There was enough opiate prescriptions filled in ONE YEAR to give each resident a bottle of OPIATES

https://www.statista.com/statistics/261303/total-number-of-retail-prescriptions-filled-annually-in-the-us/

In 2016 there was 4.51 BILLION prescriptions filled in the USA… with a population of abt 320 MILLION that comes out to abt 14 prescription for EACH PERSON.

Let’s assume that the one prescription per person is a FACT… meaning that there would be 320 million opiate prescriptions filled..

BUT WAIT… a chronic pain pt would need – TWELVE PRESCRIPTIONS PER YEAR – presuming 30 days supply of each…  Suggesting that those 320 million prescription would only take care of abt 26 million chronic pain pts..  or about EIGHT PER-CENT OF THE POPULATION.

BUT WAIT… there are people having to deal with acute… surgery, broken bones and the like..  let’s presume that 15% of the 320 million are for acute pain…  subtract 48 million … leaving 272 million for chronic pain pts…or  some 22 million chronic pain pts get 12 prescriptions a year..

BUT WAIT… standard of care and best practices indicates that a chronic pain pt should be getting both a long action and short acting – for breakthru – opiate.  Which would mean that abt 11 million chronic pain pts would get opiate therapy that conforms to accepted best practices and standard of care.

BUT WAIT… there is an estimated 100+ million chronic pain pts…

BUT WAIT… when the bureaucrats state that having enough opiate prescriptions to furnish everyone a prescription…  IS A BAD THING…  Are they really saying that they support/endorse under treating/un-treating the vast majority of chronic pain pts is a GOOD THING or a BAD THING ?

Since PAIN is generally considered a part of TORTURE… are our politicians and bureaucrats encouraging the TORTURING of our citizens ?

FACTOID DISPELLED !!

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Vet With Chronic Pain Denied Access to his Congressman

www.nationalpainreport.com/vet-with-chronic-pain-denied-access-to-his-congressman-8833959.html

by Ed Coghlan

A veteran with chronic pain wants to talk to his Congressman—and another attempt to do that on Monday failed.

Robert Rose is a 51-year old Marine who believes the Mountain Home VA Center in Johnson City, Tennessee has been denying him care and has been quite vocal about it,

Congressman Roe was scheduled to speak at the Mountain Home VA Center at 11 am—and Rose–well known to the VA authorities because of his protests about his care—arrived early, he said, to speak with other veterans.

Rose called me and told me that he had been told by the VA law enforcement people that he would be arrested if he said anything at the Congressional hearing and asked me what I should do.

“I told him I was a reporter not an advocate and it wasn’t my job to advise him about that–but let me know what happened.”

That call came at 9:41 EDT.

My phone rang again at 9:57 and again it was Rose who told me he was being escorted into the building by three officers–and I asked him to put me on speaker. We were on the phone for nearly 30 minutes to hear the exchange between Rose and VA law enforcement.

A VA policeman, later identified as Sergeant King, said to Rose,

“You are not being arrested,” but he was being urged to come with them to discuss the situation.

Sgt. King wanted to know who I was and said I could not record a conversation on federal grounds and wanted to end the phone call. I assured him I wasn’t and if I was recording anything I would have to let him know that and he agreed to let me continue to listen.

Essentially Sgt. King told Rose that he had received a complaint about him yelling and being disruptive at the Congressman’s entourage.

Rose, with some passion, explained that he was 30 feet from the roadway (a fact confirmed by a VA official) and wasn’t even on the sidewalk and that he had been talking with a fellow vet and his wife.

Rose asked twice (and I asked a third time) who had made the complaint and Sgt. King said he couldn’t say.

Later when I asked him, the Sergeant said that the “Congressman’s staff felt on edge,” but did not elaborate.

Rose, who is in a wheelchair, was told that they didn’t want to arrest him and was asked essentially to behave.

During the speech, he behaved but he silently protested.

During Congressman Roe’s speech, Rose, sitting in his wheelchair, turned his back on the Congressman–who by the way in an Army veteran himself and–importantly–Chairman of the House Committee on Veteran Affairs.

After the speech, Rose said his path to the Congressman was blocked by the VA Police and he wasn’t allowed to speak to him.

