I have recently heard of three chronic pain pts that have committed suicide. It wasn’t on the news.. it wasn’t on the web… it was friends that stated they had lost friends to suicide. How many others have taken a similar path on a daily basis.. It is reported anywhere from 15 K to 46 K people dying from drug overdoses.. how many of these deaths were suicides and just “covered-up” as a death by drug overdose ? We have abt 40 K that commit suicide every year in this country by non-drug methodologies.
Have you ever noticed that when some addict/junkie dies of a drug overdose.. which could just as well be a suicide.. their family becomes incensed because their loved one died because of their addictive personality and their abuse of some substance ? They form groups and contact the media to try and make sure that “it never happens again to anyone else’ loved one ”
But it seems that when a chronic pain pts commits suicide because of under treated/untreated pain and/or plain old denial of care… their relatives seem to go as silent as the now dead chronic pain pt is.
To some.. it would seem that pained lives DON’T matter to many.
Filed under: General Problems
[…] Do some lives matter more than others ? […]
I have Adhesive Arachnoiditis, CRPS and a host of diagnoses that cause constant, debilitating pain. At 31 years old, I was on a small dose of Vicodin, antidepressants (low dose for neurogenic pain), Gabapentin, Flexeril and NSAIDS. At this point, I’d been living with this pain for four years. I now know that I was horribly under medicated for my condition. I wrote a clear note as to why I was leaving, left my drivers’ license with organ donor status and called 911 with the hope that my organs could be preserved for donation. I was outside and put the gun to my brain stem. At that moment, I was tackled by a neighbor who’d overheard my brief call to 911.
Had I been successful in my attempt, I have little doubt that my death would have been documented as Opiod related or R/T “Opiod use disorder” rather than unrelenting physical pain.
I have little doubt that suicides resulting from Chronic Pain are oft reported as Opiod related deaths, fueling the misleading data on the number of deaths related to “drugs” weather they are legally prescribed and being taken as directed or not.
In my County, no matter the cause of death, if Opiates are in the system of the deceased, the death is automatically recorded as drug related. HOW is this fair, accurate or providing accurate information about drug related deaths? It seems to me it aids those who wish to ban pain relieving medications for all but cancer patients, those working in the drug and alcohol treatment field and the DEA.
People living with pain that is oft more severe than cancer pain do not seem to matter in the U.S.A.
Pained lives DO matter.