I don't know if this is the right place for this post, but I had to get you chronic painers to read the latest issue of Redbook which has this article in it. I urge you to read the June issue with the article about pescription drug abuse. It basically tells the ususal Oxycontin horror stories, in which a woman who is luck enough to get it in the first place abuses it, and starts buying it on the street. She eventually loses all her savings, kids, husband-you know the rest. There are also similar stories of women,one in particular I found extremely stupid. She is an RN who "didn't know Lortabs were addicting." YEAH RIGHT IM SURE!
This article ticked me off because it totally ignored the millions of us (thousands at least) who have legitimate diseases and are ignored and undertreated by the medical community. I am sick and tired of all of the press/media suddenly focusing on prescription drug abuse. The tone of the article blamed the doctors because they didn't have the time nor the patience to treat the patient and just gave out pills. Well, whoever those doctors are I would like a list. I sounds like these people found good, compassionate doctors and took advanage of them. Meanwhile the rest of us either suffer in pain, spend exuberant amounts at the Op's, or have to go to doctor to doctor to get some help. The article mentioned doctor shopping and other drug seeking behaviors. It even included a little list that you can use to see if your doctor is making you addicted to drugs! I almost crapped my pants laughing, but at the same time my blood pressure was rising from anger. Please read the article and decide for yourselves, but it is pathetic. It just goes to show us all that we are a persecuted population, us chronic painers. The general public is never going to understand that we need narcotics or benzos or whatever to live a normal life. Nobody understands that methadone and vicoden gave me my life back. They just focus on the "high" we are supposed to be chasing. Never mind that I haven't felt that in about a year. I just want to be free of pain, at least 70%! I don't think thats too much to ask for, for any of us. Just read the article, you'll see how one sided it is. They never once mentioned how hard it is for chronic painers to find a compassionte doc. Im definetly writing them a letter to the editor.

I just wanted to put this out there, it is definetly a volitile issue. (at least around here)

Quincy