Thursday, January 11, 2018

"Mississippi has thrown me to the wolves"

Sometimes it is forgotten in the debate over opioid regulations that people are at stake. Real, live, honest to goodness regular folk.  One such woman stood up and told the Mississippi Board of Medical Licensure at its December 15, 2017 work session what its opioid amendments meant to her as a patient.




Brookhaven's Susan Norton made an emotional plea to the Board that it not throw patients like her "to the wolves."  She has suffered from interstitial cystitis for 20 years. Her actual address is only two minutes. 


Earlier posts
Mississippi Sports Medicine Clinic voices concerns (letter) 
 Pediatricians oppose opioid amendments. (Letters)
ER Docs oppose opioid amendments. (letters) 
 Ob/gyn's oppose opioid amendments.
Medical Board releases approved opioid amendments 
 Irresponsible!  Orthopedic surgeons oppose opioid regs
 Bomgar on opioids: We have a death problem, not a prescription problem.
 
"Stop the nonsense. Talk to real doctors." (Letters)
 It would be nice if we could do this behind closed doors.
 Medical Board approves opioid regs with little notice. 

  Never let a good crisis go to waste.  
 Board of Medical Licensure calls meeting yesterday to discuss opioid regs tomorrow.
State Health Officer warns of unintended consequences    
 Doctors on proposed opioid regs: "dangerous", "Ill-conceived", "idiots" (Letters) 
  How much pain will proposed opioid regs create for doctors?  (Regs analyzed)
Can medical weed fight opioids?  
 Opioids prescription: Mo' taxes, mo' spending, mo' jail (Gov.'s task force report)

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where are all the democrats with 'my body, my choice?'

Where are all the republicans with 'personal responsibility and less gubmint?'

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting this.

Anonymous said...

Insys is the company who makes deadly fentanyl spray and also spent $500,000 defeating medical marijuana in AZ.But how convenient that they were awarded an exclusive patent to make synthetic marijuana as a Schedule II drug as they announced last year to boost their stock price because of "the unfortunate crackdown on opioids" that kill and addict every second of the day.
Then Sessions announced last week that he is allowing the federal prosecutors to use all of their tools to uphold the US federal prohibition in states that have successfully implemented strict and lawful med marijuana systems. Maybe Sessions should disclose if he has Insys stock in his mutual fund portfolio.

Ophelia said...

The sweet girl certainly seems to need some relief from her pain, but this video hardly provides evidence that opioids are the answer.

Anonymous said...

Actually one of the only times that Randy (web)Weaver seemed to care was when he might have to terminate his Suboxone strung out patients if they test positive for cannabis which effects his wallet. So they decided to give them some chances to come back & test negative...but if you test positive for Cannabis at the doctor's office as a legitimate chronic pain patient,they won't write you your narcotic prescription.Double standard don't you think?Oh wait that's right...you'll get referred to a Suboxone doc like Randy Weaver. Diabolical scheme

Anonymous said...

Chronic pain patients are 900 times more likely to commit suicide than the general public.But when you add in having to withdraw from these f'ng opiates/opioids that number increases exponentially.SUICIDE is definitely a thought that runs through your mind when you are told to go to a pain clinic bc we've been there and all they do is give painful injections and put your on Suboxone for long term pain management.Its a totally synthetic opioid and had worse withdrawals and side effects than the morphine or Oxycodone they took us off of.If you're able to talk yourself out of suicide bc you don't have enough pills to successfully put you out of your misery or if you don't want your loved ones to find your face shot off and your blood and brain matter on the walls,your mind goes to the streets and that means one thing:HEROIN but that will be the same deadly result but slower and your family will have a front row seat to the slow devastating car crash that your life will become.
PLEASE HELP US BEFORE WE ALL DIE

Anonymous said...

Ophelia she has been under doctor's care for over 10 years who has documented her pain during her doctor every month as many pain patients have.I wouldn't want to put all of my medical business out there either. She is very brave to come forward and humble herself in public begging for help and should be commended bc that's exactly how I felt a few months ago when my doctor of 12 yrs stopped treatment bc he was an onologist and i have irreparable/irreversible muscular-skeletal damage due to a car wreck crushing my hip and pelvis. This pain is severe and constantly with me every second of every day. Please be compassionate

Anonymous said...

Well Ophelia what is the answer???

Anonymous said...

Bomgar is putting his conservative neck out to advocate for medical marijuana as a safe alternative.so we just need to support him

Anonymous said...