I asked Rose if he had any photos and he said that he was told he would have been arrested had he taken any, although local media did attend and took photos and video.

Rose, who said he’s lost count of how many times he’s tried to speak with Congressman Roe, believes the VA Police were trying intimidate him and illegally detained him before the meeting.

The National Pain Report called Roe’s office in Kingsport, but received a recording because they are on holiday today and tomorrow (July 4).

If they call back, we’ll let you know what they say.

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Civil rights advocates concerned with Trump’s pick to lead DOJ civil rights division

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/340402-civil-rights-advocates-concerned-with-trumps-pick-to-lead-doj-civil

Filed under: General Problems | 2 Comments »

This was a post on a FB page for chronic painers today:

Our world is going to crap. An insurance company just proposed to a doctor that two patients that needed treatment in another state, that they wouldn’t pay for treatment but would pay for assisted suicide. Look out everyone. When our laws are willing to let someone die that is suffering from a disease called addiction and kill another two that needed expensive treatment we are all in trouble. Wake up Americans

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850 will die from OBESITY — TODAY 

Remember a year or two ago… nightly in the media… there was WARNINGS about our OBESITY EPIDEMIC ?

But it is estimated that  850 DIED EVERY DAY IN 2016 from OBESITY.  Obesity is the FOURTH LARGEST CAUSE OF DEATH.. behind Heart Disease, Cancer & Tobacco/Nicotine.

Since 850 deaths per day … would appear to be AT LEAST TEN TIMES the number of opiate OD death per day that is being reported…  as an EPIDEMIC

I guess that a EPIDEMIC is in the eye of the beholder and what they can get the media to believe

Does that mean that the MEDIA is pretty gullible or the public is pretty gullible about all the fake epidemic(s) that various parts of our society is allowed to fabricate and promote.

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PALLIATIVE CARE diagnosis – exempts pt from daily opiate limits

The above post was about two Maine residents that threatened to sue the state over their mandated daily opiate dosing limits.

Most/many/all of the state’s opiate dosing limits and the “guidelines” published by the CDC and which many entities are adopting as their standard of care and best practices for treating chronic pain pts have pt’s conditions that would exempt them from the daily mgs limits.

That is the GOOD NEWS… but the 800 lb Gorilla in the room may be that I have not seen anything from the DEA that they are going to recognize those exemptions.  Are the going to continue on their hap-hazard approach in determining who is operating a “pill mill” ?

The DEA still have to continue their work to protect/grow their 81 billion/yr war on drugs and could their job security trump any concerns for chronic pain pt’s health/safety and quality of life ?

We always seem to hear about the number of  “bodies” that are suppose to be attached to an accused “pill mill” office.. but.. we never seem to have the numbers of “bodies” that result from the DEA shutting down a prescribers office as pts from those offices are thrown into cold turkey withdrawal and elevated untreated pain.  It is also a fairly well known situation where those pts that had been seen by the closed practice often have the sigma of that RED “A” on their forehead and will not be accepted as a pt by another physician practice or clinic  

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DEA official: ‘Marijuana black market has increased exponentially’

http://beatricedailysun.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/dea-official-marijuana-black-market-has-increased-exponentially/article_1eecc057-12c5-5aae-98d2-1958872bd4fc.html

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Persistent Pain Linked With Greater Memory Decline & Dementia Probability

http://www.clinicalpainadvisor.com/pain-comorbidities/executive-functioning-is-affected-in-elderly-individuals-with-persistent-pain/article/669954/

In a population-based cohort study described in JAMA Internal Medicine, older adults with persistent pain showed more rapid memory decline and greater dementia probability compared with adults without persistent pain.¹ 

The prevalence of chronic pain in older adults is 25% to 33%, and recovery is less likely in this group compared with younger individuals.^2,3 Recent findings demonstrated a link between pain and outcomes that commonly affect the elderly, including functional impairment, cognitive decline, and dementia.^4-6 Older adults with chronic pain have been found to have poorer memory and executive function than their younger counterparts, both of which are closely associated with functional independence.⁶

In the current study, data from 10,065 participants (median baseline age, 73; 60% women; 1120 [10.9%] with persistent pain) in the Health and Retirement Study was analyzed to assess the longitudinal effects of persistent pain on memory and the probability of developing dementia. In addition, the impact of pain-related memory decline on daily functional tasks (ie, medication and financial management) was examined.

