The War on Pain Patients

The War on Pain Patients is one of the most disturbing elements of American life in our modern times. There’s no call for it. Sure, there is a War on Drugs. There’s even a War on Terrorism.

But when is it fashionable to select real victims, suffering patients with proven real serious life-long medical conditions, to be targeted for inspection, a weighing of facts, and if found Innocent when they are listed as Guilty, to be punished anyway?

According to the DEA and their supporters, the answer is all the damned time.

Look at it this way. A man or woman comes back from serving their country with a leg or an arm blown off. They ended up with permanent nerve damage from shrapnel embedded into their bone, and the Surgeons explain that they cannot remove it.

Massive debilitating pain for the rest of their lives is the only prognosis. Without pain medication management, they will end up screaming in agony for the rest of their life.

Do you think they get fair treatment? Dream on!

First step is they have to prove they’re not drug dealers selling pills on the street. Forget the MRI and X-Ray, if you need those pills, you’re a scum-sucking street dealer until you prove you’re not.

I wish I was inflating the issue. I’m actually understating this level of accusation by the Medical Staff of any medical facility you can name.

Second step is to pass their myriad testing orders. Blood tests. Pee tests. Kidney failure and can’t pee due to Dialysis three times a week? Okay, mouth swab test. Then the ‘patient’ is asked trick questions to try catching a lie. If any one tiny area of all of these tests are not what is expected, the patient is asked to leave and never come back.

If they pass this microscope level inspection, then they get to meet the actual Pain Management Doctor.

Please know this here and now. A Pain Management Doctor who is willing to write the Rx Pills for Opioid Medication is HARD TO FIND!

Why all caps on those last three words? Those doctors are so rare and hard to find, it can take a patient a year or more to locate one!

That Patient has a better chance at finding Bigfoot.

Again, this issue is understated. You can find the ‘injection’ doctors who deal with steroids for joint and bone pain everywhere, but nerve damage pain that injections do not work for? Only the pills? Good luck with that epic search!

So, one might wonder about and ask, “What are the consequences for not finding the help that is needed in over a year?”

If you’re not sitting down, please do so.

The most common wait time fix is incredibly easy at this point. A pain patient will take their own life to end the suffering. Yes. Suicide.

The more uncommon reaction is to self medicate. Because the chemicals are not properly managed by a medical professional, mistakes are made. If they’re caught, they’re called addicts and get placed in a mental ward where they can safely cry in constant pain without being heard by other normal pain-free people.

If they’re not caught and they get the dose wrong even once, as they are not trained Pharmacists, the patient overdoses and dies. So they get buried and labeled an addict who is now a State statistic that is used against other pain patients.

The ultra-rare types are the ones who pay the heaviest price. They suffer until they find a doctor. That level of suffering is epic. Mind altering. Life changing. How they see the world becomes far different than the days when they were pain free.

Dark clouds of relief called Suicide visits their thoughts, to be fought off. The drug dealer who sells his garbage is another temptation that is fought and defeated. Not yearly. Not monthly. Every single damned hour of every single day. Resist! Hurt and work hard not to scream and cry.

You can easily tell who these well hidden types are. If they encounter a single act of kindness, to them or to another close by, they have to fight to not weep. If they encounter a single act of evil, again to themselves or another close by, they are stoic. Calm. Unshaken.

A maniac killing people with a gun is nothing to fear. It’s possible relief if they get killed trying to stop the evil gunman.

That kind of reaction to evil. Nothing shakes them. It can’t. They’re too busy working hard to appear normal, so they aren’t clutching at themselves while screaming in agony.

They are also not reactive to minor pains. Step on a nail? For one of the suffering silent, that is no big deal. A minor pinch at best. For the normal pain free person, they’re howling and hopping around, clutching at their bleeding foot when sitting down, rocking back and forth.

They try not to smile. They aren’t amused or unsympathetic. They simply remember the days when that tiny pinch used to affect them the same way.

Not anymore.

I have to stop here for now. This subject can go on for a full novel, but we all don’t have the time for that anymore, do we?

Stay safe and God Bless.