There are some medicines which are so safe and effective for certain conditions that they become synonymous with successfully controlling those conditions while saving the lives of those afflicted. Just as insulin is prevalent in the treatment of diabetes opioid RX’s are effective in controlling chronic, severe pain while saving and helping to restore lives. Imagine what life would be like for diabetics if a few fanatic individuals or groups were able to block their access to insulin while forcing diabetics to use alternative less effective or totally ineffective RX’s.

Those of us who are humane agree that no one should be killed or tortured because of their ethnic background, religious beliefs, nor color of their skin. Hopefully someday soon we may convince the majority of our fellow human beings that no one should be killed or tortured by denying real, effective control of chronic, severe pain with proven medications even though those medications may be offensive to a minority of individuals who happen to be fortunate enough to not be living with chronic, severe pain.

I received a letter from Blue Cross/Blue Shield today about the dangers of taking prescription opioids for more than a few weeks. Oddly enough there was zero mention about the danger of fatal cardiac complications due to the failure to control chronic severe pain or the devastating effect of untreated and uncontrolled chronic severe pain on a person’s general health and zero quality of life resulting in suicide due to pain. Are those who never have had to live in chronic severe pain month after month or year after year really that ignorant or do they just not care about those who do? This is even more concerning when we consider that they are likely closely related to those who are crippled by under treated chronic severe pain. Perhaps the medical establishment could be contracted by the government to create a program like a boot camp of severe pain in which those who wish to influence policies affecting chronic pain patients would be subjected to constant severe pain for a period of three months, but to be humane if they wished adequate treatment or relief they would be first required to read all the objections and criticisms leveled at medical practitioners who have the compassion and commitment to save and preserve the lives of pain patients. This boot camp would be required attendance for all law makers or enforcers with mandatory attendance and graduation a requirement for service in those occupations.

When I was 15 years old I hit the rear end a parked car while riding my motorcycle home from my job at the grocery store. At the time of impact I was traveling about 45 miles per hour. My pelvis attempted to go through a steel gas tank, and my right lower leg tried to destroy the rear, steel bumper of the car I hit. Guys especially can identify with the pain that occurs when a steel object impacts those parts of the anatomy composed of the groin leaving deep impressions in the steel object. Over the next ten days I was given ten pints of blood and a shot of morphine every four hours. PROP would have called me a drug abuser for requesting those shots every fours hours, but the doctor and nurses seemed to understand. Actually I would like to know if we were to put the members of PROP on a motorcycle and put them through the same collision would any of them request effective pain relief, or would they demonstrate their superior pain tolerance by insisting on an aspirin only regimen?

My doctor once referred me to a pain clinic for my excruciating pudendal nerve pain. At the clinic as they were about to treat me I noticed something was off so I asked them which nerve were they about to treat me for. The doctor’s response was the sciatic nerve. I told them that such a treatment would not control my pudendal nerve pain. Their response was to expel me from the clinic. Perhaps the doctor took offense at my assertion, but I did not offer it as a criticism of their efforts. I just happened to know exactly where the pain was after having lived with it for so long. I don’t tell my wife this, but such severe pain is why I keep the 38 revolver my Brother gave me years ago unloaded.

I discovered something tonight which made me angrier with myself than I have ever been at anyone else due to being under medicated for controlling my chronic, severe nerve pain. Doctors fear for their own security and livelihood due to excessive government pressure to not give chronic pain patients adequate, life saving pain meds which perhaps should make me angry, but I do realize that the doctors also have an obligation to take care of themelves and their families while doing what they are permitted to do to save and restore the lives of patients who live in daily, excruciating pain so I can’t entirely blame them for fearing excessive government pressure to ignore their patients’ severe pain. But tonight my anger was all directed toward myself when the severe pain from my under medicated pudendal nerves caused the clumsy, akward stumbling resulting in spreading the last of my wife’s medications which I was preparing all over the kitchen floor. I could not help but think how much better off she would be if my under treated chronic, severe pain would end me sooner rather than dragging things out any further. I suspect that thoughts such as these are not rare in the under treated pain community, but I do ask that all of my other fellow pain patients try to ignore those thoughts because I do hope that medical community and especially our government will soon realize that the lives of pain patients are far more valuable than the goals of a few fanatics who detest pain meds.

When you can’t convince your doctor to adequately treat your chronic severe pain what are your options?

When someone does something for me which is very helpful and unselfish it makes me wonder why. But then I think that perhaps that is just the kind of people they are so I humbly accept and try to be the kind of person they are to me.

I don’t know why, but I keep thinking about the four of us who were sent together from Montgomery to Parris Island when I joined the Marines. They put me in charge of our little troupe to be responsible for getting us to Parris Island. Maybe that is why I still feel obligated. We did make it safely there, but two of us were later killed in Vietnam. Perhaps that loss is why I still feel responsible because I was not there to protect them.

