Strange Dance: Performing Wellness for Others

Chronic pain forces a strange dance: performing wellness for others | Psyche Ideas – Jude Cook – June 2020

Ten years ago, I was prescribed a non-penicillin antibiotic to clear up a routine urinary tract infection. Part of a broad group known as fluoroquinolones, the pills made me feel as dizzy as if I’d drunk the better part of a bottle of wine.

Momentary loss of motor function down one side, cranial pressure and, when I got to the accident and emergency department, blood pressure high enough to cause an imminent heart attack.

Such frightening side-effects are surprisingly common, yet doctors still prescribe these antibiotics as though they were perfectly safe.

Safety concerns for nerve growth inhibitor drugs

Lilly, Pfizer’s phase 3 pain data show mixed efficacy, clear safety issues – by Nick Paul Taylor | Apr 19, 2019

The only things I’m surprised about is how long it took to discover the damage from such medications.

A phase 3 trial has painted a mixed picture of the safety and efficacy of Eli Lilly and Pfizer’s painkiller tanezumab.

Neither dose of the nerve growth factor (NGF) inhibitor hit all the co-primary efficacy goals, and both fared worse than placebo on the safety assessments.

I was always convinced that taking an “anti-nerve-growth” medication long term would lead to all kinds of unexpected and undesired insidious effects. While preventing new nerves from growing could conceivably lead to fewer nerves signaling pain, these drugs are not localized and affect the whole body.

CDC Guideline Harms Pain Patients

CDC Guideline Harms Pain Patients, Panel Says – by Judy George, Contributing Writer, MedPage Today – March 11, 2019

The CDC’s 2016 opioid guideline is being implemented in ways that harm chronic pain patients, a panel of physicians said here.

I agree that the problem isn’t with the guidelines themselves.  They were just

1) suggestions,
2) for primary care providers and
3) first-time opioid prescriptions.

The problem is that they have been weaponized by anti-opioid crusaders to make laws and rules that force opioid tapers even when not medically indicated.