however, I do have other kinds of pain. I even have pain preferences. I would much rather have the unexplained pain that I sometimes get in my teeth–all of them– than a headache. Where does this mouth pain come from? It is a mystery. I do not grind my teeth, I have never had a cavity. My teeth are in perfect condition, but they can suddenly become the source of amazing pain that requires opioid based therapeutics. Or there is the creepy, crawly, pain that I sometimes get in my legs. No amount of rubbing or wringing can make the pain go away. I lay there longing for cramps, because they are preferable to the horror of the creepy crawly pain.

Why this blog–well, other than venting, to attempt to describe for you, the non-pain sufferer, how we feel. To help you understand why we must be allowed to have pain medications in our homes without the fear that others will steal it (or “borrow” it). This misuse of our much needed medicine gives us a bad name, it gets us strange looks from pharmacists–who are otherwise pretty nice people but who look and scrutinize those of us who regularly obtain controlled substances as though we are addicts. STOP looking at us like this. We are merely trying to be prepared for the next episode. Furthermore, we never know when it will come. True, some of us have triggers. Frankly, I feel sorry for those people because they must bear the added burden of knowing that they sometimes make choices, like participating in a toast at a party (yes, just one sip of alcohol) that will later result in their secret desire to die.

If you are the loved one of someone with chronic pain, God bless you. Thank you for checking on us every twenty minutes–quietly slipping into the dark room to see if we need anything, to check if the pain has subsided at all and to sigh when you notice that we have finally fallen into sleep.

 

Pain and the Honest Truth

Pain sufferers will be able to relate to this post: it is about pain so terrible that every thought you have makes you feel like vomiting. The sound of the wind in the trees, through a window, is excruciating. Every image that comes to mind is so sickening you want to die. You think–to the extent that you can think at all–about how best to kill yourself and make the least possible mess in the house. 

Pain is a terrible thing and so misunderstood by those who have never really experienced it or have only experienced acute pain. We pain suffers are big liars. We tell our loved ones that it is not so bad, because we can’t stand the thought of being forced out of our beds to go to the hospital. The idea of the trip there is beyond acceptable. We would rather lie in the dark and suffer than get our heads around the notion that someone somewhere–such as a doctor at a hospital–could help us live through the next few hours.

Oh, yes, we have medications at home. We take them all–risking serious consequences–in an attempt to make the pain subside. We nibble on saltines because the medicine is supposed to be taken with food, but all food is so nauseating to our minds that we can hardly bear the nibbling we must do on these three crackers we have set out as our goal.

People stop in, such as our children, to give us some interesting bit of news, like my daughter last night who was heading out with friends to celebrate her 16th birthday, and they see us with our head literally in our hands, wrapped in blindfolds left over from airline flights where they give out the eyecovers so you can sleep on the flight. Pain suffers save these items, because you need at least two or three to completely block out all the light, even at night, that is somehow shining through the darkness and making your head throb that much worse.

Headaches are not the only kind of chronic pain, but they are one of the kinds that I get. As a pain sufferer, however, I do have other kinds of pain. I even have pain preferences. I would much rather have the unexplained pain that I sometimes get in my teeth–all of them– than a headache. Where does this mouth pain come from? It is a mystery. I do not grind my teeth, I have never had a cavity. My teeth are in perfect condition, but they can suddenly become the source of amazing pain that requires opioid based therapeutics. Or there is the creepy, crawly, pain that I sometimes get in my legs. No amount of rubbing or wringing can make the pain go away. I lay there longing for cramps, because they are preferable to the horror of the creepy crawly pain.

Why this blog–well, other than venting, to attempt to describe for you, the non-pain sufferer, how we feel. To help you understand why we must be allowed to have pain medications in our homes without the fear that others will steal it (or “borrow” it). This mis-use of our much needed medicine gives us a bad name, it gets us strange looks from pharmacists–who are otherwise pretty nice people but who look and scrutinize those of us who regularly obtain controlled substances like we are some kind of addicts. STOP looking at us like this. We are merely trying to be prepared for the next episode. Furthermore, we never know when it will come. True, some of us have triggers. Frankly, I feel sorry for those people because they must bear the added burden of knowing that they sometimes make choices, like participating in a toast at a party (yes, just one sip of alcohol) that will later result in their secret desire to die.

If you are the loved one of someone with chronic pain, God bless you. Thank you for checking on us every twenty minutes–quietly slipping into the dark room to see if we need anything, to check if the pain has subsided at all and to sigh when you notice that we have finally fallen into sleep. God bless you all.