A week ago I made this op-ed post
Looking at the OPTICS: bureaucrats picking winners and losers
At about the same time or shortly there after, when actions of a police officer that caused the death of George Floyd caused a lot of demonstrations and unfortunately some “bad actors” showing up and started looting and destroying businesses small and large. Mr Floyd death was in the public and of course was videoed from several angles… HIS DEATH WAS VISIBLE TO THE PUBLIC AND THE MEDIA.
Demonstrations have been going on for over a week in mostly very large cities coast to coast and border to border… some of the cable channels have been reporting on these demonstration/looting wall to wall … 24/7.
There is/was some very large protests in London England in Hyde Park. Estimates of the number of people demonstrating has been upwards of tens of thousands in each city.
When the chronic pain community – of an estimated 100 million people – has a rally/protest… and only a few dozen – at most – shows up… how many media outlets report on these rally/protest ?
When a chronic pain pt has their pain therapy reduced or eliminated and they commit suicide or die because their comorbidity issues worsens and they die from “natural causes” or ends up living being house/bed/chair confined… They are INVISIBLE to the public and the media… Apparently those lost lives have little/no social value or importance to only their immediate family
How many chronic painers have written/called their representatives in Congress about how they are unable to get treatment from a doctor or have been dropped/discharged from a practice only to get a letter back how their member of Congress is really concerned about the OPIATE CRISIS…
The 100 million chronic pain pts are not collectively visible enough that the members of Congress have taken time to create generic paragraphs that their staff can cut/paste into a letter about pts suffering from chronic pain and not able to get adequate treatment. The community is not even on their radar.
Apparently the community having thousands of FB pages is not getting the attention of anyone that is not in the community. How many of the estimated 100 million chronic painers are just totally not involved ?
I just wonder when we look back at the end of this year or this time next year. If all of these demonstrations will really make a difference in some police officers using excessive force during arrests ?
Filed under: General Problems
Here is a recent reply from one of my congressional reps after I sent him detailed E-mails (6 times) about my Forced Medication Reduction and asked him to intervene to have it stopped. The reply is flagged as being directly from the rep, but a close check of the “From” box reveals it is actually from “Emily” in the representatives office. I am guessing that Emily handles handles health related matters for this representative. So, it may be that the congressional rep didn’t even read my message with my request for help.
My two senators responded in 2019 and I talked with them, and I also contacted my state governor’s office. All this took a lot of time as I was passed from person to person in each office, and I was in pain while having to type those detailed E-mails. But, in the end, they all said the same as the response from this Representative (below). That is, it was “not appropriate” for them to interfere in the decisions/actions of a private business.
This rep, refers to the privately owned pain clinic as being a “state agency” (I have no idea why). He refuses to help me as it would be “inappropriate” and he sent my request to the state governor’s office, not knowing that I have already been down that road back in 2019 with zero success.
My point is, I have made the very best effort I could in contacting my congressional members and state governor for help in stopping my pain doctor/clinic from taking away my stable dosage of prescription pain medications. But, I am very sad to say, it was all a waste of time. They essentially don’t want to take on anything that is controversial and (possibly) more complicated to solve than (e.g.) making a phone call. I responded to this reps email (shown below) stating how it WAS APPROPRIATE for him to get involved because what is being done to me (a 75 year old palliative care handicap person with a nerve disease causing intractable chronic pain) is a violation of the ADA, my human/civil rights, and abuse of an elderly person. the pain clinic’s action is also not in alignment with the CDC director who published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine in June 2019 stating that medications of long term chronic pain patients were not to be reduced. It is also against the resolutions made by the AMA, and statements made by the International Human Rights Commission, and HHS.
But, again, I don’t expect any positive response for my efforts.
I will sign off for now. Thanks for reading my comment. The text of the email I got from my congressional house representative follows.
_________________________________
Dear Mr. ______,
Thank you for contacting me about the problems you have encountered with your medical issues. I was able to open your images as soon as you changed the quality, and they are very legible.
Upon careful review of your situation and documents, I regret to inform you that I cannot be of any assistance because my jurisdiction is constitutionally limited to federal legislative and executive branch matters. It is inappropriate for me as a member of the United States House of Representatives to become involved in a case involving a state agency which this would fall under.
I have forwarded your letter to the state of Alaska and asked that they respond directly to you.
Please know that I sympathize with your situation and hope that it will be resolved to your satisfaction. Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of assistance in a federally related matter.
Sincerely,
DON YOUNG
Congressman for All Alaska
Unfortunately, CPP are just too dam tired of being in pain and ignored to even bother responding anymore. Everything always ends the same way, they are in pain and no one will listen or help them. They are treated like addicts while the real addicts are treated like victims of the opioiod crisis. Pain Clinics are closing and Doctors are being arrested
and Pharmacy’s and Drug Company’sare being sued.
In my day if you were in pain, you were given pain meds. If you overdosed it was your fault, no one else’s. It is really a shame that our
Children were never taught the way we were, that you are responsible
For the choices you make in this world, you are the one to blame for
Your mistakes.
Need a new leader who has money and can get all group members as half of these groups are probably junkies. Need LARGE RIOT LIKE PROTESTS SHOLDA BEEN DONE YEARS AGO BUT PPL WOIDL RATHER SIT ONLINE WHINING. HELL THEY WON’T EVEN POST PUBLICLY BUT INSTEAD IN CLOSED GROUPS where nobody sees them!
Rob,
“Interesting” comment. If, referring to “group members”, you are talking about groups of chronic pain patients (cpp) that have gotten together to defend themselves against government overreach and having their meds reduced to nothing causing their suicides, then I would assume, based on the remainder of your text, that you are totally ignorant of the actual situation with cpp and the challenges they face. Until you educate yourself, it would be better not to comment and show that ignorance.
But, you probably already know that and only posted to get your sense of satisfaction and your ego stroked/enhanced when other people like me respond to your trolling. It must be a sad life you lead, if this is how you must spend your time. go with god my “friend” because you definitely need him.