So, how does your chiropractic solution apply to me? What do you have to say about the medicine I take and the fact that I am not an addict, I don’t abuse drugs and I am better than I have ever been? There IS a role for opioids in many people who suffer from severe chronic pain. And it’s people like you who make these pain sufferers doubt themselves for no reason. Keep your chiropractic solutions for those who will fall for them. But don’t propose that they can treat severe, chronic pain when you know it’s not true.

I respond as a non-physician patient advocate and healthcare writer with 20+ years experience in peer to peer support groups and social media backed by publications in both professional and popular venues (The Journal of Medicine, Pain News Network, National Pain Report, American Council on Science and Health, Global Summit for Diagnostic Alternatives of the Society for Humanistic Psychology, and others). I see reports from hundreds of patients who are being deserted, stigmatized, and abused by their own government in what amounts to nothing less than a war against pain patients. Doctors are leaving pain management practice in droves, some of them discharging long-term patients without support for opioid withdrawal. I have personally interacted with two surviving spouses of patients who suicided after being denied treatment with the only class of medications that worked — opioid analgesics. They are only the tip of a growing iceberg.

What is especially ironic in this horrid situation is that the war against pain patients is totally bogus. Drugs given by doctors under prescription and managed under prevailing standards of practice were not originally responsible for our so-called “opioid epidemic”. Opioid abuse disorder among properly profiled and managed chronic pain patients is relatively rare — less than 1/2 of one percent estimated in a 2010 Cochrane Review, and only slightly higher in other published papers.

Denying relief to hundreds of thousands of people in agony won’t “solve” the addiction epidemic. The National Institutes on Drug Abuse tell us that the most reliable predictors for abuse issues are status a white male adolescent or young adult, a history of unemployment, and associated mental health issues. And it is unusual in this population for people to see a doctor for pain severe enough to warrant prescription of opioid pain relievers for more than a few days. The most common encounters are following dental surgery. A few people may be prescribed opioids for sports injuries and the like — but they are not representative or typical and doctors already know that.

I believe that the first and most important step in correcting this horrible state of affairs is to demand withdrawal of the 2016 CDC opioid prescription guidelines. We know from many published papers that the guidelines were deliberately biased against opioids, based on cherry-picked research that violated standards of the CDC itself, and grossly incomplete and inaccurate. Nothing less than a total rewrite will help put this issue back into some kind of balance that honors the principle of “first do no harm.”

But writing letters and responding even to excellent articles such as this one really won’t change anything. The letters will go unread by legislators who are paid to remain ignorant and complicit by political contributors. Thus I am leading an effort to put a human face on chronic pain: to facilitate pain patients, family members and medical professionals doing in-person interviews with legislators and their staffs in district offices all across the US. We have already been joined by over 150 medical professionals in pain management, healthcare writers, knowledgeable patients and family members. To find our interim website simply do a Google search on “Alliance for the Treatment of Intractable Pain”.

Come and join us.

Richard A. Lawhern, Ph.D.
Corresponding Secretary, ATIP

I am a 36 year old female who was injured in a boating accident. All of the things I’ve described above have happened to me. I had JUST began planning to go back to school and put my life back together after being sick with gallbladder disease for 2 years. I finally had the surgery (it was one of the worst cases they’d ever seen in 60 years, so I’m not a liar when I say I’m in pain!) But, as others have said, I simply don’t have the funds for all of this alternate treatment that suddenly everyone thinks is necessary! I was managing just fine… until I was cut back by more than half and probably taken completely off meds that help me to function by next year. I try to stay positive, but this will have me bedridden & unable to climb all the steps & walk around my campus next year.

I don’t think this law has been well thought through. Has the government any idea how many people will have to become DISABLED now? Because they can no longer go to work and do their jobs? Becoming an invalid scares me to death. I foresee a wasteland of suicides and desperate who turn to illicit drugs bc they are so desperate just to be ABLE TO FUNCTION.

I have adhesive arachnoiditis. For 14 years I got a weekly table massage and a monthly leg and foot massage so that I could work and feel relatively comfortable. My disease has progressed to violent and extremely painful muscle contractions with some loss of motor function when that is happening. I can no longer tolerate any kind of massage or chiropractic adjustment because it hurts like hell while it is happening and puts me in bed for 3 days afterward. How I long for the days when my masseuse and my chiropractor could get me back on my feet.

There is no effective treatment for eliminating the cause of arachnoiditis. The “adjustment and manipulation” described above may work for some conditions, but get real, they don’t work for botched back surgeries or for what I have. Even opioids do not make me completely comfortable.

I can live with a certain level of pain and be grateful there is something to get me to that happy state. I have no desire to live with long-term intractable pain that has me screaming for help and makes it impossible to function.

About 15 years ago I reached the point that I was missing significant amounts of work due to pain so my doctor started me on pain management. I routinely take a long-acting opioid, with a fast-acting one for use for breakthrough pain. The contract I signed with my specialist requires that I refrain from using alcohol, obtain all pain medications only from my MD or in consultation with him, use only one pharmacy, submit to UA tox screens.

My goal in treating my pain has been to reduce the pain to a nuisance level that won’t interfere too much in my activities Over the decade and a half on pain management I have not found a need to increase dosages due to tolerance, have never tried to refill early or finished my prescription early. Before I started pain management I was in danger of being forced into disability. Instead I was able to work in a mentally challenging field to just after my 65th birthday.