It is very likely that my chronic severe pain is also effecting my deteriorating memory, but I was looking over past notes when I found an episode at the local ER when they refused to treat my chronic severe pain. A nurse actually told me to go home and take whatever medication that I had to try to control my severe pain. When I went home things deteriorated rapidly as the uncontrolled severe pain started causing cardiac problems. After another two trips to the ER they finally relented and treated the escalating pain with fentanyl. Relief finally came, but by that time I was experiencing escalating cardiac problems, and I was diagnosed with acute kidney failure likely contributed to by the ever increasing blood pressure in response to untreated severe pain. I have to wonder how so many chronic, severe pain patients manage to survive as long as we have while living with under or untreated chronic, severe pain which has killed so many of us. All we can do is try our best to survive long enough for enough of the anti opioid RX fanatics to cone to their senses and allow us to be treated and save what is left of our lives. Hang in there.

Lately I have met my share of real jerks while out shopping. Actually the more accurate term which describes their behavior toward other people would require using profanity, but I would rather not be like them even if only verbally. On the way home this evening I met another. I thought about chasing them down and treating them the way they were treating others but then I thought to myself that I really don’t know what is going on in their life which may be causing this aggressive, rude (putting it mildly) behavior. My treating them the way they treat others might only make things worse so I restrained myself - this time, but if I see that person again and they act the same way I am afraid it may not be my best side which comes out.

I can’t convince my wife who is a type 1 diabetic to use an insulin pump (she tried it, but when the catheter gets inserted it is very painful for her) so I stay up all night to watch her blood sugar levels to prevent them from going too high or sinking too low while she sleeps. My lack of sleep causes me to be less energetic during the day which is disturbing to my wife, and she freely shares her disappointment with me verbally. I realize she is living with a very dangerous condition so I let her vent as much as she needs to. I am not sure what to do to help her more effectively. Perhaps my approach is not the best. What best succeeds for those who are successful at managing their type 1 diabetes? I could really use your suggestions.

I ran into a Navy veteran at Walmart. We discussed service injuries. His hearing had been damaged by working on the flightline on carriers. I told him about my head and brain injuries in the Marines which put me in a coma from which the doctors called my parents and advised them to come to see me within the next 48 hours if they wished to visit before I passed away. They did come, and fortunately I came out of the coma before they arrived. Now I am wondering if the problems I am developing with my brain may be contributed to by that traumatic injury. The veteran I talked to at Walmart told me at the very least I needed to call the VA and make an appointment to be evaluated. I think I will follow his advice while I still can.

Doctors need to start labeling the deaths of pain patients correctly on their death certificates. If a person dies while in severe pain and being denied adequate and effective pain relief with the most effective meds which are unquestionably opioid rxs then the death should be labeled as being caused by the extreme stress of under or untreated severe pain whether chronic or acute. Only then will the public and politicians be forced to face the truth of what is blatantly being done to pain patients.

My wife keeps reliving the day that I died when I was 56 years old. My memory of the event is very brief. I was in a bed in the ER after having experienced severe chest pain at home. I realized it was a heart attack so we went to the ER. While waiting to see the doctor I felt something that was totally foreign to anything I had ever experienced before. It startled me so I sat straight up in bed as if I could fight it. As soon as I reached the upright position all I know is that everything went black. What transpired while I was out has been told to me over and over by Bella. She shouted for help. The doctor and nurses came and immediately determined that I had no pulse. The y performed CPR repeatedly attempting to shock my heart back to life with the paddles. Bella said that after many failed attempts and all color having drained from my face the doctor gave up and declared me dead. They gave Bella a little time alone with me then came back to ask which funeral home they should call to pick me up, but Bella said she was not ready for that. Apparently it was after this when I opened my eyes to see Bella with her head hanging down crying beside my bed. I asked, ‘Why are you crying?’ She looked up at me with her eyes very wide and told me what had just happened, and she asked if I were aware of what the doctor and nurses had been doing to me with the life saving efforts, but I told her I was unaware of anything past the point when I sat straight up and everything went dark. Afterwards the doctor was very nervous when near me. She did say something to the effect that she did not want me to do that to her again. I often wonder what happened to me that night, but I am very thankful to still be here, and I realize how it can all end in an instant. Each day is surely a gift.

I heard an interesting story about a friend’s Mom tonight. Her Mom’s heart stopped in the ER for a period of many minutes just as mine had done 20 years ago. In spite of efforts to revive her the doctor could not get a pulse. After multiple attempts he stopped and informed the daughter that her Mom had passed, but the daughter refused to accept it. The experience was very similar to my own. We were both declared dead. I do not know how long I was left in the ER before my eyes opened, but the Mom I was describing was out for a half an hour before the daughter saw what she thought was a pulse. Unfortunately the Mom suffered some brain damage and other internal injuries from her time without circulating, oxygenated blood. She passed away a few years later without ever fully recovering. In my case I am not aware of any brain damage, but I seemed to be fully functional when I did awake about an hour after being declared dead. I am beginning to wonder if that episode was a contributing factor in my later development of chronic, severe pudendal nerve pain, but I still believe the major cause of my present under treated pain condition was still the motorcycle accident. If I had known that I would later develop such a painful condition that our medical system would fear to adequately treat I am not sure that I would have wanted to have survived the heart attack.