If you can get past Jim Comey's appearance in the first 60 seconds, the FBI put together a pretty interesting documentary about opiate abuse last year: Chasing the Dragon. Take it with a grain of salt, but it's a view into a world that a lot of people know nothing about.

I haven't [knowingly] interacted with anyone dealing with this, but I'm not naive enough to think that no one I know is affected by it. I certainly don't have the answer, but no one else seems to have it either.

Serious question: Do other industrialized countries have the same problem with opiates that we do and, if not, then why?

Anonymous said...

*2:34 I meant oncologist and didn't mean to say that opiates are the only answer either Ophelia.I just know how absolutely dire the situation is.What I discovered is that Big Pharma has hidden the biggest side effect of opiates from us-they shrink your brain,specifically affected is the pre-frontal cortex which controls high-level executive functioning.If your job involves paperwork then you'll eventually experience a decrease in your ability to think quickly,you'll find that you get frustrated by your lack of ability to work with computer programs,you might start to loose words and the ability to spell. Semmes-Murphy conducted a study this summer to determine the effect of Oxycodone on the brain by dosing mice with oxy then dissecting the brains and they were shocked by the atrophied brains.
Given the choice I'd rather loose a few brain cells to the kind herb than have a chemical lobotomy

Anonymous said...

Having watched my 89 year old mother suffer in pretty much constant pain for six weeks, i'm against limiting anything that might help her. She has broken bones before, done therapy & gotten through it & back to her life. Her pain tolerance is very high. This time is different. It is gosh awful to watch someone that you love suffer in horrible pain. The thought of taking her back to the doctor every 10 days is repulsive to me. I have had to take her back for an office visit once & it was terrible. The car ride was painful as was the long wait, the x-ray, etc. not to mention all of the ER visits to get a diagnosis. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
One of the other patients in the ER w/ us was screaming in pain, Staff that we interacted w/ indicated that she was drug-seeking. It turned out that we knew her family. She had just had a surgery & something had gone wrong. This illustrates, to me, how ER staff is going to be even more hesitant to treat people w/ legitimate pain. It is going to cause a lot of unnecessary pain & suffering. As someone said above, the suicide rate will certainly increase.

Anonymous said...

Southern Baptist preachers don't care about your pain. Drink some sweet tea and sing a song and it will get better.

Kingfish said...

I realize she is one patient. However, all JJ has done is put in front of you, the readers, what the doctors have said and this patient stood up and said to the Board. Nothing has been slanted or edited. We are actually having a real conversation about this opioid regs and what the medical community thinks about them on this website.

Everything was obtained through public records requests. You would never know there was this huge ruckus in the medical community over these regs or what the doctors think about them if you were reading the newspapers or watching tv. Instead of just dumping several hundred pages of emails and letters on you, I've tried to break everything down into small, digestible batches. There are still several more posts to come about the medical community's reaction but I think it is a side worth hearing since what the medical board is proposing is somewhat far-reaching.

Then there is the fact we have caught the medical board more than once trying to be sneaky. The board needs to be kept under the spotlight.

Ophelia said...

I did watch the YouTube (I would hardly call it a documentary), 3:47, and it does not seem to have much to do with someone earnestly seeking relief from chronic pain. Loads of kids seeking to get high, with predictably tragic endings. I think the stuff should be illegal, frankly. The numbskulls who use it recreationally have, sadly, ruined it for those with a legitimate need for it. You pose the interesting question about other industrialized countries; I wonder if Americans are the only ones who simply cannot fathom toughing it out, who earnestly believe there must be a pill to fix everything. Yes, ceaseless physical pain is bad, but addiction is a Helluva lot worse.

Anonymous said...

Stand by for a nice golf-clap, 9:33.

3..2..1..

Anonymous said...

The bottom line is that it never is a good long term strategy to punish everyone for the behavior of a few.

It's a lazy strategy because it's easier than helping the few change their behavior.

It's a dumb strategy because it never works. The many may bring social pressure on the few, but they also end up hating the " authority" that punished them unfairly.

Anonymous said...

Ok I’m going to break this down really really simple for those self-bloviating hard-core conservatives who wring their hands about medicinal marijuana:
1. The legal opioids you seem to be ok with are lab created synthetic heroin...HEROIN MADE IN A LAB
2. The Bible states in Genesis that God gave us dominion and control over plants,you know the ones that grow out of the ground,not the chemicals made in a lab in test tubes
3. You are placing yourselves above God which I was taught in my Sunday School was committing the ultimate sin of blasphemy
4. Would you rather your loved one who has legitimate pain be on the heroin you advocate or eat a few slices of bread spread with canna butter? Think about your grandparents who have arthritis,your friend involved in a car accident at 30 years old but now has the body of an 85 year old due to unimaginable trauma they’ll have to live with the rest of their lives-these are your constituents
If it’s your “morals” you’re standing on then you need to do some serious soul searching and reflection
But if it’s your big donors’ morals you’re “preaching” in your soapbox then you have sold your soul and I hope you have enjoyed it here bc an August in MS is nothing compared to where you’ll spend eternity

Anonymous said...

