Pain, & why you do not have to suffer in CA

By: Mark Norwood. Head Nurse & CEO:

MED-HELP.COM & MED-HELP.NET

In my own experiences as a patient and a nurse, I have found that too many States do not allow the use of narcotic analgesics as treatment for patients with chronic intractable pain.

Patients all over the US are suffering needlessly from doctors who are too scared to prescribe narcotic pain medication for fear of having their license revoked. Other doctors are just not properly trained in how to treat patients with the use of narcotic analgesics. Their are also those doctors from poor or third world countries who do not believe in treating patients adequately for pain. They usually come from a back grown where (in their own culture) pain is something that you just have to get used too and learn to live with. This is a Travesty!

Treatment of patients in severe or chronic pain with the use of narcotic analgesics is not only safer today with the new "hi tech" long acting narcotics, it is also more practical. Patients are far less likely to overdose with these new classes of long acting narcotics than 10 years ago when repeated dosing of short acting narcotics was the routine of the time.

I myself am tired of hearing patients tell me that their doctor has told them that they are just going to have to learn to live with the pain, (or) go in to some type of pain program. Pain Programs/Clinics Do Not use narcotic therapy as a part of their treatment plan and the worst thing is that referring doctors know this!! The use of narcotics as a part of there therapy is forbidden and other ways of controlling pain such as mind over matter as an example are the routine of choice. You can not take a patient in severe chronic intractable pain and try and tell them that they can out think it! To those doctors that use this approach I say, cut off your right finger, or better yet go out and get hit by a truck and then come back and try one of these therapies! Only then will they understand.

And to those doctors that say you are a drug seeking patient, Or he has a drug seeking personality, I say to you YES I am seeking drugs for my pain! What am I supposed to do, act like I do not really need them?

What doctors have to understand is that patients who are labeled drug seeking are just that! They are seeking to get out of pain. Studies have shown that patients suffer from chronic intractable pain, are not the typical drug addict looking for a fix! Rather they are looking for relief and to just live a normal life with some type of control over their pain.

And those doctors who do give out lets say 25 (or) 50 pills a month and have a patient sign a drug contract I say ("it just does not work that way")

If a patient is in more pain on a certain day he/she is going to need more pain medication to make it through that day. Before the patient knows it he has used up his supply, And all he gets for his/her trouble is a lecture from the doctor. PAIN CONTRACTS DO NOT WORK!!

Better yet put your patient on a longer lasting pain medication like Oxycontin or a narcotic patch like Fentanyl, and give your patient a supply of short acting pain medication for break through pain. This will not only make the patient more comfortable but less likely to ride the roller coaster of ups and downs that short acting pain medications can cause.

California NOW is one of the most recent states for adopting a law to treat patients with chronic intractable pain. The law states that doctors will not be prosecuted for treating their patients with opiate pain medications. Patients also have the right to Not under go corrective surgery (if available) to treat the patients pain, and remain on narcotic pain management if it is their wish to do so.

Doctors here in California NO longer have to fear of loosing their license to treat such patients, And No longer have an excuse for Not treating their pain patients accordingly and humanely with opiate agonists.