Thanks for your understanding! It is very frustrating as a responsible patient to be treated as an addict. As a nurse I am aware of keeping my use of pain meds to the minimum possible because after time it does take more to produce the same level of relief! I really don’t know what the answer is, but just taking patients off these meds and refusing to help manage their pain is criminal in my opinion. Prayers for managing your pain and sleep.

@scottrl, I think, as you indicated, the war on opioids is causing an overreaction and unintended consequences for many. If you have a good doctor, cherish the fact you have support; so many of us do not, and that number seems to be increasing. Like you, Scott, I have stayed awake in pain night after night, week after week just wishing that I could have 3 or 4 hours of good sleep, knowing I will wake up in pain again.

That is not a life; that is more akin to a life prison sentence of misery. We only live once; it is our life, so why can we not live a life where we feel some fulfillment in a managed pain-reduced manner? There are indeed so many amazing doctors trying to help but their hands are being tied increasingly. The current approach to pain medication management time and time again places a person in a situation where they are denied adequate medication to control their chronic pain, so they decide taking their life is a better option than the daily misery they live in now. I have seen that and do not wish to see it again.

I will put my hand up and say if I lived 75 years ago without pain medication, I would have taken my life because of my chronic pain which is there every second of the day and which has only continued to get worse year after year, Modern medicine allows me to live a somewhat normal life and isn't that what responsible medicine was designed for? It's better living with some side effects than not living at all. Is this being dramatic - my children would say no, but many others will say yes, but I say I am just being honest.

I also have a son who has lived with chronic pain due to severe chronic fatigue since he was 14, so I speak from both the point of view of an individual and a father who has to watch a child lose the best years of his life to chronic pain. I will not even try to explain the issues with a person under 18 being in chronic pain and how few doctors want to help him. Several said if he had cancer, I could do something but since he does not, I will refer him to another doctor and so the doctor merry-go-round begins. I have not given up hope of either of us finding a solution for our debilitating pain, but while I try to find that solution, I only ask that our pain be managed.

I also think politicians should all understand the difference between dependence and addiction. They are not the same thing for those of us who live in a place where what others consider a typical day is only a dream we have. Dependence means we can live a somewhat normal life. What other option do we have when we have tried every avenue of conventional treatment, been in university pain studies, and tried cutting-edge treatment with no positive result?