Chronic pain sufferers are not to blame for opioid crisis

Vox Pop

Chronic pain exists. It is real. As we get older, our chance of experiencing chronic pain increases greatly. In the “old days” we went to the doctor and left with a prescription for opiate pain pills. Yes, if we took too many or took them for too long, we became addicted. It didn’t matter as long as the doctor kept writing the prescription. Then along came the opioid crisis and the pain pills in Grandma and Grandpa’s medicine cabinet took some of the blame. Someone in the government pressured all the healthcare providers to stop prescribing opioid pain killers for anyone other than cancer sufferers and post operative patients. The chronic pain that our elderly experience every day no longer merits the benefits of prescription pain pills.

I can travel to almost any town in America and within 15 minutes I will find someone willing to sell me uninspected, unregulated fentanyl or heroin made in a clandestine lab somewhere in Mexico, but I can’t get a prescription for 10 pain pills from my doctor for my chronic pain. I find that puzzling.

As senior citizens, our healthcare providers know us very well. We are the ones who show up every six months for a check-up, a medication check or a new ailment that has us worried. Our doctors know we hurt, and they know when we are abusing any medication. The decision of what’s best for us should be left to them, not to someone in government who doesn’t know us at all.

The opioid crisis has only gotten worse- more addicts, more deaths than ever.

Maybe Grandma and Grandpa really weren’t to blame. — Judith Jahnke, Grand Marsh