Last night was one of those typical nights where you toss and turn trying not to lose your mind! With pain levels spiking because of a flare up there wasn’t a whole lot to do but do what I do every night in praying that the pain eases. Nights like last night are typical of someone who deals with CRPS, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Autoimmune Disorders, or any other chronic pain condition for that matter. The last thing I wanted to do today besides wanting to crawl into a corner and rock in the fetal position, was tackle the very simple task of every day life! Most of you get up you have a cup of coffee and then you go about your day. For me I wake up take twenty pills to ease my pain and have to carefully plan what I can and can’t do, or what will expend to much energy causing me more pain!

I’m passionate about standing up for my fellow survivors who live with chronic pain! So the waters I’m about to enter today are solely my own views and nobody but mine! Just want to make it clear so that there are no misunderstandings. I’m writing this from my view as the chronically ill patient! Over the last little while the whole opioid crisis has been drawing a lot of attention and I just want to express my opinion of this whole issue. Governments are wanting to take opioids away from chronic pain sufferers and it would be a disaster waiting to happen.

There is a tremendous amount of fear and anger out there in the chronic pain world because of what I will refer to as “the crisis” in this article. I along with others don’t take them out of choice but out of necessity to manage and have the quality of life that I do. Yet some people would be quick to label me as an addict! I do my best to take low dosages and use alternate methods to manage my pain where possible but the reality is that not all alternate methods will work to relieve my pain.

These in my opinion are not the actions of someone who is looking to abuse medications. If I could get rid of my medication and the pain today then I would! Believe me when I say ten years of pain has been long enough! I’m not looking to take the next pill or the other 20 others I have to take throughout the day!

Patients are getting passed from physician to physician in looking for treatment and diagnosis. This makes the patients look as if they are just bouncing from doctor to get the next Rx or get their next fix! As a patient advocate and someone who’s been through the revolving door of doctors nothing upsets me more than to see us being viewed in this way! Why is this happening? Ask anyone suffering from chronic pain and they’ll tell you their desperate for answers and treatment. I think we need to focus more on research for cures and alternate treatments!

As a patient with an illness that has little known about it and no cure in site what are my options? Not many! Sure this is where lots of physicians get stuck, and whip out the prescription pad saying “here try this but I can’t help you any further” leaving the patient with no other choice but to source another physician. I’m lucky enough to have a team of doctors who don’t do this and carefully monitor my medications and try where possible to decrease if they can. They see the need to balance the use of opioids in order to control the pain in conjunction with sourcing other methods of pain control. I’m lucky that for the most part this allows me to function throughout the day!

Taking opioids away from the patient that is suffering from chronic pain and is chronically ill in my opinion will only make “the crisis” worse and cause more patients to become desperate with even fewer choices! Thus leading to higher rates of suicide.  If we can come up with cures and treatments then hopefully chronic pain patients shouldn’t have to rely on these medications as much. Not giving me any voice however doesn’t help to solve the problem. The patient needs to be a part of the overall solution!