Cathy Mitchell, long-time registered nurse, now disabled, is shown with her grandson in high school (Photo: Family Photo)

Patients with chronic pain and the groups that represent the response to opioid dependence ignore their need for painkillers and doctors who prescribe them, leaving some unemployed, bedridden and even suicidal.

Severe prescription laws that took effect Sunday, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) dosing guidelines and state and federal charges against doctors who prescribe opioids are an excess According to several dozens of people suffering from incessant pain who have contacted USA TODAY'S HUI.

CDC researchers said in an April article in the American Journal of Public Health that they overestimated the number of Americans who died from opioid overdoses. prescription. Due to inaccurate tracking methods, the CDC stated that it incorrectly counted many synthetic opioid overdoses unlawfully manufactured as fentanyl as prescription drug deaths.

The CDC estimated that 32,445 Americans had died from overdoses involving prescription opioid pain medications in 2016. The new estimate of fatal overdoses of prescription opioids is CDCS 17,087, accounting for 53 percent of all prescription opioid medications. initial estimate.

Last year, Lauren Deluca of Worcester, Mass., Founded the Chronic Disease Awareness and Awareness Group after she had to deal with the opioid pain medications she needed.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is trying to repair some of this damage by holding a public meeting on July 9th on the development of chronic pain medications and the challenges patients face in getting the treatment they need. need.

Moriah White, of Braxton County, West Virginia, calls herself an "opioid war victim" and says she welcomes any help that the government is willing to offer. She had to leave a job teaching special education because of fibromyalgia, which makes her skin look like "a sunburn rubbed with a wire brush".

Danny Elliott's pain doctor was arrested last week in a "takedown" in Florida and Georgia of 600 doctors accused of health care fraud and illegal prescription of opioids by ministry officials of Justice and Administration. The former sellers of the pharmaceutical industry were electrocuted in 1997, leaving him with a traumatic brain injury that was so painful that he was considering suicide. He's trying to find a new doctor. His precedent was the first "that relieved me."

Jaime Camacho, deputy special agent of the DEA Campaign Division in Miami, said last week that the agency was "determined to end the opioid crisis"

Clinical Psychologist Michael Schatman , editor of the Journal of Pain Research, who describes himself as a "moderate opioid," said that about 90% of people were better off without opioids.

But it's the 10% who need it who are terribly hurt by the policies and enforcement measures pushed by groups that he calls "radically anti-opioid."

"For years, federal and state legislators have not been able to do anything about it. have done nothing, leaving the care to state medical advice and regulatory agencies, "said Schatman, director of research at Boston Pain Care, who has treated hundreds of patients overdose or suicide. in one go, the leg State islators enact incredibly draconian laws that are and have the future potential to literally kill people. "

Scott Gottlieb, Commissioner Food and Drugs, at an interview in his office, April 5, 2017. (Photo: Ja & # 39; Kayla Mordecai)

He cited laws, such as the one that took effect on July 1 in states, including Florida, which tighten the regulation of doctors who prescribe opioids and other controlled substances. Patients with terminal cancer and the elderly do not have enough time to live to become addicted and suffer needlessly because of the law, said Schatman.

The president of the Florida House, Richard Corcoran, who witnessed the signing of the bill, defended the approach, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

"Is this a disadvantage? Yes," Corcoran said. "Does a disadvantage deserve to save 50,000 lives nationwide? Absolutely."

This attitude has led some doctors whose patients had no problem with the prescriptions opioids to avoid prescribing them. Schatman said that there is a big difference between depending on opioids to survive and become addicted to them.

Cathy Mitchell, a registered nurse with a disability, suffers from a long list of injuries and illnesses, including osteoarthritis, post-major lumbar surgery for ruptured discs, Cervical Scoliosis and Bilateral Carpal Tunnel

Inactive since 2013, she stated that only opioids provide her with pain relief that allows her to "function daily".

She has to go to a pain clinic every 28 days and to her primary care physician every three months. After 10 years of treatment for pain and anxiety "without causing problems", Mitchell can no longer be treated for both.

The FDA's plans include encouraging the development of medical devices for pain and organizing a drug development meeting on July 9th. how difficult it is for patients with chronic pain to get treatment and what solutions exist.

"The reality is that opioid medications work for some patients, and there are some situations where opioids are the only drugs that work for these patients," said Scott Gottlieb, FDA Commissioner. The success of the FDA will be tested by the fact that physicians are largely controlled by the states and that even as opioid prescriptions decrease, overdose deaths increase as addicts pass through. heroin, often in combination with other drugs. The FDA has recommended that doctors reduce opioid prescriptions, but doctors and their medical societies remain opposed.

State medical advice has been particularly aggressive in some states after obtaining doctor's licenses for excessive prescribing of opioid analgesics.

Patients with chronic pain across the country said that when doctors lose their license or stop treating patients with pain, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to find a new doctor willing to take them patient.

In Virginia, the then governor, Terry McAuliffe, boasted, in October, of a panel that the state had led the reduction of prescriptions. opioids, including a decline of one-third over the previous six months. Doctors are not allowed to prescribe or renew an opioid prescription for more than 10 days without a written explanation.

Two years ago, the state medical board suspended the license of Jenny Austin's front-line physician.

Austin, a former business banker, had to be away from work to suffer crippling migraines and a neurological disorder, she sought a higher dose of painkillers. She continued to see her Virginia doctor even after moving to Louisiana because she was "desperate to find a solution that would reduce my hospitalizations."

Instead, she is unemployed and in bed most of the time.

To remedy this situation, the FDA plans to encourage medical professional associations to develop evidence-based guidelines for appropriate prescribing and the ability to incorporate new label information. anti-pain opioids.

Schatman is skeptical that the efforts will make a big difference, in part because he said "there is no empirical evidence that applications and other medical devices can improve the quality of medical medicine. the pain in the United States. " the pendulum rocked, "said Schatman." This current climate of opiophobia is … to leave patients more dysfunctional, with diminished quality of life, severe hopelessness and increasing suicidality in the patient population of chronic pain. "

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