Jim,
Be vigilant not to attack or condemn your provider and stay within your pain agreement. The guidelines are also directed toward Primary Care Providers, not Specialists, a fact that the CDC is working on at the moment. The AMA also just released a letter in support of the fact that physicians have abandoned treating Chronic Pain Patients. https://searchlf.ama-assn.org/undefined/documentDownload?uri=%2Funstructured%2Fbinary%2Fletter%2FLETTERS%2F2020-6-16-Letter-to-Dowell-re-Opioid-Rx-Guideline.pdf

This letter was written during the CDC's open session for comment about the Guidelines. They are working on changing them right onw.

Back to your appointment. You are not the intended target of the current guidelines, none of us are. The issue? The DEA has made all of us, the doctors, the pharmacists, and the addicts on the street, the TARGET WITH THE BACKING OF CONGRESS AND THE ADMINISTRATIONS -- PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.

WHY? Because they have been given carte blanche to do whatever it takes to stop the "Opioid Epidemic" and slow the death rate from it. The problem is that they are BREAKING THE LAWS OF THIS COUNTRY.

1. Violating HIPAA.
2. Violating the Privacy Act
3. Violating the the Rights of every patient's Constitutional Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
4. Violating the ADA of every disabled person who is a patient.

These are just the violations on the PATIENT'S side. The provider's side include forced compromise of care, violation of the Hippocratic Oath, constitutional rights, and others.

Jim, you have to make your doctor your friend not your enemy. You need to show them that you understand their plight. That if they are following the government's direction, they need to question it.

Back up everything you say with medical facts and the CDC not anything else especially if they are ON BOARD with what they are doing! If they are questioning it like my provider, then give them a reason to treat you the right way like the AMA letter.

We are the patient. We are the one's living in agony. We are the ones that they are committed to serving. BUT... we aren't the ones holding the proverbial gun to their heads threatening to pull the trigger and destroy everything they've worked to build and their entire world if they don't tow the line.

SENATOR BARRASSO is monitoring this: he may be a Wyoming Senator but get in touch with him and mention my name. Tell him your story. We need to start coming together instead of fighting our battles alone.

I'm praying for you and remember, your doctor is NOT your enemy. They may be mislead, frightened, or even brainwashed but it's now our job to teach the medical field that OPIOIDS are actually a real treatment for chronic pain.

NERVE PAIN AFFECTS MORE THAN THE NERVES. It lights up the muscles, tightening them, cramping them, pulling at the joints and causing grinding and severe muscle and joint pain. Nerve pain doesn't isolate to the nerves but involves the muscles and joints AROUND the nerves. If it's in the feet, it involves the ankles and toes. If it's in the back, it involves the spine and upper legs and/or arms. If its in the neck. it involves the shoulders, back and head including migraines and tension headaches.

To treat nerve pain with or without Lyrica, Cymbalta, Neurontin, etc. means to treat it WITH OPIOIDS or to leave a patient suffering unspeakable torture and agony. That is inhumane. A fact the medical and law enforcement community of this nation needs to reminded of repeatedly.

My 4 year life with CRPS has taught me more than my 23 career as a pharmacist ever could. It's taught me that people can never understand what I am going through unless I tell them. And I need to tell them in terms they understand, not me. To do that, I need to know them. Your doctors only understand THEIR JARGON, THEIR WORDS, THEIR CONTEXT, so speak THEIR LANGUAGE when you talk to them, Jim, so they understand what you are saying. 🙂

Good luck and God speed.

Renee