Dear _______________,
There is a serious health crisis that needs to be addressed right away.
You can help me and so many others live some sort of a normal life if you learn the truth that has been hidden from you about drugs in America.
I am a single, disabled woman at home devoting my time to making sure I can get the proper health care I need now and in the future. I work from my bed, lying down, every day. Two things you should know.
Opioids are not bad.
Chronic pain patients are not addicts.
THERE ARE 100,000,000 (Yes 100 million) PEOPLE IN THE U.S. LIVING WITH CHRONIC, DISABLING PAIN
I work independently as a writer, advocate and researcher, without pay, on the subject of the fair treatment and management of chronic pain. With me are thousands of others — experts like scientists, doctors, pharmacists, authors, publishers, advocates and other professionals — who are keenly aware that millions of people with chronic pain, reflected by distinct, diagnosed diseases, are largely being ignored, under-treated, ripped off and labeled drug addicts. These honest and reliable patients are frightened! Their country has left them for untruths about what pain is, while they live with illnesses that cause severe, unrelenting life-long pain. We will live like this for the rest of our lives!
But you can help!
WOULDN’T A LARGE PORTION OF 100,000,000 PEOPLE WHO ARE ALREADY DECIDED REPUBLICANS, OR UNDECIDED PEOPLE STILL LOOKING FOR ANSWERS, OR HAVE DECIDED NOT TO VOTE AT ALL, VOTING FOR YOU BE NICE?
MY GOSH, I SOUND LIKE A HUMAN ADVERTISEMENT!
There is a good reason for that. Before I became disabled, I was the successful owner of an advertising and PR company, which I started at age 26. I was a tiger on fire, and worked like a dog, winning international awards against companies such as Apple Computer. I loved my work and would never have thought of retirement, but I got sick when I was 30 and it took me from being an athletic, young single mom, to a person who can’t always function on any sort of normal level, except to lie in my bed and do this work on my computer…for free. It took years to accept that I will never work as a marketing communications specialist again, or never take a long walk again and never have any more money than a tiny disability salary.
BUT I AM NOT ALONE. MANY OF MY FELLOW PAIN PATIENTS CHOOSE BETWEEN MEDICINE AND FOOD EVERY MONTH.
DRUGS ARE NOT HARMING ADDICTS, ADDICTS ARE HARMING THEMSELVES
Projects such as the CDC’s proposed guidelines for opioid prescribing is not going to help the drug abuse situation in America, but rather it will make it much worse, so much so that if our voices aren’t heard by you, we all suffer in several ways. The suicide rate will explode (and they will be my fellow patients), and instead of getting rid of the heroin problem, it will become something far bigger than an epidemic. In fact, the heroin “industry” will be part of the new Big Pharma!
Millions of patients are now being denied the only medications that allow them somewhat of a life. While opioids are not for everyone, they are working for a significant number of people. But pharmacists are afraid to fill prescriptions because of the DEA and doctors are afraid to write prescriptions for fear they will be shut down and jailed, as many already have. And our government has made the decision to allow pharmacies only a certain number of opioids each month to fill prescriptions. Is that constitutional? Is it even legal?
“DO NO HARM” has become this:
“I HAVE TO HARM YOU BY LETTING YOU LIVE IN #10 PAIN EVERYDAY THAT CAN KILL YOU BY DAMAGING YOUR BRAIN AND YOUR INNER SYSTEMS SO THAT YOU MAY HAVE A STROKE OR OTHERWISE.
YOU WILL LIKELY DEVELOP DANGEROUS CHANGES IN YOUR BODY BECAUSE OF THE LEVEL OF PAIN YOU ARE EXPERIENCING.”
WARNING: PEOPLE HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO COMMIT SUICIDE FROM HAVING TO LIVE IN CHRONIC PAIN.
There isn’t the “big” problem with over-prescribing as shown in the media. That problem is a very minimal element in this crisis. In fact, there is a problem with under-prescribing and under-treating. Doctors are under serious and unfair scrutiny when all they want is to do their jobs and help people get well and feel better. Patients are being treated worse than animals. For example, would you pass by a dog that was just hit by a car and the dog was in obvious pain? (Maybe PAIN PATIENTS should go lay in the streets until we get some help.)
MANY PATIENTS ARE ANGRY, FRUSTRATED, FATIGUED AND STRESSED.
(Fatigue and stress complicates chronic disease and actually harms the body.)
