Illicit Drug Use Not Always a Problem

Here are three articles about illicit drug use pointing out that the drugs themselves aren’t always a problem (and many also come in prescribed versions).

It is the criminalization of drug use that causes chaotic and destructive behavior and imposes such high costs on society (court system, incarceration, law enforcement).

Except for the legality, using illicit drugs is not much different than using alcohol. Some cause far less physical or social harm than alcohol and some are even less addictive, so we cannot claim “illicit drugs are bad for you”.

Chronic Pain in Brain: Structural and Functional Changes

Chronic Pain: Structural and Functional Changes in Brain Structures and Associated Negative Affective States – free full-text article /PMC6650904/ – Jul 2019

This is an extremely thorough article covering many aspects of chronic pain. I’ve tried to cover only key parts and avoid lengthy descriptions of scientific details. After each section, I show a link to the complete section with all its details.

Abstract

Chronic pain is a condition in which pain progresses from an acute to chronic state and persists beyond the healing process.

Chronic pain impairs function and decreases patients’ quality of life.

In this review, we summarize the results of previous studies, focusing on the mechanisms underlying chronic pain development and the identification of neural areas related to chronic pain.  

A Key Truth About Avoiding Addiction

How a Famous IQ Study Revealed a Key Truth About Avoiding Addiction – Filter – by Stanton Peele – Feb 2019

What makes you live longer? What makes life more satisfying? What enables people to resist addiction?

These three questions have an answer in common—a remarkably good piece of news about which we should continually remind ourselves.

The answer is certainly not simply to stop taking opioids for chronic pain, when no other treatments have been able to relieve your pain. 

Review Finds Opioid Patients Often Feel Stigmatized

Opioid Patients Often Feel Stigmatized, Review Finds | HCPLive – by Samara Rosenfeld – Feb 2020

Patients who took opioids for chronic non-malignant pain often felt stigmatized and did not want to take the medication, according to a recent review.

Since we don’t even want to take opioids, this is clearly NOT addiction!

The findings of the review highlighted that individuals who took opioids weighed the pros and cons of the medication but felt they had no choice but to take them because of their pain.

This is exactly how I feel: what choice do I really have? 

How Stigma Against Addiction Devastates Pain Patients

How Stigma Against Addiction Devastates Pain Patients – by Elizabeth Brico @elizabethbrico – Feb 2019

Here’s yet another story of what would qualify as malpractice if it were any other drug than opioids.  A doctor suddenly stops prescribing opioids necessary for the “activities of daily living” and sends their patient into the agony of physical withdrawal and an unnecessarily limited life without medical care.

There’s no concern for Quality of Life when politicians responding to media-hype and PROPagandists are controlling our pain care.

First it was a hip replacement. Then it became complicated by a MRSA infection. Eventually, Dee Giles, formerly an ER nurse, had to endure amputation of her right leg and the right half of her pelvis.

6 Health Problems with EDS

I posted this information in 2017, but I think it’s worth another look. It gives a good overview of what patients with this connective tissue disorder have to deal with.

Below is a collection of PubMed articles discussing 6 (there are many more) different medical problems that people with EDS have to deal with.

Most Important:
Problems with Local Anesthetic

Local anesthetic failure in joint hypermobility syndrome ; Alan J Hakim, Rodney Grahame, Paul Norris, and Colin Hopper; J R Soc Med. 2005 Feb;  – full-text PMC article

The Landscape of Chronic Pain

The Landscape of Chronic Pain: Broader Perspectives – free full-text /PMC6572619/ – by Mark I. Johnson – May 2019

Here is a recent lengthy review of what’s known about chronic pain: the various aspects of various types of pain under various circumstances.

This article shows the folly of making any numerical one-dimensional measurement of chronic pain, which can arise from a variety of causes, vary greatly over time and location, and make such intrusive incursions into our inner lives.

This special issue on matters related to chronic pain aims to draw on research and scholarly discourse from an eclectic mix of areas and perspectives.  

Cancer patients not getting adequate pain relief

Cancer patients not getting adequate pain relief – by University of Leeds – Sept 2016

Many terminal cancer patients are not getting adequate pain relief early enough, according to a University of Leeds study.

The researchers found that, on average, terminal cancer patients were given their first dose of a strong opioid such as morphine just nine weeks before their death. Yet many people with terminal cancer suffer with pain a long time before that, the researchers said.

So, now even cancer isn’t considered to be a serious enough problem to be medicated, even when the patients won’t live long enough to develop addiction problems.

Medicare: Where to send your healthcare complaints

QIO Program: Beneficiary and Family Centered Care – Quality Improvement Organizations – a PDF document for people on Medicare

Here is an organization to whom you can direct your complaints about the lack of pain management and abandonment of care.

Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) Program

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ QIO Program is one of the largest federal programs dedicated to improving health quality at the community level.

This network of experts in quality improvement…

…but not pain management improvement…  

To stop people dying, make it easier to live

To stop people dying, we must make it easier for them to live – By Daniel Mezrani – 28 April 2018

I decided it was time to reveal that it was not a heart attack or some other physical ailment that had claimed my father’s life, but suicide. My intention was not to shock, traumatise or evoke pity, but to start a conversation.

In many ways, I understand why a productive national conversation about suicide has eluded us for so long. The idea of someone taking their own life is fundamentally disturbing, and therefore fraught in the public forum.

It is often the subject of moralisation and reductionism, which are unhelpful at best and dangerous at worst.