Participants initially reported outcomes in 1998 and 2000 and were followed until 2012 or until death or dropout from the study. Composite memory score and dementia probability were “estimated by combining neuropsychological test results and informant and proxy interviews.” Patients with moderate to severe persistent pain were compared with age-adjusted peers without persistent pain.

Study participants with persistent pain at baseline had worse depressive symptoms and more functional limitations pertaining to daily tasks vs participants without persistent pain. After adjustment for covariates such as marital status, alcohol use, and financial assets, more rapid memory decline was observed in patients with persistent pain (mean, 9.2%; 95% CI, 2.8%-15.0%; P <.001). 

These patients also had an increased relative risk of inability to manage medications (11.8%) or finances (15.9%) after 10 years, compared with patients without persistent pain. In addition, the increase in adjusted dementia probability was 7.7% (95% CI, 0.55%-14.2%) higher in the pain group.

These findings suggest that, along with the direct treatment implications of asking patients about pain, such discussions could provide clinicians the opportunity “introduce mitigation strategies—such as assistive devices or other physical or occupational therapy interventions to address pain-related functional limitations, or self-efficacy and mindfulness strategies to reduce the affective impact of chronic pain,” the researchers concluded.

Summary and Clinical Applicability

Moderate to severe persistent pain in older adults is linked with accelerated memory decline and increased dementia probability. 

Limitations

Because more patients with chronic pain had higher rates of death and dropout in the study, these patients had fewer evaluations than the comparison group. Also, the Health and Retirement Study provided scant information about the origin, nature, or treatment of the pain, which precluded the stratification of participants based on common criteria. 

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3 Strikes, You’re Out! City to Let Overdose “Victims” Die After 3rd Time

www.eaglerising.com/45079/3-strikes-youre-out-city-to-let-overdose-victims-die-after-3rd-time/

Do we continue to save people who are willingly putting drugs into their bodies and overdosing? That is the question one city has been struggling with for a while, and they are making a decision as to whether they should let the overdosing “victim” die after the third time being saved.

I use the word victim lightly because they aren’t really victims. Cancer patients are victims. They have a disease that they cannot help. Drug addicts are just that. It may not be an easy choice because their bodies are addicted, however, it is a choice they make nonetheless.

Butler Dispatch reports:

Middletown, Ohio officials are tired of overdoses in their town, and they have a way to stop this from continuing. But city officials are concerned this “proposal” may hurt them in the end. The proposal is a 3-strike policy. On the 3rd 911 call of a known “overdoser”, the 911 dispatcher will simply hang-up.

WLWT-TV and WKYC-TV stations in Ohio has released new information as to the 3-strike policy. Middletown, OH has spent $11,000 on Narcan in 2016. In 2017, they have spent over $30,000 and are projected to spend another $45,000 unless they do something to resolve their addiction problem.

Last year Middletown has 74 overdose-deaths. In 2017, they have had 51 overdose deaths and it is still rising weekly. The proposal begins with giving the person 3-chances.

The first revival is “free”, per say. The 2nd revival results in the person doing community service to pay off their “debt” for the Narcan used to revive them. The 3rd-strike results in the dispatcher hanging up on you.

The way a dispatcher would know whether to hang-up on you is a database will be created. This database will result in the names, addresses, and phone numbers of known users. If a dispatcher receives a call, and they see you have not completed your community service or you are constantly a “frequent flyer”, the dispatcher will disconnect the line and not dispatch an ambulance.

The city claims this is not a way to solve the overdose issue, but to save the city money.

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OxyContin and Beyond: Examining the Role of the Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Agency in Regulating Prescription Painkillers.

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-109hhrg24947/pdf/CHRG-109hhrg24947.pdf

This is a 131 page report on a Congressional hearing TWELVE YEARS ago on how they were going to deal with the perception of increased abuse of opiates by certain segments of our population.

IMO.. this also clearly demonstrates how Congress moves like a tortoise.. one small step at a time… until they get accomplished their goals.. while everyone else is busy living their life and don’t see it coming ? 

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