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Pain & Piss

DT

By Turbotorque (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

My last appointment at the pain clinic was in December. At that time, I was assigned a PMP, had a contract shoved at me and told that it was a no choice sign – either I agreed, or no more meds for you. Thanks to the insanity of federal drug laws here in uStates, the contract stipulates that the patient agrees to random drug testing, urine, hair, or blood, and being pulled in for random pill counts as well. The tests are not only for illicit drug use (because fuck knows, you wouldn’t want someone in chronic pain smoking weed now and then or anything, why  it might help!), but a check on whether or not you are taking the correct amount of your prescribed meds. There are a wealth of problems with this, of course. A lot of people test negative for their particular meds, there are a host of known false positives, and gods forbid you take something prescribed by a different doctor – that’s a serious no. If you don’t test positive for the amount they think your sample should show, you can be placed under suspicion of dealing drugs to the ever friendly DEA.

The whole process is annoying and meant to be humiliating, and generally speaking, those who get to undergo this nonsense aren’t exactly getting the great stuff, med-wise. Anyway, what with all the holiday stuff happening right at the time of my last appt., my PMP forgot to get a test from me, so tomorrow is my first time being placed squarely under the federal thumb of drug paranoia. Oh what fun. I loathe the idiotic drug laws in this country.

Works for me… » « Walkabout

Comments

  1. says

    The whole process is annoying and meant to be humiliating

    This may come as a shock to you, but wealthy people with private physicians don’t have to go through such procedures.

    Coincidence, no doubt.

  3. says

    Marcus:

    Coincidence, no doubt.

    Mmm hmmm, I’m sure. This whole thing wouldn’t be necessary if the feds hadn’t reclassed codeine based drugs to schedule 2. My main neurodoc used to hand me a scrip with 6 months worth of refills. Can’t do that anymore. You have to contact your doc for a new scrip every fucking month. My main neurodoc stopped prescribing it, sending people to the pain clinic instead, so they could deal with the massive headache. Thanks, feds. And yes, it’s just us peons who get nailed by this. I can’t afford a rich person doctor.

    Ice Swimmer:

    uStates = Micromanaging States of America

    Yep.

  6. moarscienceplz says

    Hey, no problem, Caine. Just become a right-wing lying gasbag with your own nationwide radio show and you can get all the illegal drugs you want with basically no risk to you.

  7. chrisdevries says

    That’s nuts. Like chigau, I live in Canada, and I take a sizable amount of codeine daily to treat my chronic pain (in addition to gabapentin). I have to see my doctor 4-5 times a year because my provincial insurance only covers 3 months at a time of any drug, and opioids are not refillable (nor can a doctor phone in a script, it has to be a special triplicate prescription pad available only in person), but not only is there no hassle with drug testing, etc., but after a small deductible, my drugs are free. If I made more money, the deductible would go up to potentially thousands of dollars, but as a low-income person, even good income years rarely see me paying more than $500. The government here assumes that most people taking pain meds are on them for…pain (*gasp*) not say, to turn a profit re-selling them on the street, or because of addition.

    With that said, even here there are annoying things happening that are moving us closer to the USA. For example, Tylenol #1s, 222s (tylenol #1s with aspirin instead of acetaminophen), and codeine-containing cough syrups used to be available OTC with no way to monitor how much a person was purchasing or how frequently they bought it. But because a few addicted people were poisoning themselves with Tylenol since it takes dozens of pills for them to get high on codeine, the law has changed, and prescriptions are now required. Pharmacists CAN issue these, but they can also refuse to, putting up a barrier to pain relief for people without access to a doctor who knows them and who doesn’t assume they’re drug-seeking addicts right off the bat.

    I sometimes think that the administrators who put into place barriers between people with pain issues and the medication they need to not suffer would be a whole lot more empathetic if they understood what people like us are going through. We don’t want to be this way; nobody chose to have their life irreversibly altered by an injury or illness that left us dependent on drugs to live a normal life. And yes, addicts do exist and ARE willing to hurt themselves to get high. But even that is not a necessity since sane drug laws that provide safer ways to be an addict (pure, government-sourced and supplied drugs available to addicts, safe injection sites, etc.), and free treatment to those who are sick of being ruled by a chemical, would ensure that overdoses were a thing of incredible rarity. Like people in chronic pain, nobody chooses to be an addict either, and most addicts would rather they were not. Stigmatizing people helps nobody.

  8. says

    moarscienceplz:

    Just become a right-wing lying gasbag with your own nationwide radio show and you can get all the illegal drugs you want with basically no risk to you.

    There’s a point. Pity that life doesn’t appeal to me.

    Chrisdevries:

    I sometimes think that the administrators who put into place barriers between people with pain issues and the medication they need to not suffer would be a whole lot more empathetic if they understood what people like us are going through. We don’t want to be this way; nobody chose to have their life irreversibly altered by an injury or illness that left us dependent on drugs to live a normal life.

    Exactly. Here in uStates though, all the feds care about is their so-called war on drugs. It doesn’t do one damn thing to stop illegal use, just increases the amount of shit patients have to go through. I remember, a long time ago, in the ’70s, the feds having heart failure over the use of quaaludes. Ludes were seriously popular as a recreational drug. They’ll still boast about how they stopped ludes, but you know how? They completely banned the manufacture and import of them. Our government isn’t exactly brilliant on the drug front.

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