Though the two suicides in the articles below aren’t classified as pain-or-opioid-related, it’s obviously a big factor in some cases for some people.
If all suicides of anyone who had suffered from some sort of untreated (or even treated) chronic pain were counted, I think the number would be shockingly high.
Attorney General Steve Marshall addresses wife’s suicide – June 27th 2018 – By Mason McGalliard, Digital Content Producer – mmcgalliard@waff.com; Stephen McLamb, Reporter – Biography – smclamb@waff.com; Allen Stroud, Reporter
It was a very emotional scene in Albertville on Wednesday as Alabama’s Attorney General Steve Marshall talked about his wife taking her life over the weekend.
He described his last conversation on the phone with her before she died.
“‘I’ve had pain for a long time and I don’t want to endure it anymore and I’m just a burden.’ And I told her why she wasn’t and I told her how she was loved. As a guy who professionally is supposed to be able to convince people with words so do something I couldn’t reach her.
She said, ‘I’m tired of being tired. Steve, I’m tired of being tired and I just want to go,’” said Marshall.
Alabama death row inmate Borden found dead in cell – Jun 04, 2018 – By Lawrence Specker | lspecker@al.com
Alabama death row inmate Jeffrey Lynn Borden, 57, has died of an apparent suicide, according to the state Department of Corrections.
John Palombi, a federal defender who’d represented Borden, issued the following statement: “We are saddened to hear of Mr. Borden’s apparent suicide. Mr. Borden suffered from severe mental illness and chronic physical pain, both of which were undertreated by the Department of Corrections despite their knowledge of these issues.
According to ADOC information, as of Sunday Borden had spent 24 years, five months and 4 days in prison.
EDS and Chronic Pain News & Info 
Absent someone indicating that their pain was a reason or part of the reason it cant be counted as a cause, even a secondary or tertiary.cause. That would result in the opposite. Now there is undoubtedly an undercount but this could result in an overcount. We have to be able to use verifiable statistics to make our point, esp if it can be proven that a number of suicides were the result of, or a secondary etc result of the pain/reduction/removal/withdrawal from prescribed pain meds.
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Knowing what chronic pain does to a person makes me almost certain it would be a part of what led to suicide, but I could be wrong.
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Its hard to know what is the cause of the person doesnt leave a note or some kind of statement to another that the pain led to it. I am sure in both directions there can be problems someone with chronic pain has debilitating depression, bi polar whatever and it was the latter that led to their decision but gets ‘blamed’ on the former.
There is also the issue of discriminating one form of cp from another. We have lumped it all together chronic lower back pain for instance), (I have it its awful but my tn has made me suicidal at times, my back pain? Never.) mixed in with CRPS trigeminal other cranial neuropathies, EDS etc.
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