Thank you Cincinnati Enquirer, you assholes.

Cause:
OxyContin: Pain drug becomes the ‘heroin of the Midwest’: Traffickers’ and abusers’ first choice

Effect:
Alliance restricting OxyContin: Hospital group to use drug only for cancer patients

Last week, the Cincinnati Enquirer ran a series of hysterical, front page, above the fold articles like the first one above. Now, citing the concerns raised by the articles, the largest fucking hospital chain in the city has prohibited it’s physicians from prescribing OxyContin to anyone but cancer patients.

Listen, you assholes: my girlfriend suffers from Reflex Sympatheic Dystrophy. OxyContin is the only thing, other than a regimen of epidurals, that actually works to control her pain. On the heels of the recently released AMA(?) study stating that pain is woefully undertreated and narcotics are dreadfully underprescribed nationwide, one would think that you muckraking peckerheads would consider exercising a little responsible journalism. But no, you just had to run those fucking stories so you could print that catchy “Heroin of the Midwest” line.

I hope everybody who had anything to do with that story suffers a debilitating injury tomorrow, and you all get agonizing nerve damage.

Pricks.

[sub]Yes, my GF is writing a very nasty leter to the editor as I type this. She gets her OC through and independant pain care clinic, but when I told her about the articles, she was fucking galled to the core.[/sub]

9.0

Excerpts ran in our local daily, too. I was pleased and relieved to see that they included full instructions for all those clueless Midwestern drug addict wannabes out there on exactly how to use this wonderful new drug substance (“you can do this, or you can do this…”). Not to mention where to obtain the stuff (“check out cancer patients, people with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy, they’re sure to have a few extra pills lying around the house…”)

Idiots.

Does your girlfriend need me to tell her that she has the most formidable medical resource known to mankind literally at her fingertips, namely, the Web?

One of 97 hits from Google for “reflexive sympathetic dystrophy”.

http://rsdaware.hypermart.net/linksearch/pages/RSD_and_Chronic_Pain/Articles/more3.html

It just seems to me that one of the many negative effects of this stupid war on drugs is the neglect of the needs of patients who are forced to live in chronic pain.

I said neglect, and I mean that. Policy wonks are so concerned about the few who MIGHT become addicts that people who need these drugs to function can’t have them. Doctors are so paranoid about being second-guessed by these wonks about the necessity of these drugs that they’re consistently under-medicating pain. And patients are so afraid of a problem that probably won’t happen (i.e. addiction) that they’re refusing medication that would make them more comfortable.

IMO, that Enquirer article was fairly irresponsible. Yes, prescription drugs are abused. This is not a new phenomenon. If the law-enforcement community and the medical community of the Cincinnati area want to work together to control the illegal trafficking of prescription drugs, wonderful. More power to them. But let’s not do so at the expense of the patients whose quality of life depends on effective pain management.

black455: I’m sorry to hear about your girlfriend. I hope she’s getting what she needs, and she can stay pain-free.

Robin

Believe me, she’s tried EVERYTHING, including Methadone, lumbar spinal blocks, physical therapy, etc.

She had a couple of Neuromas (sp? nerve tumors) removed from the back of her lower leg a few years ago, and the surgery permanently damaged the nerves in the area. Surgery won’t help. She’s been all over the internet, and to every pain specialist in town, and she’s essentially been told that if you can’t stop RSD within six months, you’re fucked. A few months ago, she finally found a specialist who is willing to give her treatment that works, namely, OxyContin when needed and the occasional epidural.

But my rant wasn’t about that. It was about the journalistic integrity of my local excuse for a newspaper. Anybody hear about the Enquirer/Chiquita brouhaha a few years back? Search the archives of our local alt-weekly, http://citybeat.com , to get an idea how low these dipshits are.

This time, they’ve deliberately created a panic where none existed before. The “wave of publicity” cited as the reason for the Health Alliance’s new restrictions on OC was deliberately created by the Enquirer. They’ve been running stories just about every day, trying to turn a few dope busts into the next crack epidemic.

Believe me, I know the drug culture in this town, and this “Herion of the Midwest” shit is completely manufactured. This time, the victims aren’t drug abusers, but pain patients who have no other way to get relief.

msrobyn:
Thanks… she’s doing pretty good now, what with the drugs and the therapy and a whole lotta, uh, endorphins