What will you do to help 100,000,000 diseased people? Growth in chronic disease and pain is attributed to many things. I am not a doctor and cannot comment on that except to say that a large portion of the baby-boomer generation is getting older, and therefore sicker, and many have already been ill for 15, 20, 30+ years. If government wants to play doctor, the CDC and the DEA are not going to be the doctors we need! In fact, the shortage of pain management physicians goes like this: If each of or our pain management doctors could treat every patient in the U.S., s/he would have 40,000 patients!
THAT IS WHY YOU HAVE TO LET FAMILY DOCTORS PRESCRIBE PAIN MEDICATIONS AND QUIT SHUNNING THEIR RIGHTS AND SHUTTING DOWN THEIR PRACTICES.
QUIT TAKING AWAY THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF PATIENTS TO BE TREATED FAIRLY.
QUIT ALLOWING NON-MEDICAL-PROFESSIONALS, LIKE COPS AND DEA PLAYERS, TO PLAY DOCTOR.
QUIT ALLOWING INSURANCE COMPANIES TO TELL PATIENTS WHAT THEIR DOSE SIZE OF A PRESCRIPTION IS!
AND PUT THE CDC BACK WHERE IT BELONGS — TO FIND CURES FOR THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE — INCLUDING BABIES AND CHILDREN — WHO CONTRACT DEADLY DISEASES, TO FIND NEW VACCINES, AND TO PERFORM THE JOBS THEY WERE FOUNDED FOR.
LET OUR DOCTORS TREAT PATIENTS’ SYMPTOMS LIKE THEY VOWED TO DO WHEN THEY TOOK THEIR OATHS.
Please, please LEARN about what is really going on.
The CDC, DEA, etc. have lumped numbers together so that patients in chronic life-long pain, who do well on opioids, who are not addicts and who do not abuse their medications, are depicted in the SAME CATEGORY as those who are addicts, heroin users and Rx abusers.
Do you know that the numbers the CDC reports on PEOPLE USING OPIOIDS — LEGALLY OR ILLEGALLY — AND DEATHS RELATED TO DRUGS are completely wrong? These numbers even count one person’s death as being two or more people if there were two or more reasons why they died! Chronic pain patients are included in these numbers along with addicts and overdosers. Then they report these numbers in their press releases as “drug abusers and addicts!” THAT IS UNACCEPTABLE.
People like me are responsible about our medications, never abuse or take a pill early, never “doctor shop,” never try to fill a prescription early and never, ever go to the streets to seek heroin. But if our opioids are taken away, who knows how many will turn to illicit drugs? Sad, isn’t it?
Of course we have to address the addiction situation with a better eye also. Those of us working on this subject are well-aware of the needs for better addiction programs and care, but right now we must focus on keeping our medications available in a fair manner, keeping our doctors in business and keeping our pharmacies from feeling like criminal organizations.
I suggest your medical research team go to a website called the National Pain Report and read its articles. There is a category called “My Story.” Read some of the stories from real patients, and pay particular attention to the comments after the articles. Start there to learn what you need, and call on me for help to get more information. Pain patients are a large nationwide team. We are on duty and on call. Our members can give you all the information you could possibly need to make it faster and easier for you to get up to speed, not only to gain those millions of votes, but to be heroes for ill people in pain who don’t have much to look forward to.
This will allow you to:
COME OUT AND BE THE CANDIDATE WHO KNOWS WHAT HE’S TALKING ABOUT
FINALLY ADDRESS THE PATIENTS IN THIS COUNTRY WHO HAVE BEEN LEFT BEHIND
LEARN THE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT’S REALLY HAPPENING WITH OUR WOUNDED ARMED FORCES MEN AND WOMEN.
(THE NEGLECT THAT IS GOING ON AT THE EXPENSE OF OUR VETERANS IS UNFATHOMABLE. THESE PEOPLE SERVED OUR COUNTRY TO KEEP US SAFE
AND THEY ARE NOW SUFFERING IN PAIN BECAUSE THE VA’S PRACTICES
ARE ABSOLUTELY AND STUNNINGLY RIDICULOUS.)
Since the “war on drugs” started, we all know that it has failed over and over again and even made the problem in our country far worse. You must know that an addict or a reseller will always get their hands on drugs.
Pain patients DO NOT GET HIGH and do not want to take drugs.
Many of us are fighting tirelessly for hours every day to reach out and find someone to listen to the truth about prescribing pain medication.
But who is going to recognize the real problems going on in my country?
Will it be you?
I sure hope so.
From the bottom of my heart,
Krissy Anderson
