From the Archives: People who rely on opioids to work and live say a new federal guideline is making them suffer, even while overdose deaths continue to rise.
Madeline’s* earliest childhood memory was of pain. She was visiting the zoo with her family and started to cry because the stabbing, throbbing pain in her legs was so intense she couldn’t walk anymore. She was later diagnosed with childhood osteoarthritis.
Stories like Madeline’s are becoming increasingly common. Some chronic pain patients have taken their own lives after being tapered off or cut off from their prescription opioids, leaving them in unendurable misery, according to Dr. Thomas Kline, a North Carolina-based primary care physician who maintains a list of such suicides. Two other physicians also reported on these deaths in Slate. Madeline said if she lost access to opioids, she fears she might make the same choice.
By listening to their stories, perhaps policymakers and the public could come to a more nuanced understanding of the often-misunderstood opioid crisis—and implement policies that work better for everyone.Earlier this year, I had lunch with Danielle, a member of the support group. In her mid-60s, Danielle has relied on opioids for 20 years. Initially, she suffered a severe back injury, which became exacerbated by repeated damage.
The first wave of deaths rose steadily starting around 1999 and was largely linked to commonly prescribed natural and semi-synthetic opioids, including oxycodone and hydrocodone . These overdoses were generally blamed on a rise in painkiller prescriptions that peaked in 2012, when medical providers issued an average of 81 opioid prescriptions per 100 people, though in some states it was as high as 144 prescriptions per 100 people.
The staggering number of lives lost to fentanyl and its analogues—more than 28,400 in 2017 alone—includes a variety of demographics and causes. The majority were men and people of both sexes between ages 15 and 34 who took one or more other drugs, such as cocaine or heroin. I first met Lynn in the summer of 2018, and I instantly recognized her tall, slender frame as I entered the sunny café. She had sent me pictures showing her dislocated joints and the distinctive white scarring that mars her skin. Lynn suffers from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a connective tissue disorder that makes her joints loose and unstable, her skin excessively stretchy and prone to scarring, and her internal organs extremely fragile.
Mary, another member of the chronic pain support group, had been a manager of a national grocery store chain but was forced to leave her job because of her pain. When her former doctor retired, Mary explained, “the first thing the new doctor said to me was, ‘Oh, you’re on opioids? I’m not gonna prescribe those.’ It didn’t matter that my life literally depended on them.” Since then, Mary’s life has been transformed from the one she had expected into one of disabling, endless suffering.
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