I remember seeing a commercial once that said something like "No one decides they want to be a junkie when they grow up" and, even though I am "grown up", I have found myself contemplating having to choose turning into one.
There is a new terror in town touching every doctor for miles. Doctors are losing their license to prescribe narcotics, and some of them losing their license's all together, because of drug abuse. I applauded the first doctor to fall because he was very obviously dealing drugs with a license and he is the only one I know of who actually went to jail for it. But then my doctor was next. He was a very caring, professional doctor who helped me a great deal with the long list of things I have wrong in this 48 year old body. I was in a wheelchair when I first started seeing him with Fibromyalgia, Interstitial Cystitis, and a herniated disc on the sciatic nerve in my back and I was extremely suicidal. I was terrified of strong pain meds because I have a daughter who is a junkie and I didn't want to join her. Dr. Blair stayed after work one day for an hour and a half talking to me about it and explaining that I wouldn't get "high" or anything in my condition but that he could give me back my life. I decided to trust him and started on a regiment of pain meds that he adjusted until he had kept his word. I was not only out of the wheelchair but I was going places, cleaning my own house, playing with my little grandchildren, and never once felt "high". I also knew that there were a lot of people in town who abused him because my daughter's friends would talk about him. And sure enough, I showed up for my appointment one day and his office was surrounded by police cars and he was refusing to go with them until he finished seeing his patients for the day. We had grown fairly close by then and he told me that one of his patients had gone home and taken a deadly over dose to kill himself and that he happened to be the son of a very prominent man in town. Dr. Blair went to court and lost his license to prescribe narcotics a few months later but did manage to get me and four other patients accepted at a different pain clinic in Omaha. Then it was like dominoes, doctors falling all over until there isn't a doctor for miles not terrified to prescribe a narcotic. I take Valium for Epilepsy, have for years, but had to fight to continue to get even it because Blair's replacement was afraid to prescribe it. My new pain doctor is very cautious, prescribing me just enough Methadone and Oxycontin to take the edge off of the pain. I no longer can take care of my home or myself and am dusting off the wheelchair. I'm just old grandma to my grandkids again. I think a lot about dying again. My new doctor, Dr. Youngblood is one of two pain doctors I know of left around the Omaha/Council Bluffs area. How long until they manage to shut them down? The people like me are just suffering more. The junkies weren't affected as much because they just switched to real heroin which is the biggest new booming business around right now. No one seems to care about shutting down the drug dealers unless they are manufacturing meth. I know that for a fact because a friend once thought he could save my daughter from being a junkie by turning in all the drug dealers he knew of in the area and absolutely nothing happened. Who cares? Junkies and the diseases they carry are just swept under the rug and most of the dealers are just supporting their own habits. The big guys actually making the money aren't doing the heroin and are walking around in suits blending as businessmen. But back to my future, I wonder what I will choose if the time comes when the last two pain doctors are gone from here? Will I go back to living in misery with a caregiver wheeling me around and lay in bed every night praying I don't wake up the next day? Or will I do like many, many others in my position are doing and turn to the streets for help. What would you do???
Do I have a better solution to taking care of doctors being able to prescribe pain meds without fear? Yes. I used to wonder why doctor Blair wasn't more careful when I would see someone come in his office that looked like they might have a drug problem. I think pain doctors should check their patients all over for needle tracks. I think they should random test their chronic pain patients for drug levels in their systems as well as drug test them for use of illegal drugs like meth and marijuana and terminate services to that patient if they 'fail' the test.. I think patients on regular narcotics should have to sign an agreement to that effect before receiving treatment. Shutting the doctors' doors just opens more illegal dealer's doors and causes unjust suffering for those truly suffering needlessly with the wonderful advances we have made in pain management in this country. I think more people need to think.
There is a new terror in town touching every doctor for miles. Doctors are losing their license to prescribe narcotics, and some of them losing their license's all together, because of drug abuse. I applauded the first doctor to fall because he was very obviously dealing drugs with a license and he is the only one I know of who actually went to jail for it. But then my doctor was next. He was a very caring, professional doctor who helped me a great deal with the long list of things I have wrong in this 48 year old body. I was in a wheelchair when I first started seeing him with Fibromyalgia, Interstitial Cystitis, and a herniated disc on the sciatic nerve in my back and I was extremely suicidal. I was terrified of strong pain meds because I have a daughter who is a junkie and I didn't want to join her. Dr. Blair stayed after work one day for an hour and a half talking to me about it and explaining that I wouldn't get "high" or anything in my condition but that he could give me back my life. I decided to trust him and started on a regiment of pain meds that he adjusted until he had kept his word. I was not only out of the wheelchair but I was going places, cleaning my own house, playing with my little grandchildren, and never once felt "high". I also knew that there were a lot of people in town who abused him because my daughter's friends would talk about him. And sure enough, I showed up for my appointment one day and his office was surrounded by police cars and he was refusing to go with them until he finished seeing his patients for the day. We had grown fairly close by then and he told me that one of his patients had gone home and taken a deadly over dose to kill himself and that he happened to be the son of a very prominent man in town. Dr. Blair went to court and lost his license to prescribe narcotics a few months later but did manage to get me and four other patients accepted at a different pain clinic in Omaha. Then it was like dominoes, doctors falling all over until there isn't a doctor for miles not terrified to prescribe a narcotic. I take Valium for Epilepsy, have for years, but had to fight to continue to get even it because Blair's replacement was afraid to prescribe it. My new pain doctor is very cautious, prescribing me just enough Methadone and Oxycontin to take the edge off of the pain. I no longer can take care of my home or myself and am dusting off the wheelchair. I'm just old grandma to my grandkids again. I think a lot about dying again. My new doctor, Dr. Youngblood is one of two pain doctors I know of left around the Omaha/Council Bluffs area. How long until they manage to shut them down? The people like me are just suffering more. The junkies weren't affected as much because they just switched to real heroin which is the biggest new booming business around right now. No one seems to care about shutting down the drug dealers unless they are manufacturing meth. I know that for a fact because a friend once thought he could save my daughter from being a junkie by turning in all the drug dealers he knew of in the area and absolutely nothing happened. Who cares? Junkies and the diseases they carry are just swept under the rug and most of the dealers are just supporting their own habits. The big guys actually making the money aren't doing the heroin and are walking around in suits blending as businessmen. But back to my future, I wonder what I will choose if the time comes when the last two pain doctors are gone from here? Will I go back to living in misery with a caregiver wheeling me around and lay in bed every night praying I don't wake up the next day? Or will I do like many, many others in my position are doing and turn to the streets for help. What would you do???
Do I have a better solution to taking care of doctors being able to prescribe pain meds without fear? Yes. I used to wonder why doctor Blair wasn't more careful when I would see someone come in his office that looked like they might have a drug problem. I think pain doctors should check their patients all over for needle tracks. I think they should random test their chronic pain patients for drug levels in their systems as well as drug test them for use of illegal drugs like meth and marijuana and terminate services to that patient if they 'fail' the test.. I think patients on regular narcotics should have to sign an agreement to that effect before receiving treatment. Shutting the doctors' doors just opens more illegal dealer's doors and causes unjust suffering for those truly suffering needlessly with the wonderful advances we have made in pain management in this country. I think more people need to think.
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