Re: new generic actiq

OldGoat wrote:
Dear Deb,

They may have been thinking Fentora. You know I'd like to get my hands on the moron who designates these drugs as "for cancer" and kick them square in the nuts, first with the left foot, than with the right.

Me too. No matter what the source of the pain, ppl should have access to the full spectrum of pain meds.


Then tell me which
pain is worse. I would like to continue this experiment until I get a definite answer.

Actually, I lost a good friend in '06 and he was a long time chronic painer. And he told me when he was dying that the pain he was in from the cancer made his chronic pain from before look like childsplay. I can respect what he felt. He wasnt a big guy, maybe 5'6 or 7, and just before he got the cancer diagnosis, he weighed about 135, and he had about the worst back problems I'd ever seen a person endure before.

At that time, he was hospitalized cuz his cancer pain had become so bad that he couldnt get it under control. He had been the patient of a great pain doc before the cancer, so he wasnt undermedicated at all for his chronic non-cancer pain. It took them weeks of trying various meds and doses to get his pain controlled, and they had to open a central line for most of his pain meds to go in to get some successful pain control.

When he was released from the hospital, I imagine he was on a ton of meds, but we never did discuss what he was taking. I was only interested in being supportive and saying goodbye.

I remember hearing one of the hospice workers outside on the deck of his house talking about how they had NEVER heard of anyone getting that much opiate medicine for pain, especially on someone who was already not at all a big person to start with, and was getting so emaciated, and they were scared they were going to cause him to die immediately from what they were ordered to give him. They had to make sure he got the same hospice worker from day to day, and even arrange the same person to cover when the regular worker had days off, so that there wouldnt be delays by workers too afraid to administer those high doses.

When he really started getting close to dying (he had refused chemo because the cancer had spread all thru the body and he didnt want to suffer that way before he died), he lost allot of weight very fast. I doubt he weighed more then 70 or 75 lbs when he died, and one of the hospice workers told his wife that his dosage, having come from a chronic pain/high tolerance situation would be written up by the hospital doctor, cuz he couldnt find any record of someone with that body weight taking the megadoses of meds he was giving to my friend.

I read Practical Pain Management journal every month, but after over 2 yrs, its still not shown up there. I guess he either didnt publish, or he published elsewhere.


That would be a study worth spending a few million on.

groan!


Pain discrimination covers more ground every time you look at it--og

No kidding. I have indicated here that I believe my friend believed that his cancer pain was far worse then the chronic pain he'd sufferred for so many years, and I believed him too...but ultimately, that kinda call is very subjective, and the chronic pain he had for so many years didn't carry a death sentence. Long before his cancer diagnosis, my friend really did some major suffering. Some times, he couldnt even stand or walk. There were times I had to help his wife get him from his home to his car or vise versa. I believe that allot of it is just perception, what pain is worse, etc.. I almost think he was wishing he just had the chronic pain and no cancer and it wouldn't hurt as much. No matter what the actual facts are, I think the amount of discrimination towards cp'ers and the meds they get is ridiculous! Who is to say that Drug A is only for cancer patients? And worse yet, why do they jack up the prices of the drugs for cancer patients so high? When they are that high, even insurance companies arent gonna want to pay for them, at least for very long. In most cases, they wont allow them till the person is near death.

As we all know, our system is very broken, and unfortunately, most cp'ers pay the price for how broken it really is.
.

Loading