Don't forget Mississippi, Easterling (and Fisher) wanted to limit supply to ONLY THREE DAYS. That is what they truly wanted.

You've gone too far Phil Bryant.

Anonymous said...

The Republicans are doing everything in their power to convince even the most reluctant voters to vote Democrat.

Anonymous said...

Didn't they refer her to a physician at the end?

Anonymous said...

5:39 and 8:12 are too obsessed with spewing anti-Christian venom too make a rational argument.

Anonymous said...

Let's not forget all these drug tests Phil Billy wants folks to take are not covered by insurance adding additional financial burden and stress to hurting folks. Anyone check to see if Phil has buddies that would profit from this? Shame on the clarion liar for not covering this tragedy in the making. No wonder Phil Billy went out of his way to thank the redhead reporter.

Anonymous said...

@9:38 I'm 8:12 and I most certainly have never spewed anti-Christian venom and never would. My ire was directed at the ones who put themselves out front as holier than Thou while they are serving their money masters. Your condescending dismissal will not silence and I do not think I'm alone either. I've been sedated for a very long time.If Easterling,et al want me alert and in pain,well here I am and I'm mad and I'm not going to take it anymore!!!

Anonymous said...

Great job bringing exposure to this issue and the issues which surround it. This is a problem which, directly or indirectly, affects every Mississippian, it will not be solved without public awareness, and the coverage blackout on this revolt is astounding. As a lifelong resident, it is disheartening to see that the state's newspaper has gradually devolved into a school newspaper, publishing the opinions of its writers in place of objective news and printing only what's "approved." You're better than this Sam!

Anonymous said...

A few years ago my husband had a bad fall and shattered his knee. He had surgery at a local hospital. Two weeks after surgery he was still complaining of awful pain. The doctor indicated that my husband just wanted drugs and refused to give him any more pain meds. I insisted he change doctors, and it turned out that my husband had developed staph in his knee and was hospitalized for ten days. He almost died. Everybody is not a drug addict.

I Gotcho Ophelia said...

Who the hell is this 'Ophelia character' who supposes to tell us that addiction is worse than the pain that leads to it? Upon what studies or experience is that conclusion reached before she throws it at the wall to see if it'll stick.

Instead of simply alluding to other industrialized countries, answer the question that was posed or remain silent. And she thinks pain medications of this nature ought to be illegal. Well, good for her. Give her a hand clap and a leather strap to bite the next time she has surgery. And some of that Baptist sweet tea too.

Anonymous said...

The recovery community (12 step groups) and the field of addictionology (reformed addict doctors) are all insane. Their data is biased and horribly skewed. Treatment and recovery has become a religion that the real medical community has been silenced against out of fear that those who speak out will be targeted by the medical boards. We have 2 such religious idiots on ours. The recovery crowd has been brainwashed into thinking they are themselves insane without their meetings and mantra. We truly have let fools take over. They are taking statistics that only apply to addicts and juxtaposing them onto the general public. In the end the addiction doctors will make a killing turning chronic pain patients into suboxone users.

Anonymous said...

I know that this Opioid Grant thru the MS Board of Mental Health is forcing the people with raging meth addictions who don't have insurance to go seek and ingest opiates and profess an addiction to opiates in order to qualify for free 90-day rehab. According to the intake counselor they "treat all drugs the same...if they can't stop then they're referred to a doctor for Suboxone" and in this case it was Randy Easterling. I asked what happens at the end of the grant if they put them on this "maintenance drug" and her response was they can continue to see Dr Easterling provided they have insurance. Personally I think they should be given Easterling's home address and set up tents on his lawn to live bc they'll be homeless too after trying to pay for then withdraw from a worse drug than their original choice, which i didnt think was even possible

Anonymous said...

IKR. A drug court judge would not believe this was happening because it sounds absolutely criminal for TPTB to advise someone with a serious addiction to one of the most addictive substances on the planet to start using one of the other most addictive and deadly substances.SMH

Anonymous said...

Suboxone is the devil. It is harder to get off of than Heroin. Easterling need to be investigated along with all the others who will profit from this fiasco. The whole treatment industry needs to be head accountable for the bullshit they spew.


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