By: Susan

Susan — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:25:49 +0000

This scares me for legitimate pain suffers such as my husband. He has a chronic pain condition, reflex sympathetic dystrophy aka chronic pain syndrome, and even has an implant in his spine to help with the pain. His illness and the pain that comes with walking has caused him to be restricted to a wheelchair. He receives pain medication for the times when the pain is more than he can bear and that the spinal cord stimulator (SCS) can block. What if he goes to the dentist and receives pain medication for a dental procedure? A few years ago he had surgery to replace the battery on his SCS. The doctor asked him which pain medication he wanted to take home. He said he would just take the same medication he always got as it was not one of the stronger ones and worked fine. He didn’t want a stronger medication. We took the prescripition to the pharmacy we always used and they refused to fill it. They said he already had one for that medication. His pain management doctor, who gave him his regular medication was the one who did the surgery and wrote the “new” prescripition so it’s not like he was doctor shopping. So here was a man who got 12 pain pills a month of what I would say was a moderate pain killer (not oxycontin or oxycodone) who was being denied a legitimate medication prescribed by his regular doctor for a surgery he had just had. He wasn’t even able to go in the pharmacy to fill it. I told the pharmicist that he had just had surgery and she was going to be the one to tell him he was not going to get his medication. I got him into the store and she told him she was not going to fill his medication. It did not matter to her that he had just been released from the hospital and needed the medication. According to her he had got his regular medication filled a couple of weeks before and he should have had some of the 12 pills left to get him through the recovery of the surgery. People think these things can’t or won’t happen. Trust me, you’re wrong. Many of the stories I have read on this new law state that it will be used for diverson and in limted cases be reported to law enforcement. They say it will be used to get people into rehab who need it. What rehab? We don’t have enough rehab now especially rehab for the poor or uninsured. Is this rehab going to magically appear? I believe a better way would have been to better regulate the doctors prescribing these outrageous amounts of medications. This is just another intrusion into our private lives by the government and innocent people such as my husband may suffer because of this.

Comments on: In Florida, Prescription Drug Deaths Outpace Those from Illegal Drugs

By: Susan