Patients suffering from chronic pain manifest in Valparaiso | Local news

"I do not want to be an unintended consequence of the opioid epidemic," said Dawn Anderson, a Portage double amputee who organized the event. She stated that when her doctor substituted a shorter-acting, weaker form of morphine, it destroyed her quality of life, leaving her mostly confined to a wheelchair.

"We need the government to get out of our cabinet," she said.

About fifteen people participated in the Valparaiso event, with a steady stream of passersby stopping to get information. Signs included phrases such as "Non-addicted patients", "Pain is not a crime" and "CDC and FDA kill pain patients". A woman had a list of names of people who she said could not attend the rally because they were suffering so much.

Following what she called an epidemic of opioid overdose deaths, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2014 and again in 2016 published guidelines for the prescription of opioids for chronic pain . The recommendations included limiting the dosage of opioids and questioned the effectiveness of using opioid therapy for chronic long-term use.

"We are asking the CDC to remove the guidelines themselves or we can ask the politicians to do it by law," said Anderson, saying some people have committed suicide after their doses of painkillers have been lowered. "How many patients with chronic pain and veterans should they lose before removing these guidelines on CDC?"

Lynda Rollins, 57, of Valparaiso, said she now needed medication because of unsuccessful attempts by doctors to relieve her pain in the past by installing devices that did not work.

"People who have chronic pain did not ask for medicine at first, they asked to repair it," she said.

Marialyce Akers, of Portage, said she was now largely confined with a wheelchair because of her pain issues. She said that she had an accident when she was young and that she had never fully recovered. Her primary care physician recently removed her from hydrocodone and morphine, she said, and the pain treatment clinics would not prescribe a dose as high as before. .

"I do not have the quality of life," said the 53-year-old. "I can not even get into my kitchen."

She said that she sometimes skips dinner because of this and urinated herself because she could not go to the bathroom.

Becky Maranto, 46, of Porter, said the first thing her doctor did after being seen for pain problems was to prescribe opioid painkillers. She said she had autoimmune disease, scoliosis and migraines.

"I do not want to make pills," she says.

She tried other methods of pain relief – physical therapy, acupuncture, chiropractic – but nothing worked as well as the pills she's now struggling to get, she said.

"It's not that I want it, but to live a life worth living, that's what I have to do," she said.

She created a support group in Chesterton called NWI Silent Sufferers (which meets at 7pm on the second Tuesday of each month at the Thomas Library, 200 W. Indiana Ave.)

Kimberly Jorgensen, 51, of Portage, said she was suffering from fibromyalgia and bulging discs. She said that a local doctor of pain pushed him to take opioids: fentanyl patches, of Dilaudid.

"I told her I did not want more," she said. "I took it for three days."

But she said it's now gone to the other extreme, where if she needs a small amount of opioids to relieve her pain from time to time, doctors are putting up obstacles in front of her: have her do physiotherapy.

Anderson said that she had not received a response from many lawmakers on the issue, and saw no legislation to address it. Akers said that a legislator from Indiana had told him that she should consume marijuana (which is illegal in Indiana for medicinal and recreational purposes).

"Let people know we are suffering here," Anderson said in his wheelchair, his legs amputated under his knees. "